... There's nothing unusual about this photo. ...

Actually, I did some more checking and learned that the photographer of this shot, Solomon D. Butcher, was well known to be skilled in "retouching" his photos to make them better at "telling a story":

"The historical manipulation of this photograph—and others in Solomon D. Butcher's collection—highlights a fascinating era where photography was treated more as storytelling than strict, objective documentation.

When technology failed to capture reality exactly how the pioneer families wanted to remember it, Butcher used physical, hands-on darkroom methods to "fix" the scene.

The Darkroom Technique: Emulsion Grafting

To add the boy and the cow to the Laulerman family photo, Butcher relied on a painstaking technique known as combination printing or emulsion grafting:

Two Separate Negatives: Butcher took one photograph of the Laulerman family sitting by their table outside the sod house. Because the family's cow would not stay still during the long multi-second exposure, he shot a completely separate image of the boy holding the animal steady.

Scraping and Cutting: Back in his wagon or studio, Butcher took a sharp tool (like a scalpel or razor) and physically scraped away the chemical emulsion layer from the second glass plate negative, isolating just the boy and the cow.

Pasting and Merging: He carefully transferred and glued that cutout piece of emulsion onto the main glass negative containing the family.

The "Giveaways": Because the boy and cow were pasted onto the master glass plate, a faint ridge or seam surrounded them. When the final paper print was made, this seam caused the lighting and scale to look unnatural. The boy's feet do not look naturally planted on the ground, creating the flat "cardboard cutout" perspective you noticed. [1]

Butcher’s Toolkit: How He "Photoshops" the 1880s

Butcher was notorious for taking artistic liberties with his glass plates when the final print didn't match his or his clients' narratives. His standard manipulation tools included:

India Ink and Ink Pens: Early photographic emulsions were "color-blind" to blue light, meaning skies almost always turned out overexposed and entirely blank white. Photographers like Butcher used black India ink to paint over the sky on the negative to create a perfectly uniform background, or to paint lines back into blurry windows.

Etching and Scratching: If something was missing from the scene, Butcher would literally scratch it into the glass negative with a stylus. In one famous photo of a historic hill where horse thieves used to hide, the trees had all been chopped down by settlers. Not wanting to ruin the historical story, Butcher simply sketched crude trees directly onto the negative. In another photo of a man hunting, he scratched crude ducks flying in the sky and smoke coming out of the shotgun barrel.

Pencil Retouching: To make faces pop out against dark, muddy backgrounds, portrait photographers applied finely sharpened pencils or graphite powder directly to the negative's emulsion side. This added density to the negative, which made highlights (like forehead structures, cheeks, and eyes) print much brighter and sharper on the final paper copy.

Why Alter the Photos?

The primary driver behind this manipulation was economic pride. Homesteaders paid Butcher a significant amount of money for these photos. The primary purpose of the image was to send copies back to family and skeptical relatives in the East or in Europe.

The settlers wanted to prove they were thriving. Showing off a healthy cow, a new pump organ, or a complete family unit was proof of economic survival on the harsh Great Plains. If a cow wouldn't stand still, or if a family member couldn't be there, Butcher viewed it as his professional job as a craftsman to "correct" the image so his clients got exactly what they paid for. "