Henry M. Lester

Background

Henry M. Lester was born in 1899 in Poland.

Education

From 1918 to 1921 Lester studied engineering at the Universities of Warsaw and Moscow. Also, he studied at City College and Columbia University in New York City, New York, United States from 1921 to 1923.

Career

From 1940 to 1972 Henry was a freelance photographer. He was a conservator of the Film Collection of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City from 1968 to 1972), editor of the journal of Abstracts of Photographic Science and Engineering from 1961 to 1963 and evaluation manager of foreign scientific and technical literature at McGraw-Hill Publishers from 1959 to 1961.

Henry was a co-founder, editor of Morgan & Lester Photographic Book Publishers from 1934 to 1956, and worked in scientific, medical, industrial, and high-speed motion-picture photography from 1930 to 1959. In 1947 Lester received a patent for his invention of a continuous-flash lighting unit (developed in 1941). He worked in scientific, medical, and industrial motion picture photography, and was a publisher, editor, writer, and consultant.

Achievements

• Publications Books (publisher): Stereo Realist Manual, 1954; Ansel Adams Basic Photographic Series, 1948-56; Graphic Graflex Photography, 1st ed., 1940; Photo-Lab Index, ed., 1939; Miniature Camera Work, 1938; Leica Photo Annual 1937, ed., 1936; Leica Manual, 1st ed., 1935.

Membership

Lester was a founding member of Circle of Confusion (1933), a founder and first president of the Miniature Camera Club of New York (1933), a member of the Oval Table Society (1946), a Fellow of the Photographic Society of America (1948) and of RPS (1949). He was also a Fellow of the New York Microscopical Society (1951), the Society of Photographic Scientists & Engineers (1956 - as well as the founder and first president of its New York chapter) and the Biological Photographic Association (1963).

Connections

Henry was married to Ruth Lester.

Wife:

Ruth Lester

Ruth was a curatorial associate at the International Center of Photography in New York City, New York, the United States.