London Zoo Photography Archive

That´s amazing, thank you for posting!

The part about chasing the thylacine, so it would get exhausted and stood still for the photograph; camel-lawnmower.. wow

I would love to get a chance to browse through these archives..
 
I've never seen a photo of Pink-headed Ducks at ZSL(?) before. I believe they were classed as some form of abberant Pochard species, but from the bill size/shape they look to me nearer to the Tree Ducks.

Dreadful tale about the Thylacine! Presumbly in those days an animal had to keep stock still for the exposure to work properly so you can see why they had to do that to get its picture. And of course it wasn't considered rare then anyway.
 
Pertinax said:
I've never seen a photo of Pink-headed Ducks at ZSL(?) before. I believe they were classed as some form of abberant Pochard species, but from the bill size/shape they look to me nearer to the Tree Ducks.
Click to expand...

The picture is in the book 'London Zoo from Old Photographs'. It's a fascinating book, one of my favourites.
 
Pertinax said:
Dreadful tale about the Thylacine! Presumbly in those days an animal had to keep stock still for the exposure to work properly so you can see why they had to do that to get its picture. And of course it wasn't considered rare then anyway.
Click to expand...

I think the photo was taken in the 1860s when plates were so slow that only stationary subjects could be photographed. It's hard to imagine those days now, but they certainly didn't know that the thylacine had only 70 years left as a species and I suppose that they must have done the same to other animals too. The nature photographers code of conduct is a relatively new invention.

Alan
 
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