Panorama of Niagara Falls

The wonder of Niagara captured in an early film

This film is another chapter in the long relationship between Niagara Falls and photography. Several camera obscuras were built overlooking the falls and they are the most photographed wonder of the world. With the invention of cinematography, moving water has always stood as the index of the technology's accuracy. Where better then to test early film cameras (and capture the attention of an audience) than Niagara Falls?

No respectable film catalogue was without a Niagara film to compete with the ones by Birt Acres (1895), Edison (1896) and Lumiere (1900). While this makes it hard to specifically identify this film, it is a useful light in which to watch it.