Hi,
My sister and I are in the final stages of writing a history of British South American Airways (BSAA), which will be published next year.
Some time ago I followed a thread on this forum with interest, entitled “Lancastrian Freighter ?”, particularly as “Eddie” had posted an excellent photo of BSAA Lancaster ‘Star Watch’ on there. Hopefully this is a link to the thread in question :- http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=35877&highlight=lancastrian
Our publisher is currently in the process of asking us for photos and ideas for the cover design and I would love to be able to use that photo of ‘Star Watch’. I contacted “Eddie” and he doesn’t know the whereabouts of the original, but I’ve since been in touch with Brian Stainer as I realised I’d bought a small print from Brian about 5 years ago which is a relatively poor quality black and white version of the same photo. Brian assures me that all the prints he sold were photos taken by him, but that he never had access to colour film in the late 1940s so believes the ‘Star Watch’ photo must have been hand coloured by someone.
I’d be very grateful if anyone can lead me to the original colour image, so that we can use it for our book cover. Unfortunately the image as posted is of too low a resolution to be used.
By the way, if anyone has any interesting anecdotes or stories to tell about BSAA I’d also be very pleased to hear from you. Our publisher’s deadline is approaching very fast, but we still have a few weeks before the cut-off.
Many thanks in anticipation.
Ian
By: BSAA1947 - 10th October 2006 at 13:13
Hi James,
Many thanks for your reply. It IS the photo at the link, and I quite agree with your doubts about it being hand coloured. When I first saw the photo I didn’t imagine for one minute it was hand coloured, but when I saw the black & white print from Brian (which is identical, by the way) and he told me he’d never used colour film in the late 1940s, I thought that was the only possible answer. You’re right though, it certainly looks like the B & W print could have been from a colour transparency original.
Regarding the RAF Museum, my sister contacted them some time ago to ask if they had any material related to BSAA which we could arrange to view (not necessarily just photographs) and after months of waiting she received the reply that they have nothing at all of relevance! It seems a shame if all these photographs are stored away for extended periods without the museum allowing anyone access. Having said that, you’re right, if it is a Charles E. Brown and the original is there I would imagine the reproduction costs would be sizeable! I will attempt to contact them again now to ask a specific question about the photo.
Thanks again for taking the trouble to reply.
Best regards,
Ian
By: JDK - 10th October 2006 at 02:21
If it’s this photo here link I’d say that it’s a colour photograph taken from a slide original. It has none of the hallmarks of a hand-coloured or tinted picture, and many of the characteristics of a colour slide. (I may be wrong, and further views welcome.)
I’ve used a number of Brian’s photos myself, and found him helpful and courteous – however if the print you’ve got is a B&W of this actual shot (rather than a similar one – the position of the props and men should tell if it’s identical or not) then it’s a B&W copy from a colour original.
I don’t have any idea of the origin, I’m afraid. However, were I to make a guess, I’d say it looks like a Charles E Brown shot. He certainly photographed (air to air) Avro Tudor ‘Star Leopard’ G-AHNN in colour, and in black and white. The references are P100042(c) and P100043(c) for two colour shots – the first is in ‘Camera Above the Clouds’ Vol.3. His collection is held by the RAF Museum, and they have browsable albums in the archive (DORIS) however:
Photographic Collection
The Photograph Collection of the RAF Museum covers the history of British military aviation. It contains about 250,000 images in a variety of formats but most are black & white prints.
…
Charles Brown Collection
The aviation photographer, Charles Brown, was active from the 1920’s to the 1960’s. His collection of aviation photographs is one of the largest compiled by a single photographer.…
The Royal Air Force Museum is unable to supply photographic reproductions.
Because of limited staff resources in our photographic department and the need to target remaining resources on the research for the National Cold War Exhibition being built at Cosford we cannot, currently offer a reproduction service. We are sorry for any problems this may cause
As far as I can establish, without using ‘pirate’ copies from other sources, publishers have been unable to use RAF Museum photos in books or magazines for at least two years, with a brief period about halfway when someone was temporarily employed to make prints, but quit.
You could call and plead. Oh, and the charges for a cover shot…
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October 10, 2006 at 12:32 am