Georges Tairraz I

Biography

Between 1857 and 2000, four photographers will, from father to son, invent and pass on the art of mountain photography. They are called Tairraz. Joseph Tairraz, Georges Tairraz I, Georges Tairraz II, and Pierre Tairraz. The story begins in Chamonix in 1857. Joseph Tairraz, son of the syndic (mayor), buys a daguerreotype device in Geneva. Four years later, before Auguste-Rosalie Bisson, the Emperor's official photographer, he took the first photograph at the top of Mont-Blanc. Very quickly, the young man opened a studio in the center of Chamonix. He will pass the baton to his son Georges. The dynasty is launched. The Tairraz trace from father to son the history and transformations of Chamonix and mountaineering. For a century and a half, the Tairraz will be the incomparable photographers of Mont-Blanc and, over the generations, will taste the cinema and will befriend other great smugglers of the Alps, such as Roger Frison-Roche and Gaston Rébuffat. Georges I, one of Joseph's sons, also a guide and photographer, took over the family studio in the 1890s after an apprenticeship with Mr. Pierre Petit in Paris. While continuing his work as a photographer and publisher, he accompanied mountaineers on their expeditions. At the end of the 19th century, shooting at altitude required significant logistics due to the weight of the camera and the glass plates (it used a 50 x 60 cm format), as well as excellent technical mastery given the climatic conditions. Georges Tairraz I, will have a son also named Georges who will be credited in the photographic works and in the cinema under the name of "Georges Tairraz II", to dissociate them The dynasty went dormant when Pierre died in 2000. It leaves us with a certain way of looking at the mountain, of magnifying its forms to express the emotions of those who venture there.