Vliegende ooievaar before 1905

Curator: Here we have a photographic print titled "Vliegende ooievaar," or "Flying Stork" by Ottomar Anschütz, likely produced before 1905. It's a gelatin-silver print. The clarity he achieves is quite remarkable. Editor: My first impression is that the artist captured an instant of delicate power. I immediately think about its original state within a book and its relation to the physical material within the spread. Curator: Precisely. Anschütz dedicated much of his work to capturing birds in flight, pioneering techniques in motion photography. The stork itself has carried such symbolic weight across cultures and throughout time. Fertility, rebirth, spring... a divine messenger perhaps? Editor: And that weight surely transfers through the specific properties of gelatin silver. There's something very grounded in the earthiness of its materials; that, contrasted with a bird known to fly thousands of miles in the sky creates a beautiful dichotomy between the physical world, where we stand, and something much greater than that. It feels so early in photography's lifecycle and I wonder what apparatus Anschütz was using? Curator: He definitely was inventing ways of making multiple instantaneous photographs. It reminds us that photographic print wasn't purely a product of the camera or darkroom, but required ingenuity. Beyond myth and legend, it connects us to the very real migration of storks, to their arduous journeys across vast landscapes. There's something truly inspiring about that endurance. Editor: Looking closely I see it here, but printed onto fragile book paper next to text. Photography here exists more as a reference material. And in so doing this print reminds me of the material contexts and possibilities inherent within images we would not generally see outside the context of an academic setting. Curator: It offers a powerful glimpse into how visual symbols intertwine with the natural world and human ingenuity. It connects early scientific methods, an urge for symbolism, and how these merge. Editor: Exactly. And looking closer makes me feel a closer connection to that relationship too.