royalflyingcorps

From the Imperial War Museum site:


"THE ROYAL FLYING CORPS ON THE WESTERN FRONT, 1914-1918

part of "MINISTRY OF INFORMATION FIRST WORLD WAR OFFICIAL COLLECTION" (photographs)

Made by: McLellan, David (Second Lieutenant) (Photographer)

1918-05-02

RAF Caquot kite balloon about to ascend, the basket is just leaving the ground. Air mechanics are holding the ropes and the motor winch can be seen beyond. Photograph taken in Gosnay, 2 May 1918."

THE ROYAL FLYING CORPS ON THE WESTERN FRONT, 1914-1918© IWM (Q 12029)

earlier shot from same event:

THE ROYAL FLYING CORPS ON THE WESTERN FRONT, 1914-1918© IWM (Q 12031)

More shots of balloon operations at Gosnay, France on May 2, 1918 by Lt. David McLellan:
www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=mclellan%2C+gosna...

It looks like some sort of bizarre celebration of an internal organ... or a not so internal one.

Wow thats a cool image.

Very nice, great it was saved before any more damage could be done!

The original is a glass plate negative and this sort of damage is all too common for glass plates, unfortunately. But it is a very unique image. We have many, many cirkut photographs in our collection, including lots of military unit portraits, but to have a photo that depicts the photographer's set-up is quite special.

Provincial Archives of Alberta I know, I help out a little bit with National Library of Ireland and some beautiful plates are damaged like this, and a lot worse. That is where the digitalisation is so beneficial, keeps the image safe even if we cannot save the plate!

The location is the University of Toronto; the main building in the background is University College. U of T was the location used for the classroom portion of the training of flight cadets in Canada; see for instance heritage.utoronto.ca/fedora/repository/default%3A22576 and www.flickr.com/photos/lac-bac/4055478339/in/set-721576225... .

Fantastic! Thank you very much for this information. I had a hunch that it was in Toronto but I'm really not familiar with the city so I was hoping for someone to come to the rescue. Thanks again!

At first sight I thought it was a dining room:-) Typical military, everything squared off on shipshape!

I can see that! I get the sense that this workshop was set up as a model and that actual workshops would have been somewhat less tidy.

Provincial Archives of Alberta I would have thought training for aircraft mechanics rather than workshop???? A real workshop would have been a lot less tidy, real work going on:-)

Yes, it probably was for training purposes. However, "workshop" is a good, broad, catch-all term in the absence of further information.