JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Georges Demeny (1850-1917) was a pioneer chronophotographer and Victorian cinematographer, a visual experimentalist, an exploratory photographer, who made great contributions to the earliest history of the motion picture. He was an assistant and associate to Etienne Marey–who we have met a number of times on this blog, and who happens to be one of my favorite 19th c sci/tech figures, along with Hermann von Helmholtz, Thomas Young, and w. Stanley Jevons–before moving along on his own following a developing coolness between the two men in around 1894. This wood engraving, which appeared in the June 18, 1892 edition of Scientific American Supplement, shows Demeny’s chronophoto work (on himself) as he studies what the face looks like when saying “vive la France”.
[Source: Scientific American Supplement, June 18, 1892, pp 13726-8]
- A nice appreciation of Demeny’s contribution to the earliest cinema is found here:http://www.victorian-cinema.net/demeny