Lumiere Museum

 

The house of the eldest famous Lumière is quite the museum, with technological progression and familial timeline laid out in the lower floor and some examples of their work alongside a historic bedroom on full display upstairs. The museum covered everything from the older daguerreotype-esqe plate-based photography up to somewhat modern film cameras, both single shot and multi shot. Of note was one of the earlier examples of a multi shot camera, somewhat similar to the “obsolete technology” of the disposable camera (or really any other modern film camera), shaped like a rifle with a full stock and set of sights. Some of the Lumière family’s work on color photography was showcased, apparently having taken a backseat to the film technology. There was also a wonderful viewing gallery of some of the films the brothers had created, my personal favorite being “Machine À Damer Jonage”, a short display of some early ancestor of the modern steamroller during the construction of an embankment near the Rhône River. Unlike most of the other films, this was an accidental technical documentary, as the type of compaction machine they used has not been preserved, or at least not publicly. The first film, called something along the lines of "workers leaving the factory" was filmed at the nearby factory, the remains of which were also accessible, though not terribly intact.