![]() He built a new camera with the purpose of capturing motion pictures, but this one was single-lens, but that was only the tip of the iceberg of his innovation. In May 1887, however, Le Prince and his family returned to Leeds where his innovation took a large and important step for both him and cinematography. Le Prince 16-lens camera (interior), 1886, Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince © National Media Museum / SSPL. While working in the US, he developed an unusual camera which utilized sixteen lenses for the purpose of a technological race that was ongoing: the motion picture, a concept that had yet to be achieved. A decade later, Le Prince and his family moved to the United States while still working under Whitley, where he managed a group of French artists famed for large panoramic paintings of military encounters. ![]() Their work was so well-received it lead to exciting commissions from Queen Victoria and the Prime Minister, William Gladstone. During his time at Whitley's, he met John's sister, Elizabeth, whom he went on to marry three years later in 1869. Le Prince started the Leeds Technical School of Art in 1871 with his wife, where the couple built a reputation for color photography on metal and pottery. After meeting an engineer by the name of John Whitley, Le Prince moved to Leeds, England to work for John's company, Whitley's, as a designer. These childhood lessons lead Le Prince down a path of the arts which saw him go on to study painting in Paris and post-graduate level chemistry at Leipzig University in Germany. There have been recent and successful attempts to recreate this technique.Ī portrait of Louis Daguerre in 1844 by Jean-Baptiste Sabatier-Blot using the medium of Daguerreotype.ĭaguerre spent time in his studio with little Le Prince and taught him the ways of photography and the chemistry necessary at the time. For some, the name Daguerre may ring a bell, and this is likely due to his invention of the Daguerrotpye photography, a process where silver-plated copper is polished, treated with fumes to make it light sensitive, and then exposed in a camera (you can read more about the process by clicking here). His father was a major in the French Army, but it was the company his father kept that had the most dramatic impact on Le Prince's and photography's future. While nothing more than a curious child, Le Prince was introduced to his father's friend, Louis Daguerre, a man who not only captured the young boy's interest, but a man who contributed to the furthering of photography too. Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince was born on the 28th August 1841 in Metz, France. ![]() ![]() Le Prince had indeed succeeded making pictures move at least seven years before the Lumière brothers and Thomas Edison and so suggests a rewriting of the history of early cinema. If his genius were not enough to pique the curiosity of camera enthusiasts and inventors alike, the mystery and conspiracy embroiled in his life and eventual disappearance most certainly will. Louis Le Prince is sometimes referred to as the father of cinematography and the more historical research that has gone into this claim and Le Prince’s life, the more credible that statement becomes. ![]()
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