In a recent Monster Mike video (my grandson’s favorite YouTube fishing celebrity), he and his fishing partner attached a GoPro (with a chip clip, no less!) to a shark’s fin. Griffin and I watched as the shark swam and the camera recorded as far as the fishing line would allow. We didn’t get to see much of anything but aquatic plants, yet the whole idea of a GoPro attached with a chip clip was pretty cool.
Coincidentally, a day later, I saw a photo of a turn-of-the-century pigeon with a miniature camera attached to its breast. Was this a hoax? I knew that pigeons were used to carry messages during war, but photographs? I investigated and found that the photo was historically accurate and that there were, indeed, camera pigeons.
Dr. Julius Neubronner, a German apothecary, submitted a patent for a new invention in 1907, a few years after the Wright brothers made their famous flight at Kittyhawk. His invention? The pigeon camera: a small, lightweight camera fitted with a harness and a timer, so that photos could be taken during flight. His invention featured a pneumatic timing mechanism which would go off at regular intervals in puffs of compressed air that would trigger the exposure. Generally, the pigeons flew in a 60-mile range, so this allowed Neubronner to collect many photos from a relatively large area.
Initially, Neubronner created the camera for his own purposes of tracking his flock of pigeons. He quickly discovered the possible commercial and espionage benefits of his invention, though, and he began showing it and selling postcards of his birds’ aerial photography at expositions all over the world.
Some have claimed that the pigeon camera was our first drone. The photos are wholly dependent on the pigeons’ flight routes and are often random, with angles awry and wing feathers framing shots. Still, in addition to photos from kites and hot air balloons, they are some of our earliest aerial photos. Neubronner’s camera pigeons gathered surveillance photos at the battles of Verdun and Somme during WWI. In the Washington D. C. Spy Museum, these birds and their early technology have their own room. Airplanes–and later drones–and their ability to take targeted aerial photos would quickly replace the camera pigeon, but for a short time, this invention allowed military forces to see behind enemy lines without leaving their positions. Some sources claim that the CIA used this technology even as late as the 1970s.
As one whose father raised and raced homing pigeons, I admit that I had never heard of Dr. Julius Neubronner and the camera pigeon. His turn-of-the-century technology rivals the GoPro attached with a chip clip to a shark fin. Griffin and I watched the Monster Mike video, waiting for another creature–a shark, squid, or octopus maybe–to appear and wow us. But for three minutes, the shark swam along the ocean floor capturing footage of plants and a few tiny (and I mean you had to look really closely to see them at all) fish.
Photographing from pigeons or sharks is a crap shoot. In the end, photographers strap expensive pieces of technology onto birds or fish who have no clue that their special mission is to find and capture specific images. In contrast to drone photography, there is something wonderfully wild about these pictures. It’s like putting your quarter into one of those toy machines with little plastic rings, key chains, and assorted small figures and hoping beyond hope that you will actually get the prize of your desire–and not another smiley face sticker. In these moments of expectation and waiting, you can imagine what you will receive. In your mind’s eye, it’s even more glorious with each re-imagining. And even if you did receive another smiley face sticker, you convince yourself that there’s always a next time. I wonder if Julius Neubronner felt this way each time he strapped a little camera onto one of his pigeons and released him or her. I like to think that he did.
I have no pigeons or sharks. Nor do I have an actual camera, save my cell phone. Just fifty yards from my house, however, there is a pen of seven chickens who have been known to escape and canvas the area. And I do have a new roll of duct tape just itching to be used. I could tape my phone onto the chest of one of these hens and see what incredible photos I could get. . . or not.
