Pioneers of photography

Henri Joly (1866–1945) was a French inventor and businessman. He developed early versions of motion picture film, cameras, and projectors.

Antoine Hercule Romuald Florence (February 29, 1804 – March 27, 1879) was a Monegasque-Brazilian painter and inventor, known as the isolate inventor of photography in Brazil, three years before Daguerre (but six years after Nicéphore Niépce), using the matrix negative/positive, still in use. According to Kossoy, who examined Florence's notes, he referred to his process, in French, as photographie in 1834, at least four years before John Herschel coined the English word photography.

René Prudent Patrice Dagron (17 March 1817 – 13 June 1900) was a French photographer and inventor. He was born in Aillières-Beauvoir, Sarthe, France.
On 21 June 1859, Dagron was granted the first microfilm patent in history. Dagron is also considered the inventor of the miniature photographic jewels (French: Bijoux photographiques microscopiques) known as Stanhopes because a modified Stanhope lens is used to view the microscopic picture attached to the lens. He is buried at Ivry Cemetery, Ivry-sur-Seine.

Charles Cros or Émile-Hortensius-Charles Cros (1 October 1842 – 9 August 1888) was a French poet and inventor. He was born in Fabrezan, Aude.
Cros was a well-regarded poet and humorous writer. As an inventor, he was interested in the fields of transmitting graphics by telegraph and making photographs in color, but he is perhaps best known for being the first person to conceive a method for reproducing recorded sound, an invention he named the Paleophone.
Charles Cros died in Paris at the age of 45.

Albert Kahn (3 March 1860 – 14 November 1940) was a French banker and philanthropist, known for initiating The Archives of the Planet, a vast photographical project. Spanning 22 years, it resulted in a collection of 72,000 colour photographs and 183,000 metres of film.

Auguste Vacquerie (1819–1895) was a French journalist and man of letters.

Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) was a French engineer, industrialist, biologist, and illusionist. In 1894 and 1895, he and his brother Louis invented an animated photographic camera and projection device, the cinematograph, which met with worldwide success.
Lumière was born in Besançon. He attended the Martinière Technical School and worked as a manager at the photographic company of his father, Claude-Antoine Lumière. He was invited to attend a demonstration of the Kinetoscope invented by Thomas Edison, which inspired his and his brother's work on the cinematograph. The brothers screened their first film using this device in December 1895, and following the success of this initial venture opened a number of cinemas worldwide. However, Auguste was skeptical of the potential of the device, remarking "My invention can be exploited... as a scientific curiosity, but apart from that it has no commercial value whatsoever".After his work on the cinematograph Lumière began focusing on the biomedical field, becoming a pioneer in the use of X-rays to examine fractures. He also contributed to innovations in military aircraft, producing a catalytic heater to allow cold-weather engine starts. He died in Lyon, aged 91.