Aram Balyan was the director and main operator of ‘Studio Venus’ located in the Kadiköy district of Istanbul. The pavilion was active in the 1890s and most probably closed in the late 1910s. A number of Armenian photographers of the next generation, such as Hakob Semerjian, the founder of the well-knownParisianstudio ‘Phebus’, were Balian’s apprentices.(1) No other biographical information has been found.

1) N. P, ‘Hakob Semerdjian’ [in Armenian], Amenun Taretsutsy, Masis printing house, Paris, 1927, p.466

Vigen Galstyan, 2016