Old Photos: beautiful cruelty

Something that has always boggled my mind and I'm sure many others is the question of how humans, in the height of their supposed civilization ended up fighting two world wars in half a century?

Its hard not to be pessimistic about human civilization and progress. We might send probes to other planets with our advance technology, but underneath we're still driven by the same primitive impulses.
 
gdmcclintock said:
My grandmother told me that my uncle, and pilots like him, experienced so much painful stress that they had to be lifted out of their fighter planes after the missions, their fingers pried off the controls. She spoke of the pilots' requirement to kill the enemy pilot as he was parachuting to the ground after losing his plane in battle. Apparently my uncle, on his last mission, shot down a German plane, saw the enemy pilot in his parachute, turned off his machine gun, and filmed his enemy. So the story goes, he kept the film and was changed by the vision of his enemy, a young man like himself, terrified as my uncle's plane approached him. As for my father, he was always taciturn thus I do not know what is reflected by his silence about his WWII experiences.
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That is not true. That is against the Geneva conventions which the US is a signatory to. One someone has lost the ability to fight, ie surrendered, been shot down, disarmed you cannot use deadly force against them. If someone was ordering anyone to do that they were wrong.
 
GSNfan said:
Something that has always boggled my mind and I'm sure many others is the question of how humans, in the height of their supposed civilization ended up fighting two world wars in half a century?

Its hard not to be pessimistic about human civilization and progress. We might send probes to other planets with our advance technology, but underneath we're still driven by the same primitive impulses.
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Because in centuries before the world wasn't 'small' enough to become all involved with what started as a regional conflict.
 
I was at my local camera store and struck up a conversation with this woman...she later showed me a photo a friend gave her...It was a picture of Hitler motorcading through a town in Europe...
This was an original B&W photograph (not a copy or reprint) it was what they got when the film was developed...
There were two feelings over that photo...
First that this was a part of our world history (not saying a good part but a part) and was to a degree important...
Second...it really creeped me out...
 
Wow, those are amazing! Thanks for posting them. Looks like something i may have done or tried to do. Being a big fan of long exposures.
 
Those are the only war related photos my grandfather took. The rest is all family life and some street scenes of the bombed out city after the war. I have to take a look at the negatives if I can see what film he used. That will take some time because they are stored in a safe place.
 
Livesteamer said:
Since these were taken at night, anyone have any idea on the length of exposure or what the film was.
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Hard to tell. Could be short time, as I've seen similar tracer trails on motion pictures from WWII bombings, so the individual trails are not due to long exposure - but the cumulation of that many trails on one picture might.
 
No country has clean hands in war..

Concerning the photograph, it's as the OP says, beautiful and grim at the same time. Long Exposure photos of tracers were popular.
I recall some of the British propaganda shots had 'evocative' titles like "Night raid over Berlin" - A picture of a tailgunner firing his quad .303s. The only way this should could have been taken was with the aircraft on the ground.

My grandfather served with the reserves and was in the Peel region during the German invasion of the low countries in 1940. He came home in one piece after the surrender, which was lucky for my dad (who was born a year later) and me.
 
Wonderful images. It must have taken some courage to step out and Photograph this scene. There are several images of Pathfinder target markers going down photographed by German civilians. These were known by the civilians as Christmas trees as they were generally reds or greens and some were designed to 'burst' in the air hence the name. Too many British 'comedians' say the Germans have no sense of humour. I'd say that's making light of a very serious situation - being beneath Pathfinder target markers. Respect.
Exposure - well with a muzzle velocity of say on average 3000 feet per second... not long. As for 88's, I would be more inclined to say the tracer signature would be of something like 20 or 30mm having a go. I very much doubt an 88 would leave a trail like
this.
Steve.
 
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I would think it was a slow film of the day with the camera on a tripod. How else would the buildings have been properly exposed? Joe
 
Thinking about the title of this thread, it makes a profound statement about still photography in general and its limitations, or its disconnect with the reality of whats actually happening in the frame.

The shots do look beautiful and its true that it could be mistaken for long exposure shots of fireworks, but in fact its a shot of life and death struggle with people probably dying as the film was exposing.
 
A very valid point on the exposure with a tripod. Interesting the windows being open too. Help minimise blast damage from pressure waves?
Intriguingly in the centre is a very defined 'fan' of tracer. All curving away, burning out at the same altitude.... tracking a particular aircraft in a searchlight, until it is out of range as it disappears to the right?

Steve.
 
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