Lumiere

Lumiere, Louis (1864 – 1948); and Auguste (1862 – 1954)
French inventors whose connection with cinematography began in 1870 when their father set up a photographic business in Lyon. By 1882 they were manufacturing dryplates using a process developed by Louis, and by 1893 a flourishing business had developed.The appearance of Edison’s Kinetoscope in Paris in 1894 inspired Louis and Auguste Lumiere to develop their own apparatus. Their chief mechanic, Moisson, constructed a prototype camera/projector, patented in February 1895, and demonstrated during a lecture at the Societe d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale in March 1895. The film projected showed workers leaving the Lumiere factory. At this meeting the Lumiere brothers met Jules Carpentier, a scientific instrument maker, who offered to manufacture the Cinematographe. More films shown, and taken, at the Congress of Photographic Societies at Lyon in July 1895.

On the 28 December 1895 the first public demonstration, with payment for admission, of projected motion pictures was given at the Grand Cafe, Boulevard des Capucines, Paris. In the next few months the Lumiere apparatus was in use all over Europe.

Louis Lumiere continued throughout his life to develop new apparatus and processes. His experiments in colour photography led to the introduction of the Lumiere Autochrome plate, using a mosaic-type additive process, which enjoyed great commercial success from 1903, as a still process; it was never satisfactorily used for motion pictures. At the age of 72, he developed a practical stereoscopic film process.