The Helium-Powered Experience that Modified Readers’ Perspective

Some of the earliest aerial images ever taken in coloration had been dedicated to gelatin-coated glass plates now held within the National Geographic archives. They embody this sweeping shot of the Statue of Liberty, proven right here on the again of an previous plate rimmed with fraying labels. The scene was captured in 1930 by National Geographic journal Assistant Editor (and future Editor in Chief) Melville Bell Grosvenor—a photograph it will have been all however inconceivable to make and not using a little bit of ingenuity and two groundbreaking applied sciences.

The first was often known as the Finlay coloration course of, a pictures method that uncovered a glass-plate destructive via a display of coloured filters. Unlike the colour photograph strategies that got here earlier than, the Finlay course of didn’t require lengthy exposures and absolute stillness, which had been inconceivable to attain whereas cruising via the air, notably aboard the jostling prop planes that then dominated the skies.

The different key innovation was one which allowed Grosvenor to keep away from planes altogether. It was historical past’s solely efficiently flown metal-skinned airship, a 148-foot-long, helium-filled dirigible referred to as ZMC-2, constructed and operated by the United States Navy. The ZMC-2 drifted slowly sufficient via the skies that Grosvenor figured he may take a photograph from its cabin that didn’t blur from motion. And the Navy, wanting to persuade the general public (and Congress) of the deserves of its airship program, allowed the 28-year-old editor to hitch a journey.