After graduating from high school, Benecke served one year in the German army, and while in service became interested in ambrotyping. Later, finding his chosen profession as a government forester unsatisfactory, he emigrated to Missouri in 1856 where he worked on a farm, in a coopers' shop, as a piano tuner, and even taught languages in a local seminary. He eventually formed a partnership with Joseph Keyte, a young landscape painter, and E. Meier, a traveling dagguerotypist. When the Civil War broke out, Benecke went to St. Louis and joined the 18th Regiment, Missouri Volunteers. After less than a year's service, he was discharged because of an eye injury. He returned to St. Louis and bought the Enoch Long Gallery with H. Hoelkel, where they did "portraiture and viewing." At the St. Louis Fair of 1867 the partners won first prize for the best stereoscopic pictures. In 1872 Benecke took up the collotype process and opened the first photo-mechanical establishment in St. Louis. In 1883, after a trip to Germany, he introduced zinc etching and photogravure, thus becoming one of the first photo-engravers in St. Louis. His experiments made him familiar with the working properties of gelatin, and in 1883 he began to make his own photographic plates for use in his studio. He served as chemist and plant superintendent for Gustav Cramer, a local dry plate manufacturer, for many years.
After graduating from high school, Benecke served one year in the German army, and while in service became interested in ambrotyping. Later, finding his chosen profession as a government forester unsatisfactory, he emigrated to Missouri in 1856 where he worked on a farm, in a coopers' shop, as a piano tuner, and even taught languages in a local seminary. He eventually formed a partnership with Joseph Keyte, a young landscape painter, and E. Meier, a traveling dagguerotypist. When the Civil War broke out, Benecke went to St. Louis and joined the 18th Regiment, Missouri Volunteers. After less than a year's service, he was discharged because of an eye injury. He returned to St. Louis and bought the Enoch Long Gallery with H. Hoelkel, where they did "portraiture and viewing." At the St. Louis Fair of 1867 the partners won first prize for the best stereoscopic pictures. In 1872 Benecke took up the collotype process and opened the first photo-mechanical establishment in St. Louis. In 1883, after a trip to Germany, he introduced zinc etching and photogravure, thus becoming one of the first photo-engravers in St. Louis. His experiments made him familiar with the working properties of gelatin, and in 1883 he began to make his own photographic plates for use in his studio. He served as chemist and plant superintendent for Gustav Cramer, a local dry plate manufacturer, for many years.
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