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What was a Carte de visite?
A carte de visite is a photograph mounted on a piece of card, the size of a formal visiting card, measuring 4 x 2.5 inches, (11.4 x 6.3 cm) hence the name. The format was patented by the French photographer Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi (1819-1889) in 1854.

Most professional portrait photographers of the 1850s took either daguerreotypes or collodion positives. With both processes, each picture was unique and multiple copies could only be made with difficulty, if at all. People wanting larger portraits or more than one copy could have a whole plate prints made from wet collodion negatives, but there was little demand for these because they were expensive. Disderi's process reduced the cost of photographs by taking several portraits on one photographic plate, thus putting portrait photography into the reach of many more people.

The Carte de Visite Collecting Craze
Cartes de visite were used to take portraits of famous people like Napoleon III and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The popularity of carte portraits soared. People began to collect portraits of their family, friends and celebrities and mounted them in photograph albums. Celebrity cartes were sold at stationer's shops in the same way that picture postcards are today. The craze for collecting celebrity cartes de visite in albums reached its peak during the 1860s, but the format remained popular until the beginning of the 20th century, and cartes can still be found in large numbers, loose or in family albums. They were introduced into Australia in 1859 by William Blackwood with albums arriving in 1860.

Carte de Visite: Albert Lomer, 1869

Albert Lomer's Photographic Career
Lomer worked in Melbourne before 1865 when he opened a studio at Sydney in partnership with his business partner, Andrew Chandler. They advertised as being from W. Davies & Co. of Melbourne, where both had presumably trained. Their studio, The London Photographic Company, was at 419 George Street Sydney, next door to Lassetter's ironmongery and department store.

By February 1867 Lomer was continuing alone but promising that "the business will be conducted in the same efficient manner and under the same liberal principles as hitherto". He had reduced the old price for cartes-de-visite to two for 5s or 15s a dozen and sold cabinet prints (measuring 108 by 165 mm) and other portrait photographs "beautifully coloured (on the premises) in oil or water". Lomer appears to have been his own colourist, regularly advertising as both "artist and photographer" (which this normally signified). In 1872-73 Lomer was working at 57 Bourke Street, Melbourne. He then established a very successful Brisbane studio at 158 Queen Street which lasted from 1874 until 1905, although he apparently no longer ran it after 1880. Branch studios were opened in various parts of the colony: the Lomer studio at Mackay in 1887 (managed by J.P. Kemp), a studio at Toowoomba (1893-96) and one at Ipswich (1898-99). Lomer was again in Sydney in 1880-95. In April 1881 Albert Lomer's Parlour Studios at 805 George Street opposite the railway terminus,"The Really Popular (and Cheap) Photographer", was selling cartes-de-visite for 7s 6d a dozen.

Biography
Albert Lomer married his partner's sister, Angelina Chandler (d. 21 March 1929), at St Andrews Anglican Cathedral in February 1865 and likely had a daughter (1866) and a son (1869). By 1867, Andrew Chandler had hit the road travelling north as an itinerant photographer. Lomer and Chandler came together as business partners again from 1871 to 1877, calling their firm the London Photographic Company for the last two years.

Albert Lomer died at his home at 'Merrow' Powell Street, Killara, NSW in 1924 aged 93. The photographic business seems to have been a successful one for Lomer because he left an estate worth £82,764, to his widow Angelina, his children and charitable causes. This would have made him a very wealthy man. Using the Reserve Bank of Australia's inflation calculator, it would have been worth $6.9 million today, or $15 million based on comparative minimum wage rates.

Reverse - Carte de Viste: Albert Lomer, 1869

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