Wild Bird Photographed from Above, Rocky Ground, 1950 — Archive & Atlas
AA-2026-9F5882
AA-2026-9F5882
On the image
Someone in 1950 crouched over a bird on rocky ground and pointed a camera straight down, which is exactly the kind of wildlife photography technique that sounds straightforward until you look at the result. The bird — dark-backed with a warm buff throat, likely a wagtail or similar insectivore of open stony terrain — is caught mid-stillness, apparently unaware or unbothered, which the photographer would have taken as success. Amateur natural-history documentation in this era operated on the sincere belief that proximity plus a shutter equalled a record, and the blurred edges of the frame are the honest evidence of what the technology could actually deliver. The bird, for its part, was simply doing what birds do on rocky ground, unaware it had become a subject of science.
Visually related — by likeness
Wild Bird Photographed from Above, Rocky Ground, 1950. 1950. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-9F5882. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/wild-bird-photographed-from-above-rocky-ground-1950.
@misc{aaAA20269F5882,
title = {Wild Bird Photographed from Above, Rocky Ground, 1950},
year = {1950},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-9F5882},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/wild-bird-photographed-from-above-rocky-ground-1950}
}TY - ART TI - Wild Bird Photographed from Above, Rocky Ground, 1950 PY - 1950 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-9F5882 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/wild-bird-photographed-from-above-rocky-ground-1950 ER -
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