Kazimierz Prószynski - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Kazimierz Prószyński (4 April 1875 - 13 March 1945) was a Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

inventor active in the field of cinema. He patented his first film camera, called Pleograph

Pleograph

Pleograph was an early type of movie camera constructed in 1894, before those made by the Lumière brothers, by Polish inventor Kazimierz Prószyński. Prószyński later constructed the first hand held camera called an Aeroscope....

(in Polish spelling: Pleograf), before the Lumière

Auguste and Louis Lumière

The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean , were among the earliest filmmakers in history...

brothers, and later went on to improve the cinema projector for the Gaumont

Gaumont Film Company

Gaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....

company, as well as invent the widely used hand-held Aeroscope

Aeroscope

Aeroscope was a type of compressed air camera for making films, constructed by Kazimierz Prószyński in 1909 and built in England since 1911, at first by Newman & Sinclair, and from 1912 by Cherry Kearton Limited....

camera.

Prószyński was educated in Poland and Belgium, active in Belgium, France, England, United States and Poland. He was the grandson of the photographer Stanisław Antoni Prószyński, who had been accused by Russians of placing patriotic symbols in the background of the photographs made in his atelier and was sentenced for that by the Tsarist Russia authorities. He was also the son of Konrad Prószyński, an active Polish educator, writer and publisher.

In 1894, Kazimierz Prószyński built one of the first movie camera

Movie camera

The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the video camera, replaced it...

s. This Pleograph

Pleograph

, or apparatus for taking photographs and projecting pictures, was built before the Lumière brothers

Auguste and Louis Lumière

The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean , were among the earliest filmmakers in history...

lodged their patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

. Prószyński also produced several films in Poland at the beginning of the 20th century as well as creating an improved film projector shutter, the first hand held film-camera and devised a method of synchronizing

Synchronization

Synchronization is timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. The familiar conductor of an orchestra serves to keep the orchestra in time....

sound and film tracks.

Kazimierz Prószyński spent a large part of his active life abroad. At the beginning of the 20th century, he was active in France and England as an inventor and producer of the Aeroscope

Aeroscope

(1909) camera, powered by compressed air. Filming with Aeroscope

Aeroscope

the cameraman did not have to turn the crank, as in all cameras of that time, so he had both hands on the camera to operate. This made it possible to film with a hand-held camera in most difficult circumstances and from airplanes. Compressed air was pumped into the camera system, before filming, with a simple special pump similar to the ones still used to pump bicycle tires. Hundreds of light and relatively compact Aeroscope

Aeroscope

cameras were used by British Army combat cameramen on the battlefields of World War I and later by newsreel cameramen until the late 1920s, when more modern spring cameras like Eyemo

Eyemo

The Eyemo is a 35 mm motion-picture film camera which was manufactured by the Bell & Howell Co. of Chicago.-Background:Designed and first manufactured in 1925, it was for many years the most compact 35 mm motion-picture film camera of the hundred foot capacity...

and later Bolex

Bolex

Bolex is a Swiss company that manufactures motion picture cameras and lenses, the most notable products of which are in the 16 mm and Super 16 mm formats. The Bolex company was initially founded by Jacques Bogopolsky in 1927. Bolex is derived from his name. He had previously designed cameras for...

took over. Still, there are archival photographs of Aeroscope cameras being pumped by British combat cameramen as late as in 1940, at the beginning of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

As soon as Poland regained its independence in November 1918, Prószyński returned with his English wife, Dorothy, and children Kazimierz junior and Irena. From the start it was difficult to find business partners for his invention. In 1922, he managed to establish a company Oko (Polish for: eye) to promote a simple amateur camera of his construction with the same name, which Prószyński intended to mass produce for schools and the public. The economic crisis of the 1920s interrupted Kazimierz Prószyński's plans. He was busy with other inventions, such as simple home film projectors and reading machines for the blind, but did not manage to mass produce any of them.

During World War II

World War II

and the German occupation of Poland, German Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

police discovered his workshop. They arrested Prószyński and his co-worker under the accusation of conspiracy. Released after 10 days, Prószyński did not manage to remove all suspicion. He was chased by Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

and had to move often to avoid arrest. Finally on 25 August 1944, during the Warsaw uprising

Warsaw Uprising

The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...

, he was arrested.

Kazimierz Prószyński died in the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

concentration camp of Mauthausen

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp

Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...

in spring of 1945, as the prisoner number 129957, shortly before liberation.

Kazimierz Prószyński is regarded along with Bolesław Matuszewski as one of the most important pioneers of Polish Cinema.

Further reading

External links