In the earliest days of photography one of the key marketing tools of a photographer was to have a series of celebrity portraits that they had completed. When the carte-de-visite was patented in 1854 by André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri photographers competed with each other to take the notable personalities of the age, the aristocracy, politicians and actors were all highly sought after. Sets of photographs of the celebrities of the age were widely produced and sold. Some photographers, who saw themselves as amateurs, had the contacts to seek out the famous amongst their friends and preserve them for a chemical posterity. When Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 - 1879) photographed the leading men of Victorian British society - Lord Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, Sir John Frederick William Herschel and William Holman Hunt it was for this reason.
 
There have been many famous photographers who have made celebrity portraiture their speciality:

• Yousuf Karsh - Armenian born Canadian portrait photographer who became famous through his portrait of Winston Churchill
• Arnold Newman
• Lotte Jacobi
• Alfred Eisenstaedt
• Irving Penn
• Annie Leibovitz
• Jason Bell

 
  
 
  
The celebrity photographer 
  
One intriguing facet of photographing celebrities is that the photographers themselves can become celebrities by association. Within decades there are photographers who become celebrities in specific geographical regions on this basis.
 

• Lord Litchfield
• Lord Snowdon
• David Bailey
• Richard Avedon
• Annie Leibovitz