Photography genius: George R Lawrence & "The hitherto impossible

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Summer 2002 by Petterchak, Janice

Then he accepted an unusual commission to take balloon photographs of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, as a circulation-building stunt for the Minneapolis Tribune. But he was caught in a harrowing windstorm above a lake near Stillwater, Minnesota; "the experience [temporarily] cured him of further use of balloons to get spectacular views."20

One day on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, Lawrence observed a kite overhead trailing a large advertising banner. He became intrigued by the concept of cameras being carried skyward on kites. As early as 1895, American photographer William A. Eddy had been taking aerial views from heights of one thousand feet, using a series of unmanned kites launched from building roofs. Lawrence improved on Eddy's technique, constructing kites of various sizes for different wind velocities.21

He developed a harness to balance and suspend a 2'x5' panoramic camera to capture pictures "of what the birds saw."22 At the core of each kite were prisms with triangular bases, and two top and lateral-edged wings formed a seven-foot plane surface. As many as seventeen such kites-contaming safety valves and other features to maneuver through changing wind conditions-were strung on one cable controlled by a stabilizing windlass.

The camera, suspended below the nearest kite on the line, contained complicated rigging to maintain equilibrium. A panoramic lens was positioned below center so that three-fourths of the film, bent in a semi-circular form, captured the landscape, with one-fourth focused on the sky. Electric current through the insulated core of the steelcable kiteline caused the shutter to snap, in turn releasing a small parachute that indicated the picture was made. Then the kites were pulled down and the camera reloaded.23 Seven such cameras, weighing up to one thousand pounds, were constructed for photographs from two to eight feet in length. Lawrence named his new invention the "Captive Airship."

"In all my experiences I never used all of my seventeen kites but once," Lawrence later explained. "Usually ten were enough and often only five or six. They could be attached to the trunk line by harness snaps, two for each kite and a spreader device kept them out from the main line with which they never tangled. If a sudden strong wind should create unmanagable conditions, as happened once in a blinding blizzard near Denver, tension was relieved by a `safety valve' of light cord. This would break and set the refractory unit free to swing around with the wind, although it could not get away."24

With these cameras, Lawrence obtained some of the first aerial pictures of Fort Sheridan (north of Chicago), the cities of Chicago Heights and Waukegan, as well as surveys of irrigation projects and news events. "At the prompting of President Theodore Roosevelt," who had become interested in the possibility of kite photography in wartime, U.S. Army and Navy officers invited Lawrence to demonstrate his system. Accompanied by two assistants, along with cameras, films, and steadying apparatus, Lawrence boarded the USS Maine on August 25, 1905. A team of officers observed and worked with Lawrence for more than two months. According to kite-photography specialist Simon Baker, the officers described the demonstration in a report to the Atlantic Fleet's Commander-in-Chief: "They timed the process from the ascent of the first kite until the camera was landed back on deck as averaging about one hour and a half. They also described the panoramic camera being used as having a 19-inch focal length, producing a 20 by 48 inch plate, and weighing 49 pounds."25