Touriste' view camera

In 1881 Théophile Enjalbert designed the ‘Touriste’ view camera, whose sensitised glass plates are loaded together in wooden frames in a ‘frame drawer’, or changing box. When the image has been focused, the frame to be exposed is put in place by pressing a button. When the drawer is removed, the plate remains in the chamber. When it has been exposed, the chassis is pushed back and the plate returns to its original place. These small-scale versions of studio cameras developed into a new category of camera, the ‘folding camera’, soon referred to in technical literature as a ‘touriste’, whose development accompanied that of the tourism encouraged by the velocipede and railway travel. With detectives, binoculars and other spying devices, they were part of the development of the snapshot.