of Masai, accompanied by their wives, had been seen on the previous
evening in the neighbourhood of the stream, and that they had encamped
for the night in a mouldering old kraal in the thorn-thicket, and it
was while slumbering peacefully in this that they were disturbed by my
Askari. Scattered all over the place were goods and chattels of various
descriptions which they had left behind them in their hasty flight,
and which I now had carefully collected together. From their nature I
concluded that the Masai were making for some place at a considerable
distance, and that there was, therefore, no danger of unpleasant
consequences. I returned to my camp to reassure my people, and at once
got some of my Masai friends, who had been with me for a long time, to
go after the fugitives and bring them back. That was the only way to
effect an understanding--any other messengers would have failed in the
mission.
Towards midday my Masai returned to camp with some thirty of the
spear-armed warriors and a number of their women-folk. I gave them
back their belongings, together with a present by way of _amende_ for
their fright. This they accepted with equanimity after the manner of
all natives. Then they took their departure, the incident being thus
happily terminated without bloodshed.
Curiously enough, Orgeich had had a somewhat similar encounter with
Masai a short time before. He had been for a turn in the neighbourhood
of the camp, and was coming back in the dark along a rhinoceros-track.
When he had got to within a quarter of an hour’s walk of the camp,
there was a sudden clatter right in front of him, and in the uncertain
moonlight he descried a band of armed Masai. Remembering the recent
night-encounter he instantly raised his rifle to fire. But the veteran
soldier had self-control enough to resist the impulse, and in this case
also there were no ill consequences. But, as he still continues to
declare, it was a near thing.
[Illustration: MY NIGHT-APPARATUS IN POSITION, READY TO WORK.]
Such incidents, it will be recognised, can very easily lead to serious
results.
Later I was to have an unpleasant experience in regard to natives. A
band of nomadic hunters, perhaps those who had encamped where I found
the zebra-skins, had “gone for” two of my cameras. They had taken away
all those parts of them that could be of any use to them, and left
them of course quite useless to me. It is noteworthy that they did not
smash them to pieces, as Europeans might have done. They had merely
detached the metal portions and others which they could turn to some
account. This loss was, however, very annoying to me, and I found it
necessary to establish two relays of men on guard to look after the
sole remaining apparatus throughout the day.
[Illustration: A PET OF THE CARAVAN.]
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
A BAOBAB (_ADANSONIA DIGITATA_). THESE TREES ARE OFTEN BELIEVED
BY THE NATIVES TO BE INHABITED BY GHOSTS. THEY USED TO COME INTO
THE STORIES TOLD BY MY FOLLOWERS.]
[Illustration: THE FIRST FLASHLIGHT PHOTOGRAPH WITH WHICH I HAD ANY
MEASURE OF SUCCESS! A MONGOOSE MAY BE JUST GUESSED AT UNDER THE
THORN-BRANCH.]
XVI
Photography by Day and by Night
There is an old German recipe for the catching of a lion: you put the
Sahara through a sieve--and behold the King of Beasts!
The photographing of lions is not to be managed so easily. I am always
being asked how I took my photographs. I shall try to give an answer in
the following pages.
Before _With Flashlight and Rifle_ was published, the only successful
photographs taken by night that were known to me were some few
excellent pictures of certain species of American deer, secured by
an enthusiastic sportsman (a legal official in the service of the
Government of the United States) after years of untiring effort.
After any number of fruitless attempts, this gentleman contrived to
photograph these animals grazing by night near the banks of a river
down which he drifted in a boat. He set up a row of cameras in the
bow of his craft, and when it passed close to the deer standing in the
water, he let his flashlight flame out, and in this way produced in the
course of ten years or so--a number of very interesting photographic
studies, which made his name well known in his own country and which
won him a gold medal at a Paris Exhibition, where his work aroused
much attention. I was familiar also with the “telephoto” pictures
which Lord Delamere brought home from East Africa.[20] Those of Mr.
Edward North Buxton were published first in 1902, so far as I know. I
myself, I should explain, do not profess to be a complete master of
the photographer’s art. Indeed, I rather rejoice in my ignorance of
many of the inner secrets of the craft known only to experts, because
I believe it has helped me to get a certain character into my pictures
which would perhaps have eluded one whose mind was taken up with all
the difficulties involved in the task.
At first sight the photographing of animals may seem a simple enough
matter, but if we look at the photographs taken in zoological gardens
or in menageries or game reservations, or photographs taken during the
winter at spots to which the animals have had to come for food, or at
the various touched-up photographs one sees, we shall find that there
are very few of any real worth from the standpoint of the naturalist.
Whoever would take photographs of value should take care that they be
in no way altered or touched up. Touched-up photographs are never
to be trusted.
[Illustration: THE APPARATUS WHICH I FIRST USED FOR MY
NIGHT-PHOTOGRAPHS, WITH THE SHUTTER KEPT OPEN (_see_ p. 687).]
[Illustration: THE GOERZ-SCHILLINGS NIGHT-APPARATUS.]
The story of my progress in the art of animal photography is soon told.
In 1896 and 1897 I was not adequately equipped, and I took only a few
photographs, all by daylight.
After going through a careful course of instruction in Kiesling’s
Photographic Institution, I did not succeed in entirely satisfying
myself with the daylight photographs I took on my second expedition
of 1899-1900. It was impossible at that time to photograph objects
at great distances, the telephoto lens not yet carrying far enough.
