Part 26

THIS PHOTOGRAPH BEARS WITNESS TO THE DESIRABILITY OF HAVING PERFECTED FILMS TO WORK WITH; FOR GLASSES PLATES ARE APT TO BREAK AND GOOD PICTURES TO BE QUITE SPOILT IN CONSEQUENCE.]

You often miss splendid chances, of course, simply through not having your camera at hand. A few moments’ delay may lose you an opportunity that will never come to you again. Then, again, you are just as apt in Africa as elsewhere to make the mistakes so well known to all photographers--wrong focussing, using the same plate twice, not getting your objects properly on the plate, etc. Nor can you always avoid having a tree or bush or branch between you and the animal you want to photograph. These things are often enough to quite spoil your picture. The weight of the camera, too, is in itself a hindrance. It is not every one who can handle a 13 × 18-cm. telephoto camera. Even a 9 × 12-cm. is heavy enough. It must be remembered that on one’s journeyings through the wilderness it is almost as much as one can do to carry with one a sufficient supply of water--that most essential thing of all. And one has to be most careful of the apparatus, for mischances may occur at any moment.

Though my experiences and those of others will have had the effect of smoothing the way for all who go photographing in future in Equatorial Africa, still, hunting with the camera will remain a much more difficult thing than hunting with the rifle. The practised shot needs only a fraction of a second to bring down his game--often he scarcely even sees it, and fires at it through dense shrubs or bushes, whereas the photographer can achieve nothing until he has contrived to secure a combination of favourable conditions, and he wants in many cases to “bring down” not just one animal, but a whole herd. His most tempting chances come to him very often when he is unprepared. That is why I insist upon the desirability of his shouldering a camera like a gun. At short range you can secure wonderful pictures even with an ordinary small hand-camera, but for this kind of work you must of course have good nerves.... It was in this way I took the photographs of the rhinoceroses in the pool reproduced in With Flashlight and Rifle, some of the best I ever secured. One of these, taken at a distance of fifteen or twenty paces, shows the “rhino,” not yet hit, rushing down upon Orgeich and me. In another instant I had thrown my little hand-camera to the ground, and just managed to get a bullet into him in the nick of time. He swerved to one side and made off into the thicket, where I eventually secured him. He is now to be seen in the Munich Museum.

A fruitful source of disillusionment lies in the fact that the plates are sensitive to the light to a degree so different from our eyes. As the blue and violet rays chiefly act upon them, they cannot render the real effects of colouring. It is greatly to be desired that we should manage to perfect orthochromatic plates, sensitive to green, yellow and red rays of light. I myself have been unable to secure good results with orthochromatic plates with the telephoto lens, as I have found them always too little sensitive to white light for instantaneous work. Latterly there has been produced a new kind of panchromatic plate which only needs an exposure of one-fiftieth part of a second, and I would strongly recommend its use for the photographing of animals for this reason.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A PLATE WHICH I EXPOSED TWICE BY MISTAKE--SUCH MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN SOMETIMES, HOWEVER CAREFUL ONE MAY BE. IN ADDITION TO THE GNUS AND ZEBRAS WHICH STAND OUT CLEARLY IN THE PICTURE, FAINT OUTLINES OF HARTEBEESTS (ON A SMALLER SCALE) MAY BE DESCRIED.]

In the animal pictures of the Munich painter Zügel, we see admirably rendered all the many shades of colouring we note, under different conditions, close at hand or far away, when we have the actual wild life before our eyes. There we note that the upper part of the animal’s body often reflects so strongly the cold blue of the sky that its own colouring is, as it were, cancelled, or at least very greatly modified. We note, too, that an animal in reality reddish-brown in colour becomes violet owing to the blue in the atmosphere. Refinements of form and hue are lost in the glare of the sun, and only the stronger outlines and more pronounced colours assert themselves. Sometimes the sun’s rays, reflected from the animals’ skins, produce the effect of glowing patches of light, sometimes they are absorbed; sometimes the animals look quite black, sometimes absolutely white. Photographs of animals taken under such conditions do not, of course, give a good idea of the normal colouring of the animals. The success of a photograph depends, therefore, very largely upon the nature of the light.

For an effective picture you need to have a group of animals either standing still or in motion, and this you can very seldom get at close quarters, though now and again you may happen upon them standing under trees; and when this occurs you may hope for good results, because the way in which the blue rays of light are reflected from the trees has a favourable effect upon the bromide-silver plates.

