This week, Amy asks us to share our images and thoughts on a challenge she calls, “On Display”. You can read her entire challenge post here. Being unable to drive by a museum without stopping, I have many, probably hundreds, images of museum displays that I can share for this challenge. However, I have a single collection of favorites that came from the Denver Nature and Science Museum.

Though taxidermy is no longer the draw for museum attendees it once was and museums are paring down the quantity of such exhibits, I was totally impressed by the quality of displays of animals from around the world still available for viewing at this award winning Denver museum. Their displays are so large and well done that one can truly go around the world without leaving the building.

Even though the displays are encased behind glass, judicious viewing of the image in the viewfinder and careful composition can eliminate most reflections that spoil the realism of the resulting photograph. What reflections remained in my images were removed using post processing via Photoshop Elements. To give readers an idea of the size of some of the displays, I conclude this post with an image that features a wide angle panoramic view of one of their large African dioramas.

If you look carefully, you can see that the image appears “cutoff” on the right as you can only see one of the zebras featured in the middle image. If you view the display “close-up”, you’ll see a small herd of zebras and a beautifully composed landscape. All three of the images in this challenge response feature the very same diorama.

What I really enjoyed about the photographs captured at the Denver museum was attempting to make the images look as realistic as possible during their creation. The transition between foreground elements and the painted backgrounds are seamless. For more views of the African diorama displays at the museum, check out the gallery of images from a Travel Tuesday post last March. You can view the gallery here.

John Steiner

Denver, Colorado.

Last week’s Travel Tuesday found us at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The large collection of animal species are documented in 89 dioramas. Not being much of a world traveler, I have chosen to focus mostly upon the many places to visit in the United States. Since becoming a blogger, however, I’ve met many online friends who have shared their particular view of the world. One such blogging site takes me to Africa every week. de Wets Wild is an award winning travel blog focusing on the Mother Continent’s abundant wildlife. I will probably never go on an African photo safari, but I have been living that dream through the de Wets blog. You can read about their adventures here.

And that brings me to the topic at hand, a virtual safari to view some of the iconic animals and landscapes of the cradle of civilization. The displays like the example in the opening photo present a glimpse into the vast plains and great deserts. Though the photos I captured appear almost as if the animals are paintings, they consist of taxidermy, simulated plants and foreground elements, and beautifully painted backgrounds.  Where else could I stand and study the exposure, composition, and other technical aspects of an image as a predator dashes after its prey. The displays are not only works of art, but are scientifically and technically as accurate as they can be made given the small physical constraints.

Most of the images captured in this post focus on smaller components of a larger diorama. That was done for two reasons, not the least of which is positioning to avoid the inevitable reflections on the glass protective fronts of the displays. The other reason is that many of the dioramas have too much detail for their large size making it hard to view detail on a typical web page.

As I prepared to put this post together, I did my usual “research”, an online search for information about the dioramas at the museum. In the search results, I discovered an interesting article entitled “Museum Dioramas Are as Endangered as the Animals They Contain” published in August, 2015 on the Newsweek Magazine website. As you might imagine, the easy availability of travel, video and photography gear, virtual reality displays and other modern visual technologies, prompted one curator to write that dioramas “are often viewed by today’s visitors as a dead zoo located in a dark tunnel.” Even so, the article goes on to say that those who feel that the dioramas are going away may be wrong, citing some examples of a resurgence of the technology. You can read the entire article here.

I must admit to feeling there might be something wrong with the preservation of these magnificent animals in a display when I can find any number of online videos where I might see live animals in motion living their daily lives. Some of what was said in that Newsweek article echoed my feelings as I walked through the displays. Yet, they are so well done that they can be studied with the understanding that they are technically correct in their portrayal and that the information on nearby plaques reflect an educational experience that is first rate. You can review more of the sights I captured at the Denver Museum here.

Creating these images in post processing was a fun process for me. I needed to try to eliminate all reflective cues that these images were not from the “real world”. I leave it to you to judge how well I did. I submit the entire gallery of images I prepared for you to view from my own virtual African photo safari. As always, you can click on an image to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery (at least in most browsers, anyway.)

John Steiner

On a mid-November day, Lynn and I found us visiting the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with our friend Fred Mast. There is so much to see and do at the museum, you could easily spend an entire day. We wandered the museum’s exhibit halls including presentations focusing on health, Russian gem carvings, an exhibit on the lifestyles on the island of Cuba. Our main attraction for the day, however, focused on the 89 dioramas of wildlife from around the world. The opening image features a panorama so large, I couldn’t fit it all into a multiple shot panorama without resorting to an unusual perspective view and even then, the left edge of the image cut off the complete display.

Probably what impressed me most about the dioramas is how the background almost seamlessly integrates into the foreground displays. It truly is almost just like being there. It was my challenge to create wildlife photos of these specimens gathered from all over the world. 

It would be almost too easy to pass off these images as real wildlife photography. The biggest problem that a photographer deals with is the large glass wall separating the exhibit from the visitors. Many a shot was rejected as I processed the images because I didn’t notice a reflection on the glass from a nearby exhibit or lighted hallway. Even though I watched carefully for reflections, until I saw them on the screen at home, I didn’t notice them. In a few cases, Photoshop Elements came to the rescue to remove reflections from the skies. More photos of the dioramas are in this week’s gallery and a special gallery presentation from the museum will be featured next week where I saved my best images from this visit.

One gallery I found fascinating featured the work of Vasily Konovalenko who designed several carvings using gem stones. The museum houses twenty sculptures which were purchased and donated for permanent display at the museum. This collection is the only public display of his work outside of Moscow. More sculptures are featured in the gallery below. Again, the hard part of capturing the work in photographs is having to shoot through plexiglass.

We spent some time in an interactive area where “children” of all ages enjoyed hands-on games and activities. One of my favorite games to watch featured a grid of letters on the floor where the player was shown an object on a screen and the player had to jump from letter to letter on the grid to spell the word being displayed. It was interesting to see how the player’s thought process worked as they had to reach farther than they could jump if they didn’t think ahead to the next few letters.

The game that I spent the most time watching, however, was similar to a giant pinball machine, but unlike the traditional machine, the angle of the table wasn’t fixed. The rather heavy table is balanced on a pivot and requires a group of people to work together to tilt the table at the appropriate angle to get the steel ball to roll into the next hole. Success came only to those who could “group think” and act in accordance with the group to tilt the table appropriately.

There was so much to see and do there that we will no doubt be back again to see some of the stuff that we missed. Our goal this trip was to have fun “capturing” those wildlife shots that we will never have the opportunity to capture in the wild. I submit for your review a gallery of images captured in the museum. In most browsers, you can click on an image to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner