Photos: The Holy Grail of Preservation

The final unit of our Population class we discussed and learned about how populations grow and change. We took a trip to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum to view the change of population among butterflies along with seeing the change of Chicago from a nature preserve. For our last unit we created a very short and small one day action project that focused on methods of preservation. I decided to write a short essay about photography and what it has done for us in terms of preservation. I hope you enjoy; thank you. 

Photography has been around for a long time without a doubt; with the oldest camera being made in the 1500s. This camera was called the Camera Obscura and was the first pinhole camera. This camera would let in a small amounts of light through a small hole in a very dark area. The image would be projected onto the wall and would be traced out with pencils or paint. Photographs and pictures are a simple way of preserving the look of something; they are a visual time stamp.

In the image below we are clearly able to see what it's attempting to show. Photography is great for preserving the specific look of a thing compared to a written description. If someone were to write about the look of the yellow flower it would probably take a long time to get all the specifics of the flower. Taking a photograph is a much simpler way obtaining the the look of something with detail and precision. A picture is worth one thousand words. Without photographs, many people wouldn’t know what a polar bear looked like.

IF 2017 "Yellow Fellow"

Photography is a very useful tool as a preservation method. Photography can help scientists get an accurate description of an organism's physical traits, the habitat it lives in, and the organism’s resources. Drawing works the same as photography but it’s less efficient and can’t gather specifics and dimensions like photos can. A still photo for the most pat can’t be wrong with the the dimensions of a thing, drawing can be inconsistent and the look could be changed due to human error. Sight is one of the most useful traits for some organisms; making photographs very helpful for seeing something that is potentially dangerous without actually going face to face with it. Photography has helped us preserve the look and the behavior of organisms for a very long time.