Avian and Fokker VII: taken where?

Thanks Mark, and Bager. You confirm what is so obvious from the picture I received. It is just not realistic. Yesterday I went to the Australian archive site, but it was closed for repair! My friend in Sharjah tells me that the fuel cans are indeed food oil cans, of which there are still a number in the museum at ex-RAF Sharjah. In fact I remember seeing them there.
PS: the nla site is now back on-line.

Laurence

I have just received a couple of photos that are supposed to have been taken at Sharjah, but I have my doubts.
The first is Avian G-ABCF, Southern Cross Junior, of Kingsford-Smith’s famous England to Australia flight in 1930. To me, the photo looks a fake. The figures look stuck on, and, at best, it is obviously posed with the pilot still wearing helmet and goggles. The wheels look to be painted on, and they have no shadows. The stacks of fuel cans in fact look like the food oil cans in use at that time.

The Avian photo seems to be an obvious cut & paste to create a refuelling image for advertising?

The apparant errors in proportion, unrealistic poses and lack of consistant shadows seems evidence enough?, when compared to a real image below.

Regards

Mark Pilkington

Why are there clear shadows from the stack of fuel cans & the men on the far left, but very indistinct and faint (if any at all) shadows from anything/anyone else in the shot?

Except the guys on the far right have shadows from nearly the opposite direction as the guys on the left!!

Sure looks faked-up to me.

The stacks of fuel cans in fact look like the food oil cans in use at that time.

I think these were the type of fuel cans used through out the Empire right up until the ‘jerrycan’ became the can of choice.

I think the photo is original but with some very clumsy edit work.

Richard

If you look at the second photo for some reason the fuel cans have been retouched – perhaps to make the BP logo stand out more?

I suspect that the first photo is just a more extreme version of the same thing – you get to see some really terrible retouching and if the guy in the darkroom wasn’t especially careful, it would be very easy to get that weird cut-out effect trying to dodge out an overexposed sky, or burn in an under-exposed foreground. If you only have one exposure to play with, you have to make the best of it, however crummy…

Adrian

Fokker F.VIIA. G-EBTS

According to ‘ Fokker commercial aircraft’ published by Fokker public relations dept. G-EBTS was c/no. 4953 first registered to KLM on the 10-06-26 as H-NADK. Then it became G-EBTS on 00-09-27 assigned to RH McIntosh as ‘Princess Xenia’. On 00-09-1929 it was assigned to the Duchess of Bedford as ‘Spider’. Sir Bossabhor Bumandwallah of India took over in 00-00-1934 and the aircraft was demolished in 00-03-1937. The photo seems to suggest an African scene? See below.
Addenda.. On 10 April the Duchess took off again for an England – Capetown return flight.

The people in the first photo look disproportionate – and the aircraft looks as tho’ it doesn’t actually belong in the picture.