Little is known about the life of Adolph Schaefer, beside his activities in collaboration with the Dutch Ministry of Colonies. Among the few things known, is that he was a photographer who arrived in The Hague from Dresden, Germany in 1843. His photographic work for the Dutch Ministry of Colonies was the first state photography commission of the Netherlands.

The ministry lent Schaefer money, to buy daguerreotype equipment in Paris (where nobody less than the French inventor of photography Jacques-Louis Mandé Daguerre himself instructed him about new photographic techniques), to travel to Batavia by boat and as first month salary. In return, Schaefer would photograph objects of art historical and archaeological value in the Dutch East-Indies, accompanied by the Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences (Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen) and Dutch archaeologist W.A. van der Ham specifically. Schaefer would pay back his financial loan from the income of private commissions for photographic portraits. Schaefer made 66 daguerreotypes of Hindu statues and 58 daguerreotypes of the Borobudur. When at the end of 1845, Van der Ham reported back to The Netherlands less than positively about the usefulness of daguerreotypes for scientific research, and moreover died shortly thereafter, the scientific context for the photographic project fell away and Schaefer's daguerreotype commission was terminated. From 1846 through 1848, he works as a photographer in Semarang, and in 1848 and 1849 in Surabaja, Madura and Sumanep. Subsequently, he is called back to Batavia because of his highly run up debts. His photographic equipment is sold publicly. Since then, nothing was heard of Schaefer anymore.