De Graf Zeppelin II 1936 - 1937

This photograph of De Graf Zeppelin II was taken by Presse-Photo GMBH. It’s a grayscale image, so it’s all about tones: the hazy atmosphere of the landscape with the Graf Zeppelin hangars, and a sleek roadster in the foreground. Imagine the photographer positioning themselves just so, to capture the interplay between these elements. Maybe they saw the hangars as a kind of portal, mirroring the car’s promise of movement and exploration. The hangars loom large in the distance, yet they are far from dominating the scene. There's a dynamic tension here – between the industrial scale of the hangars, the intimacy of the car, and the natural elements that frame the shot. In their time, the zeppelins represented technological prowess. What would the photographer have thought about what was to come?