19th century ornithology books with photographs?
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1Sami_Bolman
Do you know of any 19th century ornithology books that had photographs of the birds instead of drawings? Saw some photos of birds of prey taken in the 1890s, which were extremely fascinating, and thought that there must be a few books from that era which employed photos for illustration.
Any recommendations are appreciated.
Any recommendations are appreciated.
2affle
>1 Sami_Bolman:
Hello again. I've looked into this for a moment after your earlier post, and as I suspected, there seems to be very little. My source is a New Naturalist volume Books and Naturalists, which has a few paragraphs on early bird photography. Even after the development of dry plates (about 1880), which allowed the photographer to move away from their laboratory, the equipment was so heavy that there were difficulties in getting into suitable settings. The book records that the first photograph of birds in the wild in print was in 1888, a picture of swans at Abbotsbury in a Dorset avifauna, and then six years later, a Pembroke avifauna with four pictures of gannets and kittiwakes. Then before the end of the century there was a four-volume folio Among British Birds in their Nesting Haunts: Illustrated by the Camera. The snag with this one was that of the 140 photographs, all but one were of empty nests. Around the turn of the century there were a few more popular books for the egg collecting world. An early book that may have actual birds in - my source isn't clear - is In Birdland with Field-glasses and Camera by Oliver G Pike, published by T Fisher Unwin in 1900.
Good luck with your search.
Hello again. I've looked into this for a moment after your earlier post, and as I suspected, there seems to be very little. My source is a New Naturalist volume Books and Naturalists, which has a few paragraphs on early bird photography. Even after the development of dry plates (about 1880), which allowed the photographer to move away from their laboratory, the equipment was so heavy that there were difficulties in getting into suitable settings. The book records that the first photograph of birds in the wild in print was in 1888, a picture of swans at Abbotsbury in a Dorset avifauna, and then six years later, a Pembroke avifauna with four pictures of gannets and kittiwakes. Then before the end of the century there was a four-volume folio Among British Birds in their Nesting Haunts: Illustrated by the Camera. The snag with this one was that of the 140 photographs, all but one were of empty nests. Around the turn of the century there were a few more popular books for the egg collecting world. An early book that may have actual birds in - my source isn't clear - is In Birdland with Field-glasses and Camera by Oliver G Pike, published by T Fisher Unwin in 1900.
Good luck with your search.
3Sami_Bolman
>2 affle: Can't thank you enough for taking the time to post this. Valuable information indeed and should be a great guidance in my research. Regards.
4lorax
What an interesting question!
I did a bit of googling for "history of field guides". There doesn't seem to be a great deal - photographic technology requiring long exposures and birds aren't a great match. I will caveat that I have no familiarity with any of the books in question.
One article mentions an 1897 guide with photographs - of dead, stuffed birds rather than live ones.
Another source (pdf link) mentions the same one (including a reproduction of one of the photos) plus an additional "photos of mounted birds" volume.
Taking a different approach and instead looking at the "history of wildlife photography" brings up this article which mentions what may be the same book on nests that affle describes (the title is different, but it's also a book on British birds' nests from 1895).
Pictures of live wild birds? Clearly there were some here and there, but it doesn't look like enough for a whole book to be photographic-based rather than based on drawings in the 19th century.
I did a bit of googling for "history of field guides". There doesn't seem to be a great deal - photographic technology requiring long exposures and birds aren't a great match. I will caveat that I have no familiarity with any of the books in question.
One article mentions an 1897 guide with photographs - of dead, stuffed birds rather than live ones.
Another source (pdf link) mentions the same one (including a reproduction of one of the photos) plus an additional "photos of mounted birds" volume.
Taking a different approach and instead looking at the "history of wildlife photography" brings up this article which mentions what may be the same book on nests that affle describes (the title is different, but it's also a book on British birds' nests from 1895).
Pictures of live wild birds? Clearly there were some here and there, but it doesn't look like enough for a whole book to be photographic-based rather than based on drawings in the 19th century.
