Panorama of Istanbul from the Western bank of the Bosphorus.

Berggren left home to study photography in Berlin in the 1850s and settled in Constantinople in 1866. A foremost photographer of his age, Berggren 'made a great contribution to the art of photography — particularly landscape photography — in Istanbul' (Öztuncay, Photographers of Constantinople, p.291). When the Swedish King Gustaf V (1858-1950) visited Istanbul in 1885, he presented Berggren with a decoration. Berggren was also awarded an Ottoman decoration by Sultan Abdulhamid II (1876-1909).