{"id":380476,"date":"2026-04-03T19:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/380476\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T19:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T19:51:10","slug":"photography-pioneer-nadar-went-on-a-mad-balloon-ride-that-ended-in-near-catastrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/380476\/","title":{"rendered":"Photography Pioneer Nadar Went on a Mad Balloon Ride That Ended in Near-Catastrophe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ALe G\u00e9ant gas balloon, left, and F\u00e9lix Nadar, right. <\/p>\n

Le G\u00e9ant was an enormous 196-foot-tall gas balloon that photography pioneer F\u00e9lix Nadar used in his bid to master aerial imagery \u2014 it all ended in a 25-mile-long crash and his wife landing in a river. <\/p>\n

It was October 1863, and Le G\u00e9ant was about to take off for only its second journey; its first journey in front of a gathered crowd of one million Parisians had lasted only 15 minutes. <\/p>\n

But Nadar had a vision that balloons could become not just vessels for aerial photography, but an entire industry of air travel. That\u2019s why Le G\u00e9ant carried a two-story basket that held a darkroom, galley kitchen, a printing press, 12 beds, a toilet, and a wine store. An upper deck allowed passengers to take in the view; it was like a flying house. <\/p>\n

\"AnAn engraving showing the elaborate basket. | Wellcome Collection \"AA cartoon of Nadar taking aerial photographs. | Metropolitan Museum of Art <\/p>\n

The darkroom was necessary since Nadar was using the wet collodion process, which required photos to be instantly developed. His first attempts had been scuppered by excess gas venting into the basket and spoiling the sensitive photographic plates. <\/p>\n

\"SepiaOne of Nadar\u2019s early aerial photographs. \"Sepia-tonedLe G\u00e9ant was taller than the Statue of Liberty, when measured from her toes to her torch. <\/p>\n

According to Anika Burgess\u2019 book, Flashes of Brilliance, Nadar\u2019s second journey initially went far better. The nine passengers, including Nadar\u2019s wife, Ernestine, flew for a day, and the next morning enjoyed coffee and croissants on the observation deck. It was a serene scene, before it all went horribly wrong. <\/p>\n

Some accounts say that as the balloon began its descent, Nadar panicked after mistaking a cloud bank for the open sea (they were flying over Belgium) and pulled the valve; another theory is that the aeronauts took the balloon down too quickly. Whatever happened, the valve line broke, and they didn\u2019t have enough ballast to get rid of, meaning they could no longer ascend upward. <\/p>\n

The aeronauts threw two iron grapnel hooks off the side, but they snapped off as the basket grazed the ground and bounced back into the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe balloon ricocheted high into the air several more times \u2014 somewhere between 25 and 40 meters (around 80 to 130 feet), according to one passenger\u2019s estimation \u2014 before slamming back to the earth,\u201d Burgess writes in Flashes of Brilliance. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the next 25 miles, the basket was dragged by the partially inflated balloon, crashing through trees and hedges. At one point in its frenzied journey, the balloon approached a train track, where an express train was hurtling toward them. They avoided a collision only because the engineer saw them and slowed the train down.\u201d <\/p>\n

Just before Le G\u00e9ant came to a halt, a journalist onboard had thrown himself overboard, convinced he was about to be smashed to smithereens. Nadar suffered a broken leg, another passenger broke his arm and dislocated his ankle, while Nadar\u2019s wife, Ernestine, had been flung out of the basket into a river; she almost drowned. <\/p>\n

\"AAn illustration showing the wreck of Le G\u00e9ant. \"ANadar and his wife, Ernestine, in a publicity photo. She doesn\u2019t look thrilled. <\/p>\n

It was a heavy financial blow for Nadar, who repaired the balloon and eventually sold it in 1867. If he did take any photos from Le G\u00e9ant, they have all been lost. He did manage to take a few successful aerial photos over the course of his lifetime, but his vision of balloon air travel never came to fruition. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Le G\u00e9ant gas balloon, left, and F\u00e9lix Nadar, right. Le G\u00e9ant was an enormous 196-foot-tall gas balloon that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[90644,307,304,305,306,127602,15751,308,93,169869,149059,169870,61,60,169871,1838],"class_list":{"0":"post-380476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-aerialphotography","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-balloon","14":"tag-catastrophe","15":"tag-design","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-felixnadar","18":"tag-historicalfriday","19":"tag-hotairballoon","20":"tag-ie","21":"tag-ireland","22":"tag-nadar","23":"tag-paris"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}