ART REVIEW : PHOTOS TAKE YOU SOARING THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY

“There are only two species of photographer, I believe, more strenuous than the aerial one, viz., the Hollywood, and the one that goes into African jungles . . .,” wrote Capt. Alfred G. Buckham, formerly of the Royal Air Force, in 1929.

The primacy he gives to his own specialty appears fully justified by the anecdotes accompanying the 18 images he made that are on exhibit on the mezzanine of The Gallery Store (724 Broadway). They evince his indomitable spirit and indifference to physical discomfort during perilous flights--he survived nine crashes. There is a kind of benign craziness informing this show of ravishingly beautiful photographs.

Gallery owner Bob Walker curated this first solo exhibition of Buckham’s aerial photographs in the United States from the holdings of San Diego-based collector and dealer Tom Jacobson. All are vintage prints, of which approximately 300 are extant, dating from 1915 to 1930.

Today we take aerial photography for granted, but a look at the fragile small planes in Buckham’s photographs and the selection of apposite texts that accompany them remind us of what a daring undertaking it was.

To practice his craft, the photographer stood in an open plane, a leg tied to the seat to prevent him from tumbling out and to allow him to turn rapidly in any direction. The bulkiness of the equipment and its fragility--a 30-inch camera with 4-by-5-inch glass plates--presented special problems. The camera’s fabric bellows had to be protected with a cardboard wrapping, for example, to prevent its destruction in the wind. The lens needed a shield to protect it from the fine spray of oil from the plane’s engine.

Buckham advised beginners not to work in winter because the necessity of working without goggles and gloves caused frozen eyelashes and numb hands. But, he added, “The air . . . is so splendidly exhilarating that the discomfort is little felt until the blood begins to circulate freely again.”

In 1933, above the Andes at 19,500 feet, Buckham, unable to take oxygen because of “certain physical disabilities” and realizing that “unconsciousness was inevitable,” passed a note to the pilot “requesting him to thrust back my head whenever it fell forward,” to prevent self-strangulation or suffocation. He settled down, confident that he would survive until the plane descended to an altitude where he would recover consciousness.

His physical disability, by the way, was the absence of a larynx. After it had been removed following his ninth crash he breathed through a small tube inserted in his throat.

Buckham’s masterful images revive for us the wonder of navigating in an ocean of air, of seeing great heaps of clouds up close and viewing the surface of the earth as if from a bird’s eye.

He had aspired to be a painter, but after he studied the works of J.M.W. Turner, the great English romantic, he made a bonfire of his own works. In 1908 he took up photography and quickly mastered its technology. He applied what he had already learned as a painter, and his images have tonal and compositional values and a spirit lacking in other aerial photographs of the time. They are works of art, not static documents.

Buckham, for whom the negative was only the starting point of the creative process, behaved as an artist, not hesitating to use “a little careful manipulation” to improve the results.

Because he could not simultaneously obtain the details of clouds and landscape that he desired, he made two negatives, then “feathered” the images together at the horizon. He also overcame nature’s lack of cooperation by using appropriate cloud negatives from his store of 2,000 in combination with planes and landscapes. As he commented charmingly, “ . . . however naughty faking may be, the end often fully justifies the means.”

On view at The Gallery Store are cloud images such as “A Summer Thunder Storm” and “The Shining Turrets of the Sky,” which have a transcendental quality. “Peacemakers,” featuring a seaplane and a ship, epitomizes military might in an old-fashioned, but still effective, way. “Ypres” shows why the name of that French town, destroyed in World War I, is still synonymous with utter devastation. Only “The Gateway to London” is a disappointment. It is so worked over that it looks more like an etching than a photograph.

The exhibit is soberly and professionally presented. There are no airplane parts scattered about or models suspended overhead. The walls are white, not cerulean. One of the best of the year in San Diego so far, the exhibit educates as it gives pleasure.

It continues through Aug. 30.