My efforts to photograph the animals by night proved entirely
fruitless, for one reason because the flashlight apparatus would
not work. It was exasperating to find that my heavy and expensive
“accumulators”--procured after consultation with technical
experts--refused to act, and I remember vividly how I flung them out
into the middle of a river! I achieved but one single success at this
period with a self-acting apparatus, namely the photograph of two
vultures contending over carrion, here reproduced; one of them has been
feeding, and the other is just about to assert its right to part of
the meal. The attitudes of the two birds are very interesting, and one
feels that it would have been very difficult for a painter to have put
them on record. But all my other attempts failed, as I have said, from
technical causes, and I had to content myself for the most part with
photographing the animals I hunted, though I did succeed in getting
pictures of a waterbuck and a giraffe at which I had not shot. My
photographs won so much approval from experts on my return home that I
was encouraged to go further in this direction.
But what difficulties I had to overcome! So far back as the year 1863 a
German explorer, Professor Fritsch, now a member of the Privy Council,
had set about the task of photographing wild animals in South Africa.
Those were the days of wet collodion plates, and it is really wonderful
how Professor Fritsch managed to cope with all the difficulties he had
to face so far from all possibility of assistance. He succeeded in the
course of his expedition in photographing an African wild animal upon
a dry plate for the first time on record. By his kindness I am enabled
to reproduce this historical picture here--it is a thing of real value.
It is the photograph of an eland, at that time an animal often met with
in Cape Colony, where game of all kinds has now been almost completely
exterminated. Professor Fritsch’s account of his experiences should
be heard for one to form any notion of the wealth of animal life that
then adorned the South African velt. His photographs are especially
interesting as the first of their kind. It was not until nearly forty
years later that the English sportsmen already mentioned and I myself
embarked systematically upon similar enterprises.
On my third expedition in 1902 I tried to photograph with two telephoto
cameras which had been placed at my disposal by the Goerz Optical
Institute. Without attempting to explain the complicated mechanism
of these apparatus--the idea of which came first to English
travellers--I may say that they are beset with difficulties. They
require a long exposure, and are best suited, therefore, for stationary
objects. If you wish to photograph animals in motion, you must learn
to expose your negative long enough to secure a clear impression, yet
not so long as to make the moving animals come out quite blurred. I
am strongly of opinion that it is not of much advantage to make out a
table of calculations as to the time of exposure. Experience alone
can enable you to judge what exposure to allow. When you have got your
shutter to the correct speed and chosen the correct diaphragm for your
lens, you must get into the way of using the camera as quickly and
deftly as your rifle.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
AUTOMATICALLY TAKEN PHOTOGRAPH OF TWO VULTURES ENGAGING IN A CONTEST
OVER CARRION.]
[Illustration:
THE FIRST DRY-PLATE PHOTOGRAPH, PROBABLY, EVER TAKEN IN THE
AFRICAN DESERT. THE WORK OF ONE OF THE OLDEST OF AFRICAN
EXPLORERS, PROFESSOR FRITSCH, IT REPRESENTS AN ELAND WHICH HE HAD
KILLED--A SPECIES THEN FREQUENTLY MET WITH IN CAPE COLONY.]
In this way, just as in shooting, you will learn to allow for the
movements of the object you are aiming at--you will let your camera
move accordingly. This needs a lot of practice. At the period when I
was using the Goerz apparatus, a large number of similar cameras of all
sizes were returned to the manufactory by practical photographers as
unuseable. This shows how difficult it is to form any opinion as to the
possibilities of the telephoto lens without going in for thorough and
repeated experiments.
It is only on rare occasions that you are able to use a stand-camera
for photographing objects at a distance. In most cases you must
shoulder your photographic gun, and it may be easily imagined what
dexterity is required for its proper management. In following up
the moving object with your lens you inevitably make the background
something of a blur. You are apt at the same time to under-expose. The
change of diaphragm and the modification of the speed of the shutter
involve many failures. The telephoto lens has this advantage, however,
that you can generally get good results with it at a hundred paces. In
the case of birds on the wing, either rising or flying past you, you
have to get into the way of reckoning the distance--a difficult matter.
Of course you must always have the sun more or less behind you. The
conditions of the atmosphere in the tropics--the shimmering waves of
light that rise up out of the scorched soil, for instance--make it
peculiarly hard to calculate the time of exposure, and many photographs
turn out failures which you have felt quite sure of having taken
properly. This is specially disappointing in the case of animals that
you may never have another opportunity of photographing. In such cases
I make a practice of giving as many exposures as possible, in the hope
of one or other of them turning out right.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
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.
[Illustration:
_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.
[Illustration:
_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.
[Illustration:
_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.).]
[Illustration:
TELEPHOTOGRAPHS OF BIRDS ON THE WING. FIRST ROW: THE
STORK-VULTURE (_SERPENTARIUS SERPENTARIUS_ [MILLER]). SECOND
ROW: HAMMERHEAD (_SCOPUS UMBRETTA_, Gm.), SMALL BUSTARD (_OTIS
GINDIANA_ [OUST]) SADDLE STORK (_EPHIPPIORHYNCHUS SENEGALENSIS_
[SHAW]). THIRD ROW: BATELEUR EAGLE (_HELOTARSUS ECAUDATUS_
[DAUD.]), VULTURE (_PSEUDOGYPS AFRICANUS SCHILLINGSI_, Erl.),
MARABOU (_LEPTOPTILOS CRUMENIFER_, [CUV.], Less.).]
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration:
_C. G. Schillings, phot._
JACKAL TAKING TO FLIGHT, STARTLED BY THE FLASHLIGHT.]