Wilbur Wright makes more flight demonstrations in Pau, France
The next two photographs in my Wright Brothers: Then and Now series were created in Pau, France. Before I went to France, I asked Dawne Dewey, the head librarian at Wright State University research library, if she had any contacts in France. She gave me the names of three people, two in Le Mans and one in Pau. Le Mans France during race week is much like Indianapolis in May. You either have too many obligations that week or you leave town. So, I didn’t meet up with the two people from Le Mans. I did however meet a terrific guy in Pau, Paul Milar. I knew I liked Paul the first time we met because we were sitting in an outdoor French cafe and I ordered a glass of French red wine and Paul ordered a beer. He told me the story of giving David McCullough the same tour he would give me the next day. The next morning Paul picked up me and my son Tom up in his small four door, stick shift, Renault.
Wilbur had made many flight demonstrations in Le Mans in late summer and fall of 1908. It was now going into winter and the Europeans wanted to see Wilbur continue to fly. Wilbur had contracted Hart O. Berg to help manage the Wright Brothers’ business in Europe. Mr. Berg knew of a small town in south west France all the European royalty and socialites had homes, Pau. If the wealthy of Europe came to see Wilbur fly, then so would the international press. It worked.
On Tuesday, June 18th, 2019 Paul picked up me and my son up to show us the areas where Wilbur had made his flight demonstrations. The fields are on the road to the Pau airport and are now a French Air Force base. I knew the historic photographs I wanted to use with these landscapes so in my mind I could see the historic images merging with my photographs as I took them. Paul was a little nervous about stopping on the side of the road while I ran from one side to the other taking my photographs. This was a French military base and I was pointing my camera in their direction. No one came to see what we were doing but Paul did leave the car running. He quickly put it in first gear and threw a little gravel when we took off.
Horse Drawn Carriages
In the historic photograph there is no visible road, but I liked the idea that there could have been. When I combined the historic photograph with my modern photograph, I decided to make it look like the carriages were traveling the same road in both time frames. The quote is from a speech Wilbur made while he was in France.
“Scarcely ten years ago, all hope had almost been abandoned; even the most convinced had become doubtful, and I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that men would not fly for fifty years. Two years later, we ourselves were making flights.” Wilbur Wright
The Infinite Highway Of The Air: This area is now a French Air Force base and while we were there they were doing Paratrooper training. I used this historic photograph because it represented an old farming practice of using animals to pull the cart and the new emerging technology of flight. I also liked the idea of which aircraft was the farmer looking at, Wilbur or the French military plane with people jumping out the back. The title of this image come from the Wilbur Wright quote from a speech Wilbur gave in France.
“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.” Wilbur Wright