While it is true that there can be nothing more disappointing than the discovery, when developing one’s photographs of animals in a country like Africa, that negatives of which one had great hopes are no good, this very possibility adds to the fascination of the work, and is, as it were, a link between the sport and that of our fathers and grandfathers. The kind of rifle-shooting we go in for nowadays has nothing in common with that of the hunter who was dependent upon a single bullet the effect of which he could only get to make sure of after long experience. To the true sportsman the camera is the best substitute for the old-fashioned gun, inasmuch as it involves very much the same degree of difficulty and danger.

How keenly I regret that I had not the advantage from the first of the perfected photographic apparatus that has come into existence as the result of long experience! I look back with regret upon the many failures I experienced in my earlier efforts, the excitement of the moment often causing me to neglect some necessary precaution. Lions, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, giraffes, and antelopes innumerable--nearly all my attempts to photograph them were fruitless. When I came to develop the negatives at night-time I would find a blurred suggestion of the objects I had seen so distinctly before me in the daylight, or else, owing to some mishap, an absolute blank. All the greater was my joy when on rare occasions I did succeed in getting such pictures as those of the rhinoceroses already referred to.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

A TELEPHOTOGRAPH OF OSTRICHES, SCARCELY DISCERNIBLE TO THE LEFT OF THE PICTURE.]

I made it a practice to develop at night in my tent, as soon as I possibly could, all negatives that I thought at all likely to be successful. The only negatives I sent to Europe were duplicates of those which I had already developed myself. At home, of course, the developing can be done much more carefully. No one who has not had the experience can realise what it means to have to develop plates in the heat and damp of Equatorial Africa and with the kind of water at one’s disposal there. When I found that my negatives were successful, not content with developing them, I always made a number of bromide-silver copies of them. These were put away in separate cases and the original was despatched home as soon as possible. If this original negative got lost en route, I was almost sure of having one of the copies, even if some of the packing-cases got lost also.

The photographer can always console himself with the reflection, in the midst of all his hardships and mishaps, that the pictures he does succeed in taking count for more than so many head of game.

It is very interesting to note that my photographs of birds on the wing have put so many people, especially painters, in mind of the work of Japanese artists. Doflein, in his book Ostasienfahrt, speaks as follows of the peculiar faculty the Japanese have in this field of art. “The Japanese animal painters,” he says, “show a more highly developed power of observing nature than that of their Western fellow-workers. They render the swift, sudden motion of animals with astonishing dexterity.... They had learned to see and reproduce them correctly before the coming of instantaneous photography.... The Japanese seem to have a very highly developed nervous organism. Their art is evidence of this, no less than their methods of warfare--their effective use of their guns at sea, for instance.”

I would add to this my own opinion that an inferior shot would have no success whatever with a telephoto lens. You must have learnt to stalk your quarry warily--this is as important as a steady hand. A practised shot who knows how to get within range of the animals is peculiarly well fitted for the work. The least twitch at the moment of taking the photograph ruins everything, for even in the case of moving objects the exposure is not what can be accurately called instantaneous, owing to the peculiarity of the lens.

I have already expressed my view that this non-instantaneous exposure (when not too prolonged) imparts a certain softness and vagueness to the photograph which give it an artistic effect. It gives scope also for the personal taste and preferences of the operator. When taken against the horizon photographs require less exposure than with the velt for background. The dark green of the trees and shrubs no less than the red laterite soil offering unfavourable backgrounds for photographs of animals in Africa, as elsewhere, one has to pay particular attention, of course, to the effects of shadows, shadows which to the eye seem quite natural producing extraordinary effects upon the negatives.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

PHOTOGRAPHS OF BIRDS TAKEN WITH THE TELEPHOTO-LENS AT DISTANCES VARYING FROM 20 TO 200 PACES. 1. SPURRED GOOSE (PLECTROPTERUS GAMBENSIS, L.). 2. DARTER OR “SNAKE-NECK” (ANHINGA RUFA LACEP, Daud.). 3. GREATER CORMORANT (PHALACROCORAN LUCIDUS LUGUBRIS, Rüpp.). 4. YELLOW-FLUTED FRANCOLIN (PTERNISTES LEUCOSEPUS INFUSCATUS, Cab.). 5. A BIRD OF PREY (MELIERAN POLIOPTERUS, Cab.)(?) 6. BEE-EATER (MELITTOPHAGUS MERIDIONALIS, Sharpe). 7. SHRIKE (LANIUS CAUDATUS, Cab.). 8. PELICAN (PELICANUS RUFESCENS, Gm.).]

