In 1907, just a few years after the Wright brothers took off in kitty hawk, and during the flight people were still measured in meters and minutes, Dr. Julius Neubronner, a German Apothecary, has applied for a patent for new invention: the pigeon camera. The device was exactly what it sounds like—a small camera is equipped with straps and is equipped with a timer, so that the pigeons can wear it and take pictures in flight. Neubronner first used the device’s own flock of carrier pigeons, which he sometimes used to deliver medication. In later years he showed his camera at international exhibitions, where they also sell postcards was taken by the birds. In addition, he has developed a portable, horse dovecote, with a dark room attached to it that can be moved close to the object or area the photographer hopes to capture on top. This invention represents a breakthrough in that time, allowing for observations with the speed and range that was previously impossible. (Will the camera really wanted to capture the desired object, depends on luck and the vagaries of the pigeons.) This technology will soon be adapted for use in war time cameras serve as very early prototypes of drones—although by the time of the First World War, a few years later, airplanes, enabling people to do what only the pigeons could do before.
Neubronner developed the pigeon camera for practical purposes. At first he was just hoping to track the flights of birds in his flock. But his invention is also a more sublime achievement. Image of doves in captivity, placed in the “pigeon photographer,” the latest book from Rorhof, are among the earliest photos of Earth from above—the earliest aerial photographs, taken from balloons and kites—and the GoPro as the quality of the direction of movement of the animal. This perspective is so familiar to us now, in which the roof to stretch out before us as if they were made of children’s blocks, and people crawling like ants, it was a rare sight when Neubronner took his pigeon pictures. They offered a glimpse into the world provided a pocket size, as it will end up a hundred types of new technology—whether it’s flying in airplanes, or up skyscrapers, or poking around Google Earth. But there’s also something a little bizarre about the picture, it is because they were made birds. Their framing is random, and their angles to the side; sometimes the wing of the pen obscures the view. Pigeons, of course, the most pedestrian of birds, but looking at these oddities of fine pictures or photos Neubronner birds looking upright and noble photo sets, they begin to seem like heavenly creatures.
Sourse: newyorker.com
