Hello, I recently found a large newspaper clipping of a photo of the Hindenburg mid-explosion and I am looking for more information on it. I have done some research and it appears to be a relatively common photograph, however I would love to find out the original photographer or the institution holding the original print. Here is the photo I found: http://imgur.com/a/ALJIY and here is the Wikimedia page for it: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hindenburg_burning.jpg
The photographer was Augustine "Gus" Pasquarella of the Philadelphia Bulletin, as stated on the Wikimedia page (it was misattributed to Murray Becker on that page and I corrected it a few years back). It is also important to note that most pictures of the Hindenburg disaster have been cropped. I've also seen a darker print with more contrast such that it almost looks like it was nighttime, while the ones you posted have more details in the shadows. The disaster happened in the evening when it was still daylight. It's interesting to note that there are no known photographs of the earliest stages of the fire, which suggests that the stern was engulfed in flames quite quickly and most photographers reacted at nearly the same time. Also, the mooring mast was red and white, not black as it appears in some photos, and it was quite some distance away from the airship when it crashed. The two black dots underneath the hull are two water ballast or fuel tanks that burst out of the hull when the fire started.
I'm not sure where the original print would be, but you could try contacting Temple University, since they have a news photograph negative collection with Pasquarella listed: https://library.temple.edu/scrc/news-negative-photograph
Pasquarella took a few photos of the crash but the one you posted is circulated most often. It's hard to find all of them and the credit to him, but they can be identified by the same orientation of the mooring mast and the building on the bottom right of it.
On the following page, all the photos except the third one are by Pasquarella. The first photo was taken shortly before the fire started (the ship drifted towards starboard in the last minute). I'm not sure who took the third photo as there are two very similar photos from that angle at nearly the same time. http://himavant.blogspot.ca/2012/05/photos-of-hindenburg-disaster-at.html
This picture is very similar to Pasquarella's in the post above, but is much clearer and taken at different angle. I'm not sure who took this. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2015/09/25/booktalkhindenberg/01booktalkhindenberg.jpg
Here's another copy of the pre-fire photo: http://lh5.ggpht.com/-5tbGXktk0x4/UPDRdUZbXaI/AAAAAAAACJ8/r4uZpLIdh0o/final%252520moments_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg
There exists at least two other pre-fire images similar to Pasquarella's above but they are not widely published. Note the engine cars of the ship are in a different position from Pasquarella's. The fire photograph on this newspaper with the mooring mast was photographed by Harry McGonigal, a few seconds before Pasquarella's. It doesn't look like the pre-fire photo was by him unless he moved his position between the timeframe of the two photos. Here's a poor quality photo of the newspaper: https://www.instagram.com/p/BFEzTeetnjq/ The other similar pre-fire photo I have not seen but airship historian Patrick Russell told me said it shows the mast seemingly above the control gondola.
The most widely published photo of the disaster (for example on Led Zeppelin's debut album cover), also showing the mooring mast in the foreground but at a later stage of the fire, was photographed by Sam Shere. During the crash he only took one photo and literally shot it from the hip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster#/media/File:Hindenburg_disaster.jpg