THE DISTORTAGRAPH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 418, 28 July 1928, Page 26

THE DISTORTAGRAPH

POLAR PHOTOGRAPHER’S INVENTION PICTURES OF “ZOO GONE MAD” Mr. H. G. Ponting, the photographer who was at the Antarctic with Captain Scott, and whose pictures are so well known, has invented a film process called the distortagraph. This he has perfected after three years of work. The apparatus, which applies a new system of optics, makes it possible to distort at will, and under the complete control of the operator, any part of a picture. One result is that Mr. Ponting, by using a still photograph of any person in the public eye, can make it “live” on the screen. The short film which he has prepared for private exhibition shows moving pictures of Charles Chaplin, Big Bill Thompson and Mr. Lloyd George, which, in reality, are only ordinary camera portraits, portions of which are distorted, one after the other, until they assume most grotesque shapes. India-rubber Face The consequence is that Mr. Lloyd George's portrait, which was only a picture postcard when Mr. Ponting began to film it, shows him as though he had a face made of india-rubber. First his nose is enlarged and distorted, then one ear. and then his mouth and chin: his forehead becomes enlarged on one side, and then on the other. Colorado, the racehorse, is treated in the same way. An ordinary photograph of Colorado is altered by the different lenses until it becomes a dream horse. First it has short legs like a dachshund, and then long legs like a giraffe. Then its neck becomes long. Cows, taken in real life through the distortagraph, assume the most fearsome of shapes. It is like a zoo gone mad. For fairy plays, or for such a picture as “The War of the Worlds,” the distortagraph would prove revolutionary. If any ordinary Regent Street scene were photographed by the distortagraph, a sudden manipulation of a small wheel could make an earthquake seem to hit the centre of the street. The buildings would assume the most fantastic shapes for a second, and then the picture would become normal again.