Daniels Took Famous Wright Bros. Photo

In the My Photos section, I’ve included the famous shot of the Wright brothers’ first flight with Orville, his feet nearest to the camera, lying prone at the primitive controls and Wilbur running alongside. Actually, Wilbur was barely moving, having just released his grip on the forward upright of the wing The starting rail they pushed their plane down is the black line that runs on a slight diagonal from the left margin to the center. The bench-like object is a coil box, and I think the assortment of gray objects between that and the erect figure of Wilbur are parts of the wing rest that was used to balance the plane on the ground. It fell off once Orville became airborne. The distance between Orville and the plane, by the way, is greater than it appears in this photograph.

Orville preset their 5X7 camera, meaning he focused it and selected the aperture opening and shutter speed, just before he took his position in the plane. (5X7 refers to the size, 5” by 7”, of the glass negatives the camera used.) Wilbur had attached a hollow rubber shutter release cable to their camera. It had a large rubber bulb at the end. It was this bulb that John T. Daniels squeezed to release the shutter and take the picture.

We have no technical data on the photography, other than knowing the image is one of 303 the Wright brothers took. All of their images are today housed in the university that bears their name. The glass negative for this particular photograph was broken, a piece on the lower left corner permanently missing. Breakage is a frustrating problem with glass plates. It happens sometimes from careless handling and sometimes from improper storage. Glass negatives are a challenge to store. They often are stacked one atop another and placed in improper containers. I once handled several hundred glass negatives exposed by Darius Kensey, a Sedro Woolley, Washington, photographer renowned for his marvelous images of logging’s early days in the Pacific Northwest. I found 4X5 glass plates stacked one directly on the top of another in deteriorating cardboard boxes. Over the decades, they had become glued together like glass sandwiches. Sadly, I was unable to convince the owner that his plates were valuable enough to restore and archieve properly.

Glass plates also can be damaged by modern enlargers that aren’t modified to handle glass negatives, glass negatives being much thicker than today‘s negatives. I‘ve known photographers to lower weighty enlarging condenser housings directly onto glass negatives, breaking them beyond repair, sometimes to the extent that subsequent photographs show ugly black lines where the glass separated. Strange, but some of these photographers push on, cracking more plates, thinking, I guess, that the housing that holds their heavy condensers is to blame -- not them.

The photo of the Wright brothers first flight was taken December, 12, 1903. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered a distance of 120 feet.

While it’s true Wilbur Wright positioned the camera and made all of the settings, it was John T. Daniels who picked the perfect moment to capture a wondrous tick of history. I don’t get a lot of readers at my blog, but I wanted the few who visit to at least read his name. Maybe someone else will remember him.