American photographer

Alexander Black was a 'Kodak fiend' in the early '90s, writing press articles on the new snapshot photography. Lecturing in the Eastern U.S. with Life through a Detective Camera, or Ourselves as Others See Us, illustrated with slides made by himself and other amateurs, he recognised the possibilities of developing a screen narrative. In 1894, using professional actors, he shot the exteriors for Miss Jerry, the adventures of a female reporter, around New York, and interiors at the Carbon Studio at 5 West 16th Street. With a double lantern dissolving the slides every fifteen seconds, by using a fixed background the actors appeared to 'move' between key positions within the scene. Black himself spoke all the different parts, changing his voice for each character. In the spring of 1896 it toured the lyceum stages throughout the East, just as the Edison Vitascope was making its screen debut. Miss Jerry was followed by the even more ambitious A Capital Courtship, featuring specially-taken shots of Grover Cleveland and President William McKinley. In January 1897 Black presented his lecture Ourselves as Others See Us at the Brooklyn Institute, 'illustrated by Cinematographe, Chromograph and Stereopticon.' He stayed away from vaudeville theatres, believing that the 'low-brow' audiences would not have the attention span for his presentation medium, which he later referred to as the 'slow movie'. He became a novelist, and editor of graphic items for Hearst's Newspaper Feature Service syndicate.

Stephen Herbert