Reading this book, connoisseurs and lovers of photography will get a complete picture of the photographic institutions of Moscow at that time, people engaged in the "photographic craft" and the photographic societies of contemporaries and followers of Daguerre and Talbot. Photography is a great invention of mankind. She quickly broke into people's lives, displacing more expensive lithography, and sometimes artfully replacing a precious miniature. Old photographs are mute witnesses of the past. Dressed in elegant passepartout or all kinds of frames, cabinet portraits and small business cards with numerous medals and gold lettering on the back can tell not only about who is depicted, but also about the photographer who took the picture. Their biographies, addresses of the photo studio, and sometimes even photographic forms help to date the pictures more accurately, and this, in turn, makes it possible to clarify some important moments in the lives of famous people.