Photographers > David McLellan
(42) L.513 - Observers in the basket with telephones and maps
Thumbnail gallery: Grid view | List view
Universal Viewer | 
Mirador | Large image
Images and transcriptions on this page, including medium image downloads, may be used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence unless otherwise stated. 
| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > David McLellan > (42) L.513 - Observers in the basket with telephones and maps |
|---|
| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74548638 |
|---|---|
| Description | Two soldiers in an observation balloon's basket, France, during World War I. An image like this may have been used to emphasize Britain's scientific superiority and the calibre of the Army's staff. The men in this photograph, however, do not appear to be very happy. Whether this is due to being photographed, the situation they are going into or for more personal reasons will now never be known. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. R.F.A. kite balloons are the eyes of our guns in France. The observers are highly trained men & when their balloons are shelled or attacked by enemy aircraft they are forced to make rapid descents in parachutes. These parachutes must be kept in perfect working order. Observers in the basket with telephones and maps.'] |
More information
|
|
| Description | Formerly a photographer with the 'Daily Mirror’, a newspaper which led the field in pictorial journalism, McLellan was appointed as an official war photographer in December 1917 along with Tom Aitken whose work also features in this collection. McLellan is especially noted for his work capturing the huge scale of operations on the Front. McLellan was one of five official photographers working on the Western Front, for the propaganda department during the last two years of the war. The photographers were driven to the site the authorities wanted them to photograph, which meant that most of their material was also largely censored. This did not, however, mean that the photographer did not get to know the people in the picture. |
|---|---|
|
More information
|
|
| Description | Photographs by named photographers. |
|---|
| Description | Black-and-white photographs mainly of the Western Front during the First World War. Official British war photographers took many of them for propaganda purposes. Unless otherwise stated, titles are the photographs' original captions. From the papers of Field Marshal (Earl) Haig (1861-1928). The Haig Papers also contain Douglas Haig’s diaries. |
|---|---|
| Shelfmark | Acc.3155 |
|
More information
|
|