Original caption: Lake Sarnen with Bernese Alps from N. (In: Walter Mittelholzer: Alpenflug, 1928). Photo: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, photo archive / Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

In the age of Google Earth, it’s difficult to really comprehend the attraction of that remarkable bird’s eye perspective. Mittelholzer’s aerial photographs captured the unfamiliar view of the familiar surroundings and landscape in a way that, as a real experience, was enjoyed only by pilots and air passengers. For Mittelholzer himself, aerial photography is a visually recorded change of perspective in the figurative sense. It becomes a way of getting a more complete perception of the world:

Aerial photography is going to play a significant role in the future. […] Another, hitherto unseen world opens up before us. It is as if the Earth has thereby gained a new face, and man a new, unflawed eye.

Mittelholzer wrote these sentences for his 1928 publication Alpenflug. The book is illustrated with nearly 200 aerial photographs of alpine peaks and valleys, and sold thousands of copies.

A colonial view of Africa

Mittelholzer’s books about his flying expeditions abroad, which he published at frequent intervals, were also best-sellers: Im Flugzeug dem Nordpol entgegen (1924), Persienflug (1926), Afrikaflug (1927), Mittelmeerflug (1930), Kilimandjaro Flug (1930), Tschadseeflug (1932) and Abessinienflug (1934) documented his flights over the North Pole area, Persia, Africa, the Mediterranean, Kilimanjaro, Lake Chad and the Ethiopian Empire. Like Alpenflug, these titles are also lavishly illustrated with sections of photographs. However, Walter Mittelholzer didn’t limit himself to pictures from the air. Outside Switzerland, he also photographed and filmed at ground level. In Africa and the Middle East, he became a reportage photographer of his own expeditions, and of the ‘countries and peoples’.

Michael Gasser

Walter Mittelholzer – with a plane and a camera