Oskar Barnack

Oskar Barnack (Nuthe-Urstromtal, Brandenburg, 1 November 1879 – Bad Nauheim, Hesse, 16 January 1936) was a German inventor and photographer who built, in 1913, what would later become the first commercially successful 35mm still-camera, subsequently called Ur-Leica at Ernst Leitz Optische Werke (the Leitz factory) in Wetzlar.

[1] Barnack was an engineer at the Leitz company and suffered from asthma, so he proposed reducing the size and weight of cameras in order to be able to take photographs in his travels.

For this to be effective, the camera also needed a high-quality lens capable of producing the larger format film's quality.

In 1923 Barnack convinced his boss, Ernst Leitz II, to make a series of 31 pre-production cameras for the factory and for outdoor photographers.

Input presentations must be an autonomous series of images in which the photographer perceives and documents the interaction between man and the environment with an acute vision and contemporary visual style: creative, breakthrough and innovative.

First image taken from the Ur-Leica by Oskar Barnack 1914, Eisenmarkt, Wetzlar, Germany
A commemorative plaque marks the spot in Wetzlar where Oskar Barnack tested his Ur-Leica in this modern view (2018).
A commemorative plaque marks the place where Oskar Barnack first tested his Ur-Leica in Wetzlar.
A replica of the first Leica camera, the Ur-Leica, developed by Oskar Barnack. This replica is on display at the company's headquarters in Wetzlar, Germany.
Leica I, 1927, invented by Oskar Barnack