James Ambrose Cutting

Portrait of J.A. Cutting, 1862

James Ambrose Cutting (1814–1867) was an American photographer and inventor, sometimes called the inventor of the Ambrotype photographic process.

He grew up in poverty on a farm in Haverhill, New Hampshire. At age 28, he invented a new type of beehive in 1842, and on the money from selling his patents moved to Boston, Massachusetts.