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What did he do and what did he change?
He took pictures of buildings for the government so they could determine what buildings needed restoration so that they could have repairs done in time and where it would be located.
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He changed how photography was done because of the change that he added to the paper which William Henry Fox started but he added even more by adding a wax layer before starting the process which would result in a crispier image.
In 1852 Gustave Le Gray created his own studio and started to teach others how to take "Good" Photography and they later became well-known photographers. He gave them a place to work and a place to process the negatives.
He had 100,000 francs
(If you convert how much that was back then to know its ~13 dollars so (13 * 100,000 = 1,300,000 Dollars))
He started to get a really nice house but from all the construction and the materials he had he started to go into debt and he later took another photo which he sold for 50,000 francs. (13 * 50,000 = 650,000
Gustave business was in trouble on February 1, 1860, because people started to modernize and they were able to mass produce prints and he didn't want to create his studio into a factory so he gave up. When he turned forty he left his wife and children and left with a friend to Egypt where he would spend the last twenty years of his life teaching others about photography and as a drawing tutor.
(He never returned to France)
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