Kiss (family)
The Kuss family is one of the oldest families of photographers in Europe. Between 1852 and 1859 the carpenter Nikolaus Kuss settled in Mariazell . In 1861, a few years after the invention of photography, Nikolaus Kuss began to deal with this new technology. Since then, the family has been running a photo shop in Mariazell in the 5th generation.
History of photography in Mariazell
Nikolaus Kuss started with wet collodion plates , which were developed 10 years earlier by Frederick Scott Archer and Gustave Le Gray . Glass plates are doused with iodized collodion and made light-sensitive in silver nitrate. The still wet glass plate is exposed and developed on site. Nikolaus Kuss II, who liked to take landscape pictures, also built a portable darkroom for himself in addition to the traveling camera , in which he prepared and developed the negatives (these are now in the Technisches Museum Wien ; Inv. Nos .: 56392 and 56393).
The first postcards were produced in 1870 and 1875 using dry plates . This made the work much easier and this turned into "good business" in the pilgrimage site.
The first flash photo was taken in Mariazell in 1880. At that time, the lightning bolt made of magnesium powder mixed with potassium permanganate was ignited manually.
A predecessor of the instant photo was suitable for pilgrimage photography of groups and people, because the pilgrims could take them home with them after a few minutes. The Bayards direct positive process was probably used on cardboard with reverse. Many of these old souvenir pictures can still be found in many houses. The disadvantage of this process was that there was only one unique copy and no associated negative to reproduce.
Both procedures were operated in parallel until the interwar period. Then came the sheet film in 13x18 format for portrait photography. Two films were prepared in a reversible, light-tight cassette. In the reporting area, a Leica M3 started with the 35mm picture in 1954. In 1970 the sheet film (13x18) was replaced in the studio and for portrait photography by a Hasselblad 500 / C (6x6).
The digital turnaround began in the 1990s. The first digital camera for sale was the Minolta Dimage V with 640x480 pixels in 1997. After that, digital photography was a by-product for a long time. The professional change was initiated by the replacement of the photo reports from Nikon F5 with a Kodak DCS ProSLR / n in 2003. The last analog group picture was taken on July 22, 2005, when the Hasselblad 500EL / M was replaced by a Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro.
In the family tradition, the practical aids have lasted for over a hundred years. So many know the wobbly three-legged ladder from the company "Just Leiter" which is used for group photos on the church stairs. The painted studio background as well as a Muttergottesmarterl with a bench and a piece of fence made of birch wood can be seen on the souvenir pictures for over a hundred years and is still used today.
Photo shop and cinema
The current seat of the family is the house at Hauptplatz 5, which was built around 1903 by the Italian Sandri and was owned by Hans Rögl (Mayor of Mariazell) until 1910. In 1911 the house was acquired by Josef Kuss from an intermediate owner named Pomberger. At that time there was a small movie theater with approx. 100 seats in the house. In the early years, the story of the origin of Mariazell was presented in a kind of slide show. In 1925 the cinema was converted to 400 seats. In the following years the sound film emerged. The first sound film to be played was “Der Herr Kammersänger”. In the decades that followed, the cinema was also the center of social encounters, which changed decisively with the advent of television. So it happened that the cinema had to be closed on February 12, 1978 with the last film "Frankenstein Family".
Family tree and list of names
Michael Kuss (Spital am Semmering, Im Dorf Nr. 39)
Elisabeth Kuss (née Kainradlin)
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Patriz Kuss (born February 25, 1801, scythe-smith master in Langenwang)
Anna Kuss (born Döglhofer October 16, 1797)
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Nikolaus Kuss (born December 2, 1825 - April 25, 1892, Langenwang, carpenter, wax maker and photographer)
Maria Kuss (born Edelsbacher, November 21, 1827 - March 20, 1889)
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Nikolaus Kuss II (born February 6, 1854, photographer)
Katharina Kuss (née Winkelbauer, photographer)
Anton Kuss (1859, clerk, brother of Nikolaus Kuss)
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Nikolaus Kuss III (born 1893, commonly known as "Klaus", photographer)
Ella Kuss (née Ritter)
Josef Kuss (born December 30, 1884, photographer)
Maria Anna (née Eder vulgo "Marianne")
Franz Kuss (born October 16, 1889, goldsmith)
Josefa Kuss (née Mayerhofer)
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Marianne Cermak (née Kuss, photographer)
Cermak
Josef Kuss (born December 11, 1913 - April 22, 2008 lawyer, photographer, projectionist)
Friderike Kuss (born Feischl 1921 - 15.3.2012)
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Josef Kuss (born December 26, 1953, photographer, projectionist, mayor)
Renate Kuss (born Grabner January 5, 1957)
Friderike Leggett (born Kuss February 26, 1956)
Wayne Leggett (born January 1, 1950 - April 29, 2020)
swell
Mariazell and the Zellertal - Immaculata Waid (Franz Weiß and Josef Grießl self-published, 1982)
Ranti Putanti, s'Leben is hanti - (Andreas Schweighofer, G&L Werbe und Verlags GmbH, 2002, ISBN 3-901859-12-8 )
Family archive of the Kuss family, Hauptplatz 5, 8630 Mariazell