The Adirondack Museum Celebrates Hobart Vosburg Roberts' Wildlife Photography

Written by Parker Wadhams Saturday, 02 July 2011 00:16

Blue Mountain Lake, NY.- The Adirondack Museum is pleased to present "Night Vision: The Wildlife Photography of Hobart Vosburg Roberts", on view until October 17th. The exhibition will introduce the pioneering work of this Adirondack photographer. Roberts (1874-1959) was one of a small corps of amateur photographers who developed ingenious techniques for doing what no one had done before: capturing birds and animals in their natural habitat without disturbing or distracting them with a human presence. Most notably, the Utica native was a participant in the early 20th century conservation movement, led by President Theodore Roosevelt, who advocated for the careful stewardship of the country's natural resources.

Infinitely patient, Hobart Roberts developed a thorough knowledge of Adirondack wildlife and their habits. Deer jacking (placing a light source in the bow of a boat to hunt deer at night) inspired Roberts to consider night photography, "perpetuating on his films the beautiful forms of animals as he had glimpsed them in the midnight mystery of the forest." A feature article in the New York Times, August 26, 1928, described Roberts "hunting with a camera in the Adirondacks."

Roberts rigged his canoe with two cameras and a flash pan. Rowing quietly, he would edge as near to a deer or other wild creature as possible. Two flashes timed a second apart allowed Roberts to capture the leap of a deer or a loon taking flight; the first flash startled the animals into movement; the camera recorded the animals as the second flash illuminated their flight from the noise and smoke. Roberts' camera caught deer in mid-leap and birds taking flight, some of the first night action photographs of wild animals. Roberts also developed trip wires and attached bait to the camera shutter and flash mechanism so animals would essentially take their own portraits.


In one instance, he rigged a moisture proof camera to a fine brass wire set in the water with a live fish attached. The fish, struggling to break free, attracted a Great Blue Heron, which tripped the camera and synchronized flash as it pulled on the fish. Roberts also recorded mink, raccoon, owl, fox, beaver, and skunk using tuna as bait.The patience and tenacity Roberts exercised in his work is perhaps best evident in his images of loons. These shy birds are naturally wary of humans, yet Roberts photographed them at close range many times. In an attempt to fool the birds, he had his assistant row about and converse with a dummy dressed in his clothes while he waited behind a blind to get the shot.

More than merely endearing (although they are), Roberts' Adirondack wildlife photographs represent an important breakthrough in science and the technology of photography. His work was published in Audubon Magazine, Country Life, Modern Photography, and The National Geographic Magazine. Famed photographer Edward Steichen selected Roberts' work for inclusion in U.S. Camera 1940, along with the images of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Eliot Porter. Roberts also received recognition with numerous awards and exhibitions across the country and in England, Italy, and Austria. "Night Vision" will feature approximately 35 original large-format Roberts photographs of Adirondack wildlife. Roberts' camera equipment, colored lithographic prints, hand-colored transparencies, published works, and his many awards will also be exhibited. Label text will describe not only the photographer's techniques, but also his own accounts of working in the Adirondacks. Exhibited in the Woods and Waters gallery, the exhibit will also explore the habits and habitats of the Adirondack animals Roberts knew so well and captured on film.


The Adirondack Museum, located on NY-30 in the hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake in Hamilton County, New York, is a museum dedicated to preserving the history of the Adirondacks. The museum is located on the site of an historic summer resort hotel, the Blue Mountain House, built high above Blue Mountain Lake in 1876, that operated until the late 1940s. It's collections include historic artifacts, photographs, archival materials, and fine art documenting the region's past in twenty-two exhibit spaces and galleries. It offers special events, classes, symposia, workshops, demonstrations and field trips. The museum contains a research library; its publication program has produced 65 books of Adirondack history, art histories and museum catalogs. The museum started as a result of an effort in 1947 to protect the steam locomotive and two cars that had been abandoned on the Marion River Carry between Utowana and Raquette Lakes. Within a year, the Adirondack Historical Association was formed. In 1953 the historic Blue Mountain House was purchased as the site for the museum, and after years of demolition and construction, gathering historic materials and designing exhibits, the museum opened on August 3, 1957. In 1963-64 the museum sponsored the archaeological exploration of the Wiawaka Bateaux Site by Terry Crandall. The museum collection includes a number of large objects, including a Pullman railroad car, several guide boats and an Idem class racing sailboat, a steam locomotive, a one-room schoolhouse, a complete blacksmith shop, the rustic "Sunset Cottage", and the Log Hotel, original to the museum's site, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Other material in the museum's collections include a fine art collection that contains over 2,500 works including oil and watercolor paintings, prints, and artists' sketchbooks, the second largest collection of inland wooden watercraft in the United States, more than 70,000 historic photographs including the work of Seneca Ray Stoddard, Alfred Stieglitz, and Eliot Porter and the largest public collection of rustic furniture in North America. The museum owns many pieces created by Joe Bryere, a local woodworking artist. The Museum's library claims the most comprehensive repository of books, periodicals, manuscripts, maps and government documents related to the Adirondack region. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.adkmuseum.org

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