by Elizabeth Cronin and Zulay Chang, Photography Collection.

At first glance, this photograph may not seem like much. The photograph depicts a group of men in suits, sitting in a theater. We don’t know what they are viewing and there doesn’t seem to be anything happening… that is until you learn the title of the image: 

“First Picture taken in absolute darkness.”

How could this photograph be taken in “absolute darkness” if the space appears lit? And furthermore, photographing in the dark seems an impossible task. After all, the word photography means drawing with light. How then was this photograph made? 

Accompanying the photograph in the library’s collection are three documents: two letters and a newspaper article. In a letter dated October 8, 1931, Eugene Chrystal, the Public Relations Director from the Eastman Kodak Company, writes to Will H. Hays, the first President of the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, expressing his delight and amazement of photograph. Chrystal gifts the photograph to Mr. Hays and encloses it along with a clipping. The enclosed clipping informs us that invisible infra-red light flooded the theater and Kodak’s new sensitized film responded to it.

The Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, N.Y. was one of the leading companies that made photographic equipment, film negatives and photographic papers. They invested heavily in research and development of their products. A new sensitized film, along with the “flood of infrared light” made this photograph possible. Kodak viewed it as a great success. The company soon introduced the film commercially and infrared photography became more common. Motion pictures even began using infrared film, which blocks the visible spectrum, to simulate night scenes during the day.

Less than a month after the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America received the photograph and clipping, they donated it to the New York Public Library. In the donation letter, Frank Wilstach writes he thinks the library would want it “as a curiosity” and a curious photograph it is indeed.