Joseph Tairraz is the son of the syndic (mayor) and guide and buys a glass plate daguerreotype in Geneva. In 1857, he began to shoot portraits in a studio set up in the family home and then set up as a “photographer guide”. And what a job! because not only the device weighs more than 20kgs but each plate weighs at least ten kilos not to mention the tripods, the frames for the plates! It is therefore a real expedition to set off to immortalize characters and landscapes! This requires many carriers to take one or two photos. That same year, he created the “Alpine Tairraz Photography” studio and guided glaciologist John Tyndall on the Mer de Glace, participating in a scientific expedition on the movement of the glacier. A few years later, he invented a method of measurement by installing fixed markers on the banks of the glacier. His photos remain a significant testimony to the beginning of mountain photography with in particular the famous "Traversée de la Mer de Glace" taken in 1870.