A colour portrait of Delores del Rio (1936) by Hesser in Hessercolor
Toronto. George Dunbar sent me a link from the January, 1934 issue of International Photographer. titled, “The Wonders of Hessercolor“. There is an interesting article on Hesser at “Broadway Photographs“.
Hesser took on Kodak and failed to succeed. He was trained as an artist, moved to Hollywood and took up photography. He became a well known portrait photographer in Hollywood. His process was an effort to improve the colour stills used in theatres to advertise movies.
Hesser designed a camera that used three filters on B&W film negative material – red, yellow, and blue. Each filter was used in very short succession then each negative was enlarged and layered on a special material to create the colour positive. His personal life was messy and he tended to shoot nudes as well as more acceptable portraits.
His process had disappeared by the time I discovered photography and his idea of using three filters in rapid sequence on ONE negative strip never took off. The photograph used for this post is courtesy of Hollywood Pinups who sell modern reproductions at reasonable prices.
