Nebraskaland

June 2026 • Nebraskaland 59 Old School AI G enerative artificial intelligence is changing the world we live in. It is being used to write stories and create photographs and videos so realistic it is sometimes hard to tell they are not real. AI-generated stories and photos will not be a part of Nebraskaland Magazine's content, as we have chosen to follow long-held journalistic standards and lean toward documentary-style content. But that doesn't change our past. "Fake" photos have been around as long as photography, and many found their way onto the pages of Outdoor Nebraska and Nebraskaland. While considerable effort went into making some of these photos, little went into the first, which appeared in 1931. In an illustration of two boys collecting bait to fish, the worm was drawn in the photo … and not very well. Gene Hornbeck began staging photos as soon as he joined the staff in 1958. For the October cover that year, he photographed a pheasant, likely a mount on a stick, f lushing from a field with a hunter taking aim in the background. The following month it was a Canada goose, again likely a mount, standing next to a cornfield. Another mounted pheasant and turkeys followed in 1959, both of which appear to have been photographed outdoors. Lou Ell joined the staff in 1961 and brought with him experience in studio photography. He continued the type of work Hornbeck was doing in a studio in his basement, and helped design the studio in the Commission's new headquarters building, which opened in 1971. In both, he built sets with dirt, mud, logs, cornstalks, grass and other plants, and photographed taxidermy mounts of birds under studio lights. Once you know this occurred, it is easy to pick out some of the studio shots he and Hornbeck created, as many included the same sky-blue background. Long-time staffer Bob Grier was hired by Ell in 1970 and remembers assisting on some of these shoots, including one where Ell set up a trigger to fire when a live pheasant took flight. Insects were also brought into the studio. Grier remembers another set Ell built centered around a log. "He'd set up his lights and put the cottontail into the log, and he'd stand over there with a can of flocking material that you'd use on Christmas trees, and I'd be over there and poke the other end of the log with a stick and the rabbit would come out the front of the log and he would spray this stuff up in the air above it and it just came down like snow," Grier said. That image was on the cover of the February 1973 magazine, with Grier getting the photo credit. A photo of boys collecting bait in the April 1931 Outdoor Nebraska included a hand-drawn worm. Gene Hornbeck photographed a mounted pheasant in the studio for the September 1966 cover. Lou Ell photographed cottontail rabbits in the studio more than once.

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