Flying in the Studio – Prop Balloons and Airplanes With Fake Backdrops in the Early 20th Century

In the early 20th century, backdrop photography was characterized by the use of hand-painted backdrops in studio portraits. These backdrops featured scenes such as landscapes, elegant interiors, and urban settings, enhancing the overall aesthetic and providing context for the subjects.

Here below is a funny photo collection from Wolfgang Wiggers that shows people posing with prop balloons and airplanes with fake backdrops in the early 20th century.

Airplane prop

A holiday trip

A journey above the clouds, 1912

Above the clouds, Baden, Austria, 1910

Above the Rhine

An insecure construction

Bremen I

Dogfight

Escape from Bitsch

Escape from Jüterbog. Jüterbog in north-eastern Germany (Brandenburg) was a garrison town of the Prussian Army

Escape from Munsterlager (Munster Training Area) on the Lüneburg Heath, Germany, 1926

Escape from Munsterlager, 1912

Fake airplane in Munsterlager

Flying High In Sioux City, Iowa

Getting out of Munster, 1914

Going home, WWI

Just like the Red Baron

Military training area, Döberitz, WWI

Military Zep-Train

On the Rhine, 1937

Over the military training area

Overloaded. The landscape in the background is the Rhine Valley at Königswinter with the castle Drachenfels and Schloss Drachenburg high over the river in Germany

Paper plane

Pentecost in Oberhofen

Proving ground, Doernitz

Some WWI soldiers on their way home

Sturmvogel, before 1912

The inscription on the plane "Repülj Fecském" (Flight of the Swallow) refers to an Operetta song, Hungary, 1936

The sign reads "Escape from Munster to America", Whitsun 1914

The two signs read "A sunday without money" and "Escape from the sand-desert Neuhammer", December 27, 1914

World's Fair 1913, London

Zeppelin, 1912