TELEPHOTOGRAPHS OF BIRDS ON THE WING. FIRST ROW: THE STORK-VULTURE (SERPENTARIUS SERPENTARIUS [MILLER]). SECOND ROW: HAMMERHEAD (SCOPUS UMBRETTA, Gm.), SMALL BUSTARD (OTIS GINDIANA ) SADDLE STORK (EPHIPPIORHYNCHUS SENEGALENSIS ). THIRD ROW: BATELEUR EAGLE (HELOTARSUS ECAUDATUS [DAUD.]), VULTURE (PSEUDOGYPS AFRICANUS SCHILLINGSI, Erl.), MARABOU (LEPTOPTILOS CRUMENIFER, [CUV.], Less.).]

TELEPHOTOGRAPH OF A DWARF GAZELLE (GAZELLA THOMSONI, Gther.) IN FULL FLIGHT, TAKEN AT A DISTANCE OF 60 PACES. WHEN ANIMALS IN RAPID MOTION ARE THUS PHOTOGRAPHED, THE BACKGROUND ALMOST INEVITABLY COMES OUT BLURRED.]

Some of the photographer’s difficulties are avoided when he uses a heavy lens with a long focus. These can be easily used in a strong light. On the other hand they have many drawbacks--they are too apt, especially, to give a blurred effect to the background in the case of objects photographed near at hand. This entails the loss of one of the essential elements of such pictures, namely the representation of the animal in its natural surroundings. However, I would like to call the attention of all travellers to the fact that such apparatus are available. Their weight and size entail the putting forth of great strength and energy, both in the carrying of them and the handling of them, but to my mind no trouble and no exertion could be excessive in the work of securing records of what is left us of animal life, in the spirit in which Professor Fritsch achieved his task in South Africa.

C. G. Schillings, phot.

JACKAL TAKING TO FLIGHT, STARTLED BY THE FLASHLIGHT.]

The impossibility of securing sharp, clearly defined impressions of the animals with the telephoto lens at a hundred paces or more, and the few chances I had of photographing them close at hand by daylight, were responsible partly for my determination to go in for flashlight pictures by night. At first my idea was discouraged and opposed by expert advisers, but the Goerz-Schillings apparatus was evolved out of my experiments and makes it possible now to secure excellent representations of wild life.

As I have said already, I did not succeed with my flashlight photographs on my second expedition. And my third expedition, on which I managed to take a few, was brought to a sudden end by severe illness. At that time I had not found a way to combine the working of the flashlight with that of the shutter, essential to the photographing of objects in rapid motion. My cameras stood ready for use in the dark with the lens uncovered and the plates exposed, the shutter being closed automatically when the flashlight contrivance worked. To my surprise and disappointment this arrangement proved too slow; the exposure was too long in the case of animals moving quickly. Jackals emerged from my negatives with six heads, hyenas with long snake-like bodies. Unfortunately I destroyed all these monstrosities, and cannot therefore reproduce any of them here. Now and again, however, I was fortunate enough to get a picture worth having--for instance, that of a hyena making off with the head of a zebra, and that of three jackals, included in the illustrations to With Flashlight and Rifle. The first photograph I succeeded with in 1902 was that of a mongoose coming up to the bait placed for him. On page 657 the reader may see this marten-like animal taking to flight among the thorn-bushes. I secured a number of other pictures, notably of hyenas, both spotted and striped, and of jackals, in all kinds of strange positions, moving hither and thither in search of prey.

What a state of excitement and suspense I used to be in at first when the flashlight flamed out--until I got to realise that owing to the rapid movements of the animals most of the photographs were sure to be failures.

My illness and return from this expedition proved really an advantage in the long run, inasmuch as they enabled me to get the apparatus brought to such perfection as to render possible the photographing of even the most rapid movements. This was brought about in the Goerz Institute, Herr M. Kiesling contriving to secure the simultaneous operation of the flashlight and the shutter.