Alfred Buckham, an aviator who survived nine forced landings, created the earliest and most awe-inspiring bird’s-eye view images. To achieve them, he risked his life and engaged in dangerous and deadly ingenuity.
“What a majestic and beautiful sight!” exclaimed Thomas Baldwin in Airopaidia, his account of the 1786 balloon trip over Chester, during which he created one of the earliest aerial photographs. Everything “appeared in a new way…and my imagination…was overwhelmed.” Today, we take the view from the sky for granted. The advent of drones has popularized amateur aerial photography, and tools like Google Earth provide a bird’s-eye view in seconds. However, in the Victorian era, aerial photography was the result of extraordinary ingenuity using hot air balloons. pigeoneven rocket.
Richard and John Buckham CollectionBut with goggles worn on his first foray into aviation, a new and exciting way to take to the skies was just around the corner. This emerging industry, combined with the outbreak of World War I, when mapping and intelligence gathering became mission critical, opened up radical new possibilities for aerial photography. One outstanding pioneer was a fearless aviator in World War I Alfred Buckham (1879-1956), an irrepressible risk-taker who survived nine forced landings. Although he ended up with a severe throat injury that required a laryngectomy and his voice reduced to a whisper, he continued to fly, combining his love of airplanes with his passion for photography, risking his life out of an airplane to capture some of the earliest and most awe-inspiring aerial photographs in history.
His deadly images are the subject of a major new exhibition. Alfred Buckham: the daredevil photographerin, Scottish National Portrait Gallery In Edinburgh. The exhibition shares Buckham’s dramatic perspective on the landmarks of Britain and the Americas from the winding, sun-drenched paths of the River Thames. heart of empire (1923), on loan from the V&A, for use in newly completed monuments including: empire state building new york and Christ the Redeemer statue Both were photographed for Fortune magazine in Rio de Janeiro during a series of record-length flights in 1931. More than 100 photographs and objects are on display, including Buckham’s letters, passports and cameras, all told in the voice of his grandson Richard, telling the story of his reckless aerial adventures and innovative post-production.
Source: BBC Culture – www.bbc.com
