Born in Paris, 1856, Paul Nadar was the son of the famous french photographer Felix (Gaspard) Tournachon, (Nadar). The name Nadar (from 'Tourne a dard') was his father's nickname, given for his talent of caricature.

Nadar, the father, photographed nineteenth-century Parisians by the hundreds, over many decades, in a highly successful commercial venture. He had a very special eye for his bohemian friends who were the notables of Paris, writers, musicians, poets, critics, and political radicals. He was part of a group who invented "la vie de Boheme." He was a man-about-Paris, whose other pursuits included an aeronaut, journalist, caricaturist, and author.

With that being said, in 1874 when Paul began to collaborate with his father in the studio on the Rue d'Anjou, there was a clashing of the minds. Paul photographed in a very different spirit from his father. Much to his father's distaste, Paul moved towards accommodating customers of aristocracy and the upper middle classes, which included actors, actresses, opera singers, and fashion. As a result, Paul and his father developed a very rocky relationship resulting in an estrangement around 1885.

The well-known, Nadar studio on the Rue d'Anjou was a haven for many, now famous, artists. The studio was also used the studio for artist exhibitions, including the first Impressionist Exhibition in 1874, organized by his friend Edgar Degas. These contributions were made on the part of Nadar senior, not on the part of Paul.

In 1886, Paul and his father, Felix, came together once again, and collaborated on what is believed by scholars to be the first "photo-interview". Paul was the photographer and his father the interviewer; their subject was 101-year old chemist and color theorist Michel-Eugène Chevreul.

In 1890, Paul took a long journey through Europe and Asia photographing the crowds in the bazaars and the markets of Asia, the great sandy spaces of the desert, mosques, mausoleums and all the majestic vestiges of the exotic Eastern influences.

He used flexible films during his voyage through Asia, which interested the George Eastman and Eastman Dry Plate & Film Company. In 1893, Nadar opened the first general Office of Photography in Paris for the marketing of new hand cameras for amateurs representing the George Eastman Dry Plate & Film Company.

Paul Nadar, like his father, was an innovative experimenter throughout his career. He investigated artificial lighting and patented a projection system for animating still pictures. On a request of the Société Française de la Photographie (French Society of Photography) Paul presented a conference on his studies of photography. In 1891, he founded the "Journal of Photography".

Paul Nadar, considered to be the father of photojournalism died in Paris, 1939.

In 1950, France bought the workshop of Paul Nadar located in Marseilles. The negatives were allotted to the Photographic archives (Media library architecture and inheritance) and the tests known as "commercial" were given to the National Library of France. In those negatives, they found that Paul Nadar had also documented the life of Marcel Proust including his family, friends and celebrities. In 2002, a book was released called "The World of Proust, as seen by Paul Nadar", a documentary of Proust's life in photographs taken by Paul Nadar.