showing pilot, camera and "controls", is shown in Figure 29. Two
of the aerial photographs he obtained are shown in Figure 30. A
copy of Mr. Haven's letter is shown on page 58. According to Fred S.
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Tobey, these photographs were the first ever taken from an airplane
To the best of my knowledge, they are the first "still" pictures; the
first "motion" pictures were made two years earlier, as previously
indicated, by the Italian photographer who flew with Wilbur Wright.
The Wright brothers' success with aerial motion picture photography
by day, soon led to the prediction of similar techniques by night. In
1911, for example, an artist's drawing (Figure 31) appeared in Scientific
American, accompanied by the following statements:
"Night photography would be even better, for then the aeroplane
could steal over fortifications and flash its light upon them
for a few brief moments while pictures were taken. The height
of the machine above the target, and hence, the scale of the
pictures might be determined by means of two searchlights placed
at opposite ends of the machine and mounted in such a way that
their beams would intersect always at a fixed distance below the
aeroplane. The height would then be shown by the size of the
intensely illuminated spot produced by the overlapping portions
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of the beams of light."
Any account of photography from airplanes would be neither accurate
nor complete without mention of the man who made his entrance upon the
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