Kazimierz Prószyński

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Kazimierz Prószyński (pronounce: Casimir Prooshinsky) (April 4, 1875 - March 13, 1945) was a Polish inventor active in the field of cinema, who patented his first film camera called Pleograf before the Lumière brothers, and later went to improve the cinema projector for the Gaumont company, as well as invent widely used hand hold Aeroscope camera.

Prószyński was educated in Poland and Belgium, active in Belgium, France, England, United States and Poland. Grandson of the patriotic photographer Stanisław Antoni Prószyński, who had been accused by Russians of placing patriotic symbols at the background of the photographs made in his atelier, and sentenced for that, son of Konrad Prószyński, an active Polish educator, writer and publisher, Kazimierz Prószyński spent a large part of his active life abroad.

In 1894, Kazimierz Prószyński built one of the first movie cameras in the world. This Pleograph, or apparatus for taking photographs and projecting pictures, was built before the Lumière brothers lodged their patent.

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

At the beginning of the 20th c. Prószyński was active in France and England as an inventor and producer of the Aeroscope (1909) camera, powered by compressed air. Filming with 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 possible to film with a hand hold camera in most difficult circumstances and and from airplanes. Compressed air had been pumped into the camera system before filming, with a simple special pump, similar to the one we still use to pump bicycle tires. Hundreds of light and relatively compact Aeroscope cameras were used by the British Army combat cameramen on the battlefields of the WWI and later by the newsreel cameramen all over world until the late 1920´s, when the more modern spring cameras like Eyemo and later Bolex took over. Still, there are archival photographs of Aeroscope cameras being pumped by the British combat cameramen as late as in 1940, at the beginning of the WWII.

As soon as Poland regained its independence, in November of 1919, Prószyński returned to with his English wife Dorothy and children Kazimierz and Irena. But from the start it has been difficult to find business partners for his invention. In 1922 he managed to establish a company Oko (Polish for: eye) to promote a simple camera amateur camera of his construction with the same name, which Prószyński intended to mass produce for schools and large public. Economical crisis of the 1920 s´ interrupted Kazimierz Prószyński´s plans. He was busy with other inventions (as simple home film projector, or a reading machine for the blind ) but did not manage to mass produce none of them.

During the WWII and the German occupation of Poland, German police discovered his workshop ad arrested Prószyński and his co-worker under the accusation of conspiracy. Released after 10 days, Prószyński did not manage to remove all suspicions. He was chased by Gestapo and had to move often to avoid arrest. Finally on August 25, of 1944, during the Warsaw uprising, he was arrested.

Kazimierz Prószyński died in the German concentration camp of Mauthausen in spring of 1945, as a prisoner number 129957, shortly before liberation.