Rarity of WW2 airfield construction photos

Just as a follow up, I have probably assembled one of the largest collections of construction images on UK airfield construction for the 1940's. I can certainly attest to the number of dead end searches I encountered.
It has been pointed out to me that the reasons for very few photographs are:
1. cost of photography back in the day was very expensive.
2. obvious secrecy issues and the trust of having photographers present

Thoughts????

There was also a great shortage of film available in the UK. Most pictures Ive seen tend to be of the American bases being built by the US Army.

canberra;76097 wrote:

There was also a great shortage of film available in the UK. Most pictures Ive seen tend to be of the American bases being built by the US Army.

Yes, I had no trouble finding US construction photos. From what I understand, the US were also farther ahead in photographic technology than most other countries at the time.

Many airfields were built by USAAF Construction Battalions and the build was under military control and manning so assigning, or calling in, an Army photographer was probably usual. Apart from some built by RAF Airfield Construction Squadron, most were constructed by civil contractors, the famous names of the day and, I opine, had very little direct RAF supervision during work. The priority was that it should be finished ASAP. That said, I would have expected more RAF photography of the finished work as the 'fields were occupied, if only for the Operational Record Book.

The reality I suspect is that many thousands of prints and negatives were destroyed as unwanted in post-war years.

There are a few on photo's on this site scarwaf.freeservers.com/photo.html amongst a load of other irrelevant photo's

NPaul,
I have the build history of Matching as published by the 834th EAB. When I locate it I will have to read through it to see who was responsible for the bricklaying on that particular airfield. I do know that one part mentions how many bricks were laid, but not by whom.

I saw a marvellous photo a while back of civilian bricklayers building the dividing walls within a Nissen or Maycrete hut. They were dressed exactly as all rural workers, farm or otherwise, were then. Heavy army style boots, grey wool trousers, shirt, waistcaot and cap, usually with a neckerchief of some kind. And very distinctly British, probably East Anglian.

Here it is. Ridgewell.