But between 1850 and 1860 a dozen of photographers, in France and in England, will get in a struggle to get photography acknowledged as an art. It will be the decade of Nadar, Le Gray, Baldus, Robison, Rejlander, Fenton. They will be the first ones to explore all posibilities of photographical creation and of its relations to reality. On an original and amusing way, this documentary offers us the " trade secret " of those pioneers of photography that have invented in just a few years a complex photographical grammar through several supports and technics of great diversity.