Arthur Batut

Arthur Batut Museum

Wide-angle photographs from a kite were among the first aerial photos ever taken. In 1888, Arthur Batut, a passionate amateur photographer, attached his camera on to a kite and sent it into the skies.

The Arthur Batut museum, inaugurated a century after his first aerial photos, on the site of his first exploits, in Labruguière, France.

Photos, archives and his original equipment are exhibited in the shade of the original kite whose the frame has survived the century unscathed. There are also other examples of his ingenuity, including an automatic shutter release which used a small explosive devise and a long fuse.

Insatiable, Batut experimented with all areas of photography: autochromes, stereoscopic photographs (a technique used to obtain topographic views), and photosynthesis. Also on view are Batut's "portraits-types" or trait photos, which show images of several people, of similar origins, superimposed on the same photographic plate.

Batut's correspondence with numerous other keen autodidacts, friends, rivals and critics is also on display. Batut's enthusiasm is still contagious a century later as a visit to this museum will show.

Arthur Batut Museum - Photography from Kites [http://www.espacebatut.fr Espacebatut ] at www.espacebatut.fr9 ter, rue Gambetta81290 Labruguière, FranceTel: 05 63 50 22 18/05 63 70 34 01Open from 15:00 to 18:00, closed on Tuesdays

Reproduced with permission from http://www.tarn-web.com