In the mid-19th century in Istanbul, in Pera (Grand Rue de Pera), which was known as the most western street in the Ottoman Empire, the first photographic studios began to open.
Studio photographers appeared after the period of the travelling photographers. The studios held a crucial importance for them. There were remarkable professional daguerreotype studios in the 1840s and 1850s in Istanbul, Algeria and Egypt, including the studios of Alary and Geiser, Antonio Beato, Pascal Sébah and Abdullah Frères. Popularity of the professional studios became widespread primarily because close-ups shots of people were required. For Westerners, women from the East were a popular theme in studio photography. As local female models were difficult to find in the Ottoman and Arab world, foreign female models, and sometimes even male models, dressed up in local styles. Studio photographers exposed the East to a Western audience using fictionalised scenes.