LEICA CAMERA CELEBRATES 100 YEARS OF LEICA PHOTOGRAPHY
Allendale, NJ (January 21, 2014) – The year 1914 marked the birth of 35 mm photography as we know it today. 100 years ago, Oskar Barnack created the very first Leica, the Leitz Camera. Now, in 2014, Leica Camera celebrates their centennial year with spectacular events, exhibitions and ground breaking products.
Oskar Barnack, an employee of the Leitz Werke Wetzlar and a photography pioneer, invented and constructed the first camera for the 35 mm film format (24 × 36 mm) in 1914. The construction of this so-called “Ur-Leica”—according to Barnack’s philosophy of ‘small negative – big picture’—revolutionised photography by giving photographers greater ease in creative vision and scope, as they previously had to rely primarily on cumbersome plate cameras for their work. Company archives dating from March 1914 show that Barnack originally gave his compact and highly portable prototype camera the name ‘Lilliput’. The original is still in the possession of Leica Camera AG, together with the negatives and prints of the first exposures captured with the Ur-Leica – which include pictures from a 1914 summer trip Ernst Leitz I took to the United States.
