Return to call of the clouds

Last year I looked at a couple of fantastic photographs from the State Library of South Australia's collection, taken at Harry Butler's 'Aviation Day' display at Unley on 23 August 1919. They're fantastic because they focus not on the flying but on the crowds watching it. Now I've found two more photos taken on the same day. PRG 280/1/24/250, wonderfully dynamic with the Red Devil (inserted in the lower left) evidently right overhead as the spectators twist and turn to keep it in view:

Spectators watching an aircraft's arrival

The other is PRG 280/1/24/242:

Spectators watching an aircraft's arrival

They're not as well preserved, and I've had to play with the brightness and contrast of these (using Canva), because the SLSA's download function doesn't give the same version displayed on their website, it's much more washed out. Or else I've forgotten the trick I used before.

When comparing with the previous two photos I had, it quickly becomes apparent that 242 was taken within moments of PRG 280/1/24/108, from the same position (though a different angle):

Spectators watching an aircraft's arrival

This makes it possible to check in again on some of the people in the crowd, and get an affect update -- see how their facial expressions and bodily posture differ between the shots. (First from 108, second from 242.) These closeups are screenshots of the SLSA site; the downloaded version is too low in resolution for this.)

Spectators watching an aircraft's arrival [detail]

Spectators watching an aircraft's arrival [detail]

Again:

Spectators watching an aircraft's arrival [detail]

Spectators watching an aircraft's arrival [detail]

A sea of mostly smiling, mostly entranced faces; few have yet had enough time to become bored. Some people have shifted out of or into the frame; a father has picked up his child; a woman turns to speak to her companion; a schoolboy is distracted by his photographic gear. The latter has his counterpart in 250:

Spectators watching an aircraft's arrival [detail]

Been there, done that (though not with a Box Brownie!)

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