Photography arrived in the Middle East in 1839, the same year that Louis-Jacques- Mandé Daguerre produced his first daguerreotype in France[1]. Félix Bonfils, a French printer who migrated from France to Beirut along with his family in 1867, established one of the first professional photographic studios in the Middle East. Very little is known about women photographers in the region. Félix’s wife, Lydie Bonfils, can be considered the first professional woman photographer in the region. - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/endangeredarchives/2014/03/french-photographer-beirut-1867-1907.html#sthash.fkxveC9O.dpuf