John Ott

John Nash Ott (23 October 1909 – 6 April 2000) was a photo-researcher, writer, photographer, and cinematographer who was an early adopter of many modern photographic practices, including time-lapse photography and full-spectrum lighting. Photography Ott's early career was in finance. He never went to college, although he enrolled in finance courses at Harvard Business School while working for several Chicago area banks. During this period, he developed an interest in time-lapse photography. He made his first time-lapse film in 1927, while he was still in high-school, but did not develop the automated mechanical camera rig which he used in his later films, until 1937. His early amateur films led him to a career in cinematography. In addition to making films, he performed research about the effects of natural lighting on plants, animals, and humans. Initially, Ott's interest in time-lapse movie photography, mostly of plants, was just a hobby. Starting in the 1930s, Ott bought and built more and more time-lapse equipment, eventually building a large greenhouse full of plants, cameras, and self-built automated electric moving camera systems (the first movie camera motion control systems ever built) for moving the cameras to follow the growth of plants as they developed. He time-lapsed his entire greenhouse of plants and cameras as they all worked and grew. His work caught the attention of organizations who employed him to make time-lapse segments for films they were producing, including the educational film Secrets of Life, for the Walt Disney Company in 1956, and The Story of Wheat, for the Santa Fe Railroad. From the late-1940s to the early-1950s he hosted a Chicago-area television program called How Does Your Garden Grow, which featured gardening tips, botanical information, and short time-lapse films. Episodes of this program can be viewed on the YouTube page of the Winnetka Historical Society.