Auguste Lumière

"This invention can be exploited as a scientific curiosity, but apart from that it has no commercial value whatsoever." Born in 1862 in Bezanson, France, Auguste participated with his brother Louis in the invention of the cinematograph and was one of the forerunners in the development of cinema. He began working with his brother in his father's store as an administrator. A decade later the store became the largest photographic plate factory in Europe. With the arrival of Edison's kinetoscope, the brothers set out to find a mechanism to project animated images, Auguste being the first to develop a project together with a mechanic from the Lumiére factories, but this attempt was unsuccessful. His brother resumed his research and invented the cinematograph, a wooden box with a lens and a 35mm film that, when turned by a crank, took snapshots that could then be projected. They begin the exploration of the first images, generally recorded by Louis, while Auguste appeared as an actor, or rather as the subject of these small reports in a single shot of about fifty seconds each. Some time later Auguste lost interest in cinema, and stated: "I left the problem to my brother".