View Full Version : Charles E Brown Aviation Photographer
Fake Sealion
21st Oct 2004, 13:58
As a youth (not yoof!) I recall borrowing a book many times from our local library which was a compilation of mainly air to air photos by an photographer called ( I think) Charles Brown.
They were black & white, taken in the period 1945ish to 1960ish. and of British civil and military types.
Wonderful sharp images - evocative aeroplanes !
Does anyone know of this photographer, and whether this book (or similar) is still around ?
F S
airborne_artist
21st Oct 2004, 14:55
A quick Google (http://www.google.com) shows that some of his books are available.
Dr Illitout
22nd Oct 2004, 08:54
His entire collection of negatives is held by the R.A.F. Museum He was a master IMHO. The standard by which all other aircraft photographers are judged. It was lucky that he was around during the golden age of aviation. Funny though I always prefered his black and white pictures to the colour ones, eaven when the colour ones were reproduced in black and white.
Rdgs Dr.I. (P.P.P.)....(P**s Poor Photographer!!!):O
Camera above the Clouds I, II, and III, IIRC.
Edited by the late Tony Harold of the RAF Museum, killed in a replica Nieport 24 accident at North Weald I believe.
Books published by Airlife, now defunct, and taken over by Crowood. I think they're all out of print. The third book was colour, and inferior to the first two, which had colour sections only.
Stunning pics throughout. His b&w photography has rarely IMHO been beaten. Operating from the 1920s to the 1960s, he took photos of an amazing array of a/c.
His cameras (wooden boxes with a lens on the front, and a cross-hair sight on the top...) are on display at the Cosford Aerospace Museum.
Part of the colour photo issue was that he was given a batch of kodachrome by Life Magazine to do a feature on the wartime RAF. There was little colour film in the UK during the war. IIRC, the film was 35mm rather than the larger format b&w he normally used, and limited what he could take in comparason.
There's a lot more, the above is off the top of my head, and bears no guarentees!
Let me just finish with a rousing endorsement for the books - well worth buying, and reading. I must look mine out tonight!
Cheers
Chairborne 09.00hrs
28th Oct 2004, 19:33
That colour film was an early version of Kodachrome. Rated at only 10ASA, imagine how difficult it would have been to use with the lenses of the time!
Good to see that we can still enjoy Chas. E Brown's images 60 years on - can we say that about all those Digital shots taken today? That's a whole new thread for discussion - and not here, I think.........
Eric Mc
30th Oct 2004, 08:46
I have books 1 and 3 (I must try and get my hands on No. 2).
My favourite picture is an air to air of of Meteor Mk.4 EE528 flying above a coastal stretch at low altitude with a pair of tethered chequered baloons floating in the background. The details which can be seen in the picture is astonishing.
In fact, I always think of the Brown was an expert landscape and cloudscape photographer who allowed aeroplanes to get between him and the subject.