Part 11

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Equipped with this new apparatus, I set out on my fourth expedition, betaking myself for two reasons to districts with which I was already familiar. In the first place, success was much more likely in a country the speech of whose inhabitants and all their habits and customs were known to me; but my chief reason was that I wished to achieve a pictorial record of the wild life of the German region of Africa. As a matter of fact, with this kind of object in view, a man might spend a lifetime in any such region, and find that, however narrow its boundaries, it could always offer him fresh subjects for study and observation.

On arrival the photographic outfit proved so cumbersome, both as regards transport and management, that both Prince Löwenstein, who accompanied me, and who was not easily to be daunted by obstacles, and also Orgeich gave expression to pessimistic views as to the possibility of fulfilling my purpose.

No one, indeed, had been able to boast of success until then with this new apparatus! I had yet to satisfy myself that it was really efficacious--that, for instance, it would enable me to photograph a lion falling upon its prey. Many were the fruitless experiments witnessed by the Pangani forest. We experimented night after night, now at one spot, now at another--my men learning to enact the rôle of lions and other animals for the purpose. The Oriental and the negro are alike in their bearing on such occasions, but these flashlight operations did really succeed in arousing the wonder of my followers. The laughter of my chief man still rings in my ears. “But the lions are far away, master!” he would declare, utterly unable to understand my proceedings. It took me long, and I had had a large number of failures, before I succeeded in overcoming his attitude of incredulity.

As I have already intimated, the efficacy of the telephoto lens in the tropics depends to an extraordinary degree on the conditions of the atmosphere. The efficacy of the flashlight apparatus depends upon the precise absolutely simultaneous working of the flashlight and the shutter. It took me weeks and months (and I very nearly gave the thing up as hopeless) before I managed to get good results in the wilderness, though theoretically, and to a certain extent in practice at home, the apparatus had been perfected. The heavy dew of the tropical night, or a sudden shower of rain, may easily “do for” the flashlight unless the apparatus has been thoroughly safeguarded. And there are any number of other mishaps to be provided against. On one occasion hyenas carried off the linen sandbags that form part of the apparatus; mongooses made away with the aluminium lid of the lens-cap and hid it in their stronghold, an ant-hill; ants gnawed the apparatus itself. And when the photograph has at last been taken, a lot of other harmful contingencies have to be kept in mind. The fact that several shillings’ worth of powder is consumed in each explosion of the flashlight is in itself a serious consideration. Of course, there is always the additional danger of the cameras being stolen or destroyed by natives--a misfortune I experienced more than once.

I would give the intending photographer a special warning against careless handling of the explosive mixture. The various ingredients are separately packed, of course, and are thus quite safe until the time has come to mix them together (I know nothing of the ready-made mixtures which are declared to be portable without danger). This business of mixing them with a mortar is dangerous undoubtedly, for the introduction of a grain of sand is enough to cause an explosion. I myself, as well as others, have had some very narrow escapes whilst thus occupied, and, as every photographer knows, the work has had fatal results in several instances of recent years.