Otto Pfenninger (5 April 1855 – 20 March 1929)[1] was a founding member of the Swiss Photographers Association (1886) and a pioneer of colour photography. He moved to Brighton, England where he developed his career as a photographer.
Otto Pfenninger
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| Born | (1855-04-05)5 April 1855 |
| Died | 20 March 1929(1929-03-20) (aged 73)
Mitcham, Surrey, England
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| Nationality | Swiss |
| Known for | Photography |
In 1906, Pfenninger built a special camera to his own design using 3-colour separated plates from which full-colour photographic images could be created. That summer Pfenninger used this tri-colour, single exposure camera to create some of the first colour photographs, using the parks and beaches of Brighton as scenes.[2] His camera was based upon J.W. Bennetto's one-shot camera of 1897 in which three separation negatives were obtained at a single exposure. Pfenninger tried to use the same system but found that the refracted image was shorter from top to bottom,[3] his solution was to add a glass plate at the same angle, but opposite direction, to the Bennetto reflector.
In 1921,[4] under the pseudonym O. Reg, he wrote Byepaths of Colour Photography in which he discusses in technical detail, the history and theory of developments in subtractive colour photography.
