Biography provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art)
 
Beyond the fact that he was born in Leicester, nothing is known of Bingham until the early 1840s, by which time he was a chemical assistant and lecturer at the London Institute. When the author of the popular book Photogenic Manipulation died unexpectedly in 1847, Bingham was asked to take over the new edition, and he steadily revised and expanded the book through the fifth edition in 1854. Bingham exhibited calotype landscapes in the Great Exhibition of 1851 and continued actively exhibiting calotypes in Britain through 1854. His larger connection with the exhibition was in printing many of the photographs used to illustrate the Reports by the Juries; previously unsuccessful in negotiating a license from Talbot, Bingham eventually became a foe of the inventor, producing the prints in France in order to circumvent the patent. He moved to Jersey in 1851, but soon made Paris the base of his operations. Bingham was the first to fully recognize the emerging commercial market for photographic copies of works of art. He purchased copyrights and became the preeminent reproduction artist of his day, proudly exhibiting his copies in Parisian exhibitions and winning much praise. In the period of 1857-64, Bingham also exhibited dozens of art reproductions (all done in collodion) in his native Britain. In 1862 Prince Albert commissioned him to photograph the Raphaels in the Louvre. Bingham died suddenly in Brussels. He is remembered more fondly in France than in the country of his birth.