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| Thursday, 3 March 2005 |
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A museum on the French photographic heritage France, the birthplace of the photographic process, boasts a museum presenting the history of the technique. A collection of rare objects born of a modest club of photography buffs... It all started with an association in Bievres, a small town south of Paris, where photography enthusiasts got together with Jean Fage to share their finds with as many people as possible. Jean Fage already had a collection of some fifty pieces covering the development of the art of photography. In 1968, driven by the desire to show his marvels, he opened a first museum in a small gallery in the town. He quickly found himself calling on the cultural institutions to help him as interest grew in his exhibition and new pieces were added to it daily. He joined forces with the Department of Essonne to take up this task. Jean Fage and his association agreed to give their collection to the State in return for an appropriate setting for the treasures in his possession. Hence 1972 saw the inauguration of a building devoted to the history of photographic processes. Interested in the exhibition's scientific and cultural project, the government also got involved by way of the Ministry of Culture which granted the building the title of "Museum of France" in 2003. The French Museum of Photography receives scientific aid, mainly to preserve and restore the pieces and subsidies to expand the collections. Nicephore Niepce and Louis-Jacques Mande Daguerre were pioneers of the first photographic processes, making France the cradle of photography. These processes were developed and improved by the discoveries of a whole host of inventors. The exhibition presents the entire evolution of photography from the design of image recording equipment to the processes of developing and fixing the exposed image. In addition to the "magic lanterns" and the camera obscura of the rephotographic era, the museum shows some extremely rare pieces such as a Daguerreian chamber. You can admire examples of the Velocigraph designed by Joseph Lacroix in 1889 to take instant photos, one of the first cameras used by journalists; stereoscopic devices for taking 3-D photos using a twin-lens technique based on the normal separation of human eyes; weird equipment from the beginning of the 20th century designed to take photos surreptitiously: cameras in the shape of walking sticks, tiepins, hats and so on predating the fist spy cameras in 1940; and entire ranges of different makes through the ages. All of these objects have been preserved with their instructions for use so we can still see how they are put together and how they work. The museum is filled with mechanical marvels such as the extremely rare Melanochromoscope by Louis Ducos du Hauron, inventor of colour photography and the first macrophotography camera specially designed by Francis Delvert to be sent into space on board the Russian Photon spacecraft. Dlvert, one of the museum's pioneers has also designed the largest camera in the world: the Essonnian. It takes photos measuring two metres by three metres. The camera is so big that over a dozen people can get inside it to understand the workings of a camera from within. The public can hence learn the details of photographic processes right from the outset. Workshops are also held to show hands-on just how true certain optical rules are. And visitors are bowled over. A Belgian collector recently enthused that the collections "are among the most beautiful in Europe." A Japanese television station made the long journey to the museum for its documentary on light. Although this might have something to do with the fact that the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum showed 129 pieces from the French Museum of Photography a few years ago in an exhibition paying tribute to the Conquerors of Images. Bievres also holds an annual photography fair that attracts 10,000 to 11,000 people from the world over on the first Sunday of June every year. This second hand market is a treasure trove of rare cameras and spare parts that are no longer manufactured. Although the museum has built its name on early cameras, it also houses a number of photos such as the first aerial shot taken by Nadar in 1858. In addition to work by Balkthus, Salzman, Orlan and Atget, it contains a wide range of Russian, Italian, German and other foreign magazines. All of these treasures are gradually being put on line and a selection of photos can already be viewed. Today the French Museum of Photography boasts two million images and 15,000 pieces of equipment covering photography in all its forms. The building, granted by the state over thirty years ago, is becoming cramped, especially with the recent development of digital cameras. And the museum is facing new challenges and looking into preserving cameras that will become historical artefacts of the future. A new museum is therefore in the pipeline to house 1,600 m2 of permanent exhibitions and 300m2 of temporary exhibitions. With this, the museum team and the original association, ever present and ever watchful, hope to improve their account of the invention of photography and its developments from the 19th century through to the present day, and share this wonderful moment in history with an ever-growing public. Anne-Laure Bell Website: www.photographie. essonne.fr (Actualite in France) |
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