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Now and then: Tiger-Cave

A little tryout for an upcoming project. Over the years I bought many negatives and old photos on ebay of the Tierpark Hagenbeck at Hamburg. So all original data used for this project are owned by me. The idea is simple: As an photographer I try to recreate old photos from back in the day as accurate as possible. I try to get the same angle, POV, and so on. My first (not perfect) tryout is this. The tiger-cave was located to the right of the famous lion-enclosure and also built in the same year and opened in 1907. It was connected to the lion-house via the door in the lower left hand corner of the picture. In the beginning there was many different carnivores here on display, from leopards to bears and wild dogs. When the Tierpark got the first breeding pair of amur tigers it was housed here. On this picture from 1930 you see the female tiger (on the floor) with two offspring (on the rock). For tigers this enclosure was used until in the early 50s the new exhibit was opened (that is today still in use, just extended). After that the cave kept mostly wolves. In the early 80s, when the rocks were renovated, the fence was removed and some of the rocks were broken down, so the cave had now (not in the picture) an open top to the left side. After many year being empty this exhibit is now extended to the front and keeps porcupines. If you like this project I will post more of these in the future. A big thanks to SIM who enabled the GIF for the gallery :)

Now and then: Tiger-Cave
    • Animal
      A little tryout for an upcoming project.

      Over the years I bought many negatives and old photos on ebay of the Tierpark Hagenbeck at Hamburg. So all original data used for this project are owned by me.
      The idea is simple: As an photographer I try to recreate old photos from back in the day as accurate as possible. I try to get the same angle, POV, and so on.
      My first (not perfect) tryout is this.

      The tiger-cave was located to the right of the famous lion-enclosure and also built in the same year and opened in 1907. It was connected to the lion-house via the door in the lower left hand corner of the picture. In the beginning there was many different carnivores here on display, from leopards to bears and wild dogs. When the Tierpark got the first breeding pair of amur tigers it was housed here. On this picture from 1930 you see the female tiger (on the floor) with two offspring (on the rock).
      For tigers this enclosure was used until in the early 50s the new exhibit was opened (that is today still in use, just extended). After that the cave kept mostly wolves. In the early 80s, when the rocks were renovated, the fence was removed and some of the rocks were broken down, so the cave had now (not in the picture) an open top to the left side. After many year being empty this exhibit is now extended to the front and keeps porcupines.

      If you like this project I will post more of these in the future.

      A big thanks to SIM who enabled the GIF for the gallery :)
    • TeaLovingDave
      Very pleased to see you have managed to get this working :) I would be very interested to see further photographs along these lines - it's always good to get a new perspective on the history of a given enclosure.
    • LaughingDove
      This is really cool, Animal! What a great idea and well executed too :)
    • devilfish
      Incredibly well done, good work Animal! :)
    • zooman
      What a great idea and very well executed!
    • zooboy28
      This is brilliant Animal, well done - and a great idea, which could probably be done for quite a few other zoos, although ownership of some of the older photos may be an issue. The description of the exhibit's history is also much appreciated, its always amazing how inhabitants change as standards get higher.
    • gentle lemur
      A very interesting idea, but I would be frightened by the amount of work involved in just on one image. Getting the right viewpoint, the right focal length, possibly the right lighting for shadows and, ideally, an animal in the shot too, would involve repeated visits and a daunting amount of note taking - and then the frustrating business of matching the images would start. But of course one good result would be wonderful and a portfolio would be spectacular! I would love to see more.
      Good luck with this project.

      Alan
    • Animal
      Thank you for all the feedback. We will see how much time it'll take in the end :)
    • zoogiraffe
      Superb to see the difference keep up the work,my friend and I look forward to seeing more in the future!
    • stubeanz
      wow! very, very cool!
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  • Category:
    Tierpark Hagenbeck
    Uploaded By:
    Animal
    Date:
    11 Feb 2015
    View Count:
    2,598
    Comment Count:
    12