Photography in Luxembourg

Pierre Brandebourg (1824-1878), who established the first photographic studio in Luxembourg City, had studied art at the academies in Paris, Antwerp and Munich before turning to photography to supplement his income.

In 1895, he was instrumental in launching Luxembourg's first illustrated weekly magazine, Das Luxemburger Land in Wort und Bild, which however could only publish nine issues.

His degree of success meant that by 1900 he was in a position to construct impressive new three-storey premises for what he called Atelier Bernhoeft at the corner of rue de l'Arsenal (Grand-Rue) and boulevard Royal.

[5] Batty Fischer (1877–1958) was a dentist in Luxembourg City, but he is best remembered for his collection of some 10,000 photographs that richly document the development of the town from the end of the 19th century until the 1950s.

His shots often convey an unusual liveliness as he managed to catch his subjects in the course of their normal activities, sometimes amusingly portraying their leisure moments.

Every weekend when he was free to walk around the town, Fischer would take the most recent examples of his work to the local authorities and receive a few hundred francs on condition he wrote a short description of the historical context on the back.

In 1995, under the project: D'est en ouest, chemins de terre et d'Europe (From east to west, roads through Europe's farmlands) organized by the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, he was responsible for photographing rural scenes in Romania.

In 2004, he presented the reportage Un autre regard sur Haïti for Objectif Tiers Monde which reveals the conditions in Haiti after the departure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.