International photographer (Feb-Dec 1929)

July, 1929 The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER Three The ^Birth of the Qinema BY W. DAY, F. R. P. S., F. R. S. A. A Sketch of Cinematography from the Camera Obscura to the Liiing Picture. A British View as Presented in an Article Recently Published in the London Times. HE moving picture has become a factor of incalculable value in the promotion of human progress and happiness. Town-dwellers in this and other countries to whom travel and adventure are denied may now, while comfortably installed in a luxurious theatre, view the wonders of the world and share the experiences of the explorer, or the thrills of the hunter, in the tropical forests of Africa and the frozen spaces of the Arctic regions; while the life of the lonely settler in the backwoods of Australia, or the wheat-producing prairies of Canada, may be gladdened by living scenes from the cities and towns of the Homeland. This miracle, which is the ultimate expression of the agelong theory of the persistence of vision, has come to pass within the last 30 years; but the appeal which the portrayal of movement makes to the imagination may be traced back to remote antiquity. The earliest manifestations of human endeavor in this direction are probably the delineations of the trotting bear, with two complete sets of legs, drawn by the Cro-Magnon race centuries before the Christian era, which still adorn the caves of Altamira, in Northern Spain. But the realization of this primHive ambition has had to wait through the centuries on the development and perfection of the science of optics and of the photographic art. First came the camera obscura. Its ;nvention is generally ascribed to the famous Neapolitan savant of the Sixteenth century, Giovanni Battista della Porta, but as a matter of fact the principle of the simple camera obscura, or darkened chamber with a small aperture in a window or shutter, was well known and in practical use for observing eclipses long before his time. The first practical step towards the development of the camera obscura seems to have been made by the famous painter and architect, Leon Battista, in 1437, contemporaneously with the invention of printing, and it was referred to by Leonardo da Vinci as a method he adopted for securing perfect perspective in his drawings. In the first edition of his "Magia Naturalis," published in 1558, Giovanni Battista della Porta disclosed as a great secret the use of a concave speculum in front of the aperture in the camera obscura, to collect the rays passing through it, when the images will be seen reversed, but by prolonging them beyond the centre they would be seen larger and unreversed; and he notes its application to portraiture and to painting by laying colors on the projected images. In the second edition, which was not published until 31 years later, he discloses the use of a convex lens in the aperture as a secret he had intended to keep, but in the interval the use of the convex lens was discovered and clearly described by Daniello Barbaro, a Venetian noble, in his work, "La Pratica della perspective," published in 1568. Thus came into use the camera obscura with the convex lens, the forerunner of the modern photographic camera. The next stage in the evolutionary process was the invention of the optical or magic lantern, which provided a popular form of entertainment INCANDESCENTS! That Is the Magic Word in the Production of Sound Pictures. INCANDESCENTS Are Outselling the Market Because Mole-Richardson Have Fabricated a Quality Lamp for Every Purpose in Lighting a Production. 1 here Are Seventeen Distinct Types of Lamps in the M R Family of INKIES Lamps to Solve Every Lighting Problem — to Obtain Any Effect — and Besides M.-R. Lamps Are ECONOMICAL — SILENT— EFFICIENT— ADEQUATE •♦«»>♦■ MOLE-RICHARDSON, Inc. Studio Lighting Equipment 941 N. SYCAMORE AVENUE HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA