Paul Hesse was born in New York City. While attending Pratt Institute he experimented with photography.

 

After World War I he became a poster illustrator, but grew impatient with its time-consuming aspects. After reading all the photography books in the New York Public Library, he set out on a photographic career.

 

In the mid-1920s, he established a successful commercial photography studio.

 

Later he resettled in Los Angeles, where his Sunset Strip studio became a gathering place for advertising and motion picture industry notables.

 

He made a name for himself from the 1930's with stunning color photography, in advertising, portraiture and commercial photography.

 

In the 1950's he became active in the field of 3-D photography, becoming part of the Hollywood Stereo Camera Club.  

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Around the time of the 3-D movie boom of 1953 Hesse acquired several OP3000 and OP20 lenticular 3-D cameras made by the company of Maurice Bonnet in Paris, France. He also acquired the master plates to make the matching lenticular screens needed to go with these cameras. He partnered with Harvey Prever (who is also on this 3-D Legends web site) who had many years experience working with lenticular 3-D Cameras. Together they took many 11" x 14" and 8" x 10" back-lit lenticular transparencies to be used as publicity photos for the 3-D movies that were being made at the time. We have done our best to capture 3-D stereo pairs from these lenticular images, and are pleased to be able to show them in this section of 3-D Legends.