Historic Animal Photography

Early History of Animal Photos

Image by Dell Mulmey at Wikimedia in the public domain.

It all started with a cow. Today, we see animal photography everywhere, whether it be pet portraits, advertisements, or images to accompany news articles. Take the image above. This photo is of a dog named Pal, who was the first dog ever to portray Lassie. This shot was taken during the filming of the movie Lassie Come Home in 1942.

However, many other historic animal photos came both before this and some amazing ones afterwards. Let’s take a step inside the photo time machine and go back to the beginning.

Image by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey at Wikimedia in the public domain.

The first ever photograph of an animal was taken by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey in 1842 and was the image of a cow lying in front of some farm equipment. The photo was taken using the daguerreotype process of photography, which created an image on a silver-plated sheet of copper.

Image by Nicolaas Henneman at Wikimedia in the public domain.

Pet photography is a huge industry these days, with people shelling out money to capture an endearing photo of their beloved furry friends. The first known pet portrait was taken in 1847 by photographer Nicolaas Henneman when author Mary Mitford approached Henneman to take a photo of her dog.

Henneman was skeptical due to the exposure time to take a photo back in those days, but ended up relenting and taking the picture. The dog had to remain motionless for four minutes.

Image by John Dillwyn Llewelyn at Wikimedia in the public domain.

For many years, wildlife photography has captured people’s imaginations, with some of the most popular magazines today being National Geographic and National Wildlife. John Dillwyn Llewelyn is credited with taking one of the first-ever wildlife photos in 1856 when he took a photo of a heron in a pond.

Due to the exposure time needed in order to process a photograph back in those days, Llewelyn used a stuffed heron for the photo.

Image by George Shiras III at Wikimedia in the public domain.

In time, wildlife was able to be photographed live, rather than stuffed, and George Shiras III was the first photographer to have live animals published in a magazine. In 1906, National Geographic published some of Shiras’s photographs taken of deer at night.

In order to capture his images, Shiras set up trip wires with bait for the deer. When the deer went for the bait, it tripped the wires, causing a flash to go off to capture the photos at night.

Unknown author at Wikimedia through Creative Commons licensing.

When MGM studios (aka Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) was originally founded in 1924, publicist Howard Dietz came up with the idea of using a lion for the studio’s logo. The very first lion used was named Slats and can be seen in the photo above.

Image uploaded to Wikimedia by Meikowkmeomi Othumddroa under Creative Commons licensing.

In 1957, photos of a once stray dog named Laika made worldwide headlines when she became the first animal in space. Sadly, for Laika, it was a one-way trip aboard Sputnik 2, but her heroism has forever lived on in museums, videos, children’s books, and more.

The above is just a small number of animals that have made photo history throughout the years. Others include Morris, the cat for Nine Lives, who spent 10 years in commercials and ads as the company’s “spokesperson,” Koko, the first gorilla to be taught sign language and Dolly, the first cloned mammal.

Author’s own image.

Since their onset, animal photos have captivated us and will continue to do so in one form or another. It’s time to return now to the present day from our photo time machine, and I will leave you with one last animal photo. No, she’s not famous, so don’t worry if you don’t recognize her. I am shamelessly adding a modern-day photo of my baby, Sierra, to end this article.

Sources:

https://petapixel.com/2024/03/01/the-very-first-pets-ever-to-be-photographed/

https://www.wildfocus.org/blog2/2017/11/9/early-wildlife-photography-and-art

https://www.logodesignlove.com/the-mgm-lions

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/sad-story-laika-space-dog-and-her-one-way-trip-orbit-1-180968728/