Researcher and writer Irfan Shah introduces the new podcast series, The Shadow Traps, which will explore and celebrate the story of Louis Le Prince and will investigate the inventor's mysterious disappearance in 1890.

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This is the opening episode of The Shadow Traps podcast series. It will give an overview of the story, looking at Le Prince's life, films and mysterious disappearance on September 16th 1890. There will be clues and theories scattered throughout the episode, as well as stories from the earliest days of film. It is a labour of love, researched over the past seven years and lasting just over an hour and a half. It will set up listeners for the adventures ahead!

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In this episode of The Shadow Traps, we look at unreliable narrators and the question of fake news in our retellings of past events. We will expose the flaws in two of the theories related to Le Prince's disappearance and we will challenge the listeners' notions of what to believe when listening to this podcast series.

We will also begin a more detailed biography of Le Prince's life, starting with his birth in France and ending with his move to England in 1866.

And having done all this, we will replace one of the discredited theories with a new one......

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This episode is a continuation of the biography of Le Prince, starting with Le Prince's move from France to Leeds, England in 1866. We will see him establish a life in the town, which is interrupted by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, which sees him return to Paris to rescue his relatives. We will look at his imprisonment during the chaos of the war and his time spent as a medical officer during the vicious Siege of Paris.

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A short description of the fall of Paris is followed by a look at how much we can learn from a few brief pieces of primary source material. Taking a handful of brief newspaper articles from 1870, the episode looks at the different ways of pulling them apart and using them to help our understanding not just of Le Prince's wartime misadventures but of his later work with film cameras.

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This episode starts with a look at a French newspaper report which may offer clues to help us better understand the identity of the German-accented stranger mentioned in an earlier article. In exploring this point, we will discuss the idea of 'confirmation bias'.

We will then move from France to Leeds and look at the turbulent business years of Whitley Partners as well as learning of some of Le Prince's own financial commitments. We will see a story of apparent success but also of disputes and financial instability.

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What is a motion picture camera? And how could the film pioneers know what film might mean to the world?

Le Prince, back in Leeds, but weakened by his time in Paris during the Siege, is persuaded to withdraw from Whitley Partners and start an art school with Lizzie. The school is a great success and work from it is exhibited in many conversaziones for societies such as the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society.

The episode will look at Le Prince's life during the 1870's and explore how it might have come to shape his later ideas on what film might mean to society.

The episode will suggest that Le Prince, the film maker, would be one of the last great Victorian collectors.

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The contrasting fortunes of the Le Princes and John Whitley are looked at. Louis, with a growing family and a successful art school, has put down roots in the town of Leeds. John Whitley, on the other hand, experiences business failures that will see him have to 'disappear' from the town.

And an odd inconsistency in the story of Le Prince is revealed. Why has Le Prince's biographer put 1875 down as the year in which he discovered the work of Edweard Muybridge.

1875, a year of contrasting fortunes and of clues.

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