I went in to talk to Andy Bernstein because I am looking at historical documents for the background of this thesis and needed some guidance. I found one of his papers really illuminating. It was about a couple, the Nonakas, who planned to spent the winter on Mt Fuji and take meteorological data. It was seen as a conquering of elements in the name of scientific advancement. He frames it nicely in seeing Fuji as a body in a bodyscape.
Anyway, he gave me a couple of sources to look into including a history on the World Meteorological Organization and a book of English weather observations, both cited below. I don’t really have time to read them now and still need to request them from Watzek.
He also brought to light a new perspective on using the camera as a scientific instrument. (I know… I totally should have thought of this considering it is the closest to what I am actually doing). Questions like- how did the camera become a scientific instrument? How were photographs used to document scientific phenomena?
I don’t know quite how this will fit in, but I really liked Andy’s idea of interviewing former or current WMO volunteer cloud observers. Why did they volunteer? What rules did they have to follow? What kind of training was involved? Did they always follow the rules?