Burton Holmes

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Advert (1917).
Advert (1917).

Elias Burton Holmes (born January 8, 1870 in Chicago , Illinois , † July 22, 1958 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American traveler , photographer and documentary filmmaker .

Life

As a young man, Holmes was the protégé of John L. Stoddard , who was one of the first writers to go on reading tours in the United States. After Stoddard retired, Holmes succeeded him. Holmes was one of the pioneers of documentary film. Among other things, he filmed the First Modern Olympic Games in 1896 and was present at the largest Vesuvius eruption in recent history in 1906 and the construction of the Panama Canal . At a time when there was still no scheduled air traffic, Holmes traveled to all continents and almost all countries in the world (except Afghanistan). Among other things, he spent five months in Japan in 1892 , crossed the Maghreb in a caravan in 1894 , cycled from Paris to Italy in 1895 and circled the globe six times in his life. He was mostly a gentleman and also wore a crisp white suit, tie and white shoes on his travels. The American earned his living by giving sold out two-hour lectures in New York's Carnegie Hall during the winter months , for which he invented the term Travelogue for better marketing . He was the first multimedia travel lecturer to combine slides, films and lectures. Holmes has been immortalized as a filmmaker with one star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame , but he is largely unknown in the USA.

Works

Holmes produced more than 30,000 photos and nearly 152,000 meters of film, including historical recordings such as Leo Tolstoy . With his 60-millimeter Gaumont camera, Holmes was also the first to penetrate Japan, Korea, China and the Hopi Indians in Arizona . He had many of his pictures re-colored by specialists with one-haired ermine brushes.

Quotes

"The only things that belong to me that are still worth what they cost are my travel memories, the mental images of places that I hoarded like a lucky curmudgeon for over half a century"

literature

  • Autobiography - Burton Holmes: The World Is Mine . California 1953.
  • Genoa Caldwell: Burton Holmes Travelogues, The Greatest Traveler of His Time . ISBN 3-8228-2768-1
    • German: Genoa Caldwell: Burton Holmes, Travel Reports - The Greatest Traveler of His Time, 1892-1952 . Hong Kong, Cologne (inter alia), Taschen, 2006, ISBN 978-3-8228-2768-0

Web links