Chronophotography

Author	George Demenÿ
Title	"Je vous aime"
Technique	Collotype (vintage print)
Place	Paris (France)
Date	1891
Register	2223

Eighteen-frame period reproduction of a chronophotography shot by George Demenÿ in 1891, signed by himself. Demenÿ was the main collaborator of Etienne-Jules Marey at the physiological station in Paris, created in 1882 and in which the first chronophotographs (photographic decomposition of movement) were filmed, first on a fixed plate and later on celluloid film. The thirty-six-frame film Je vous aime was made by Demenÿ in 1891. A close-up of a man (Demenÿ himself) is seen uttering the phrase "Je vous aime". This film was intended to help the deaf in reading their lips, and had to be viewed through the phonoscope, a device created by Demenÿ himself. The recording of the images was carried out with a photochronographic camera, which filmed at sixteen images per second, the exposure time was approximately 1/800 to 1/1000 of a second for each image, and the lighting was achieved by means of two mirrors that concentrated sunlight on the subject's face. These efforts by Demenÿ to create practical applications of movement recomposition were not appreciated by his boss E.J. Marey, who fired him in 1894.

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