Talbert Abrams - Philanthropist & Father of Aerial Photography
By Willie Bodenstein
02.08.2026
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Talbert Abrams was born on 17 August 1896 in Tekonsha, Michigan in the USA eight years before the Wright Brothers first took to the air at Kittyhawk. Hearing the news from his father so inspired him that from that day on his life was dedicated to airplanes and flying.
 
It is little wonder then that when he was old enough he started working for the Curtiss aircraft factory while learning to fly and was awarded the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale licence 282.
In 1917 now 17 years old and a year before the end of WWI he joined the US Marine Corps and trained at the US Navy flying school in Pensacola. After WWI, his squadron took photos of rebel activities in Haiti and it sparked his interest in aerial photography.
 
Aerial Photography, that refers to birds-eyes views of images of landscapes and surface objects, should not be confused with air to air photography. It was first practised in 1858 by a French balloonist Gaspard Felix Tournachon.
In 1920, he left the military and bought a used Curtiss JN-4 plane. He started a small airline called ABC Airline (Always Be Careful) but photography, like flying his other his passion, remained and in 1923, he sold the Jenny.
He then bought a Standard J-1 plane and founded the Abrams Aerial Survey Corporation. Equipping the J-1 with cameras he combined his two passions. In 2003 he sold to Aerocon and established the Abrams Instrument Corporation to make better cameras and tools for his aerial work.
In 1937, he formed the Abrams Aircraft Corporation and developed a new aircraft, the Explorer, the first aeroplane designed specifically for aerial photography.
War clouds was brewing over Europe and Talbert started the Abrams Instrument Corporation that produced reconnaissance cameras for military aircraft. He also started the Abrams School of Aerial Surveying to teach the US military the important skill of aerial photo interpretation. In 1961, Curtiss-Wright bought the Abrams Instrument Corporation.
A philanthropist, in 1962 Abrams and his wife made a large donation to Michigan State University in order to fund the construction of a Planetarium, which was then named in their honour. He was also part of Operation Deep Freeze, an expedition to explore the South Pole. Because of his generosity and expertise he was awarded the Antarctic Service Medal and became one of the few people in the world when one of this cold frozen continent's prominent mountains was named after him.
Talbert Abrams passed away in a nursing home in Lansing, Michigan, on 26 August 1990 at age 95. His legacy lives on in the cameras fitted to space rockets and the new generations of drones that I have now taken over the aerial mapping industry.
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