CHAPTER XII

PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE ARCTIC

THERE is no country in which an anastigmatic lens is of more use to the photographer than Alaska, and every camera with which it is hoped to take winter scenes should have this equipment. During two or three months in the year it makes the difference in practice between getting photographs and getting none. In theory one may always set up a tripod and increase length of exposure as light diminishes. But the most interesting scenes, the most attractive effects often present themselves under the severest conditions of weather, and he must be an enthusiast, indeed, who will get his tripod from the sled, pull out its telescoped tubes, set it up and adjust it for a picture with the thermometer at 40° or 50° below zero; and when he is done he is very likely to be a frozen enthusiast.

With an anastigmatic lens working at, say f. 6-3, and with a "speed" film (glass plates are utterly out of the question on the trail), it is possible to make a snap-shot at one twenty-fifth of a second on a clear day, around noon, even in the dead of winter, in any part of Alaska that the writer has travelled in. There are those who write that they can always hold a camera still enough to get a sharp negative at even one tenth of a second. Probably the personal equation counts largely in such a matter, and a man of very decided phlegmatic temperament may have advantage over his more sanguine and nervous brother. The thing may be done; the writer has done it himself; but the point is it cannot be depended on; at this speed three out of four of his exposures will be blurred, whereas at one twenty-fifth of a second a sharp, clear negative may always be secured.

It may be admitted at once that at extremely low temperatures the working of any shutter becomes doubtful, and most of them go out of any reliable action altogether. After trying and failing completely with three or four of the more expensive makes of shutters, the writer has for the last few years used a "Volute" with general satisfaction, though in the great cold even that shutter (from which all trace of grease or oil was carefully removed by the makers) is somewhat slowed up, so that a rare exposure at 50° or 60° below zero would be made at an indicated speed of one fiftieth rather than at one twenty-fifth, taking the chance of an under-exposed rather than a blurred negative. To wish for a shutter of absolute correctness and of absolute dependability under all circumstances, arranged for exposures of one fifteenth and one twentieth as well as one tenth and one twenty-fifth, is probably to wish for the unobtainable.

[Sidenote: CARE OF FILMS AND CAMERAS]

The care of the camera and the films, exposed and unexposed, the winter through, when travelling on the Alaskan trail, is a very important and very simple matter, though not generally learned until many negatives have been spoiled and sometimes lenses injured. It may be summed up in one general rule--keep instrument and films always outdoors.

One unfamiliar with arctic conditions would not suppose that much trouble would be caused by that arch-enemy of all photographic preparations and apparatus--damp, in a country where the thermometer rarely goes above freezing the winter through; and that is a just conclusion provided such things be kept in the natural temperature, outdoors. But consider the great range of temperature when the thermometer stands at -50° outdoors, and, say, 75° indoors. Here is a difference of 125°. Anything wooden or metallic, especially anything metallic, brought into the house immediately condenses the moisture with which the warm interior atmosphere is laden and becomes in a few moments covered with frost. Gradually, as the article assumes the temperature of the room, the frost melts, the water is absorbed, and the damage is done as surely as though it had been soused in a bucket. If it be necessary to take camera and films indoors for an interior view--which one does somewhat reluctantly--the films must be taken at once to the stove and the camera only very gradually; leaving the latter on the floor, the coldest part of the room, for a while and shifting its position nearer and nearer until the frost it has accumulated begins to melt, whereupon it should be placed close to the heat that the water may evaporate as fast as it forms.

Outdoors, camera and films alike are perfectly safe, however intense the cold. Indeed, films keep almost indefinitely in the cold and do not deteriorate at all. One learns, by and by, to have all films sent sealed up in tin cans, _and to put them back and seal them up again when exposed_, despite the maker's instructions not to do so. The maker knows the rules, but the user learns the exceptions. When films are thus protected they may be taken indoors or left out indifferently, as no moist air can get to them.

The rule given is one that all men in this country follow with firearms. They are always left outdoors, and no iron will rust outdoors in the winter. Unless a man intend to take his gun to pieces and clean it thoroughly, he never brings it in the house. The writer has on several occasions removed an exposed film and inserted a new one outdoors, using the loaded sled for a table, at 50° below zero; taking the chance of freezing his fingers rather than of ruining the film. It is an interesting exercise in dexterity of manipulation. Everything that can be done with the mittened hand is done, the material is placed within easy reach--then off with the mittens and gloves, and make the change as quickly as may be!

There is just one brief season in the year when high speeds of shutters may be used: in the month of April, when a new flurry of snow has put a mantle of dazzling whiteness upon the earth and the sun mounts comparatively high in the heavens. Under such circumstances there is almost, if not quite, tropical illumination. Here is a picture of native football at the Allakaket, just north of the Arctic Circle, made late in April with a Graflex, fitted with a lens working at f. 4.5, at the full speed of its focal-plane shutter--one one-thousandth of a second. In five years' use that was the only time when that speed was used, or any speed above one two-hundred-and-fiftieth. Commonly, even in summer, many more exposures are made with it at one fiftieth than at one one-hundredth, for this is not a brightly lit country in summer, and nearly all visitors and tourists find their negatives much under-timed.

The Graflex, though unapproached in its own sphere, is not a good all-round camera, despite confident assertions to the contrary. It is too bulky to carry at all in the winter, and its mechanism is apt to refuse duty in the cold. The 3A Graflex cannot be turned to make a perpendicular photograph, but must always be used with the greatest dimension horizontal. Except in brilliant sunshine it is difficult to get a sharp focus, and, even though the focus appear sharp on the ground glass, the negative may prove blurred. Then the instrument is a great dust catcher and seems to have been constructed with a perverse ingenuity so as to make it as difficult as possible to clean.

The writer uses his Graflex almost solely for native portraits and studies, for which purpose it is admirable, and has enabled him to secure negatives that he could not have obtained with any other hand camera. Even in the summer, however, he always carries his 3A Folding Pocket Kodak as well, and uses it instead of the Graflex for landscapes and large groups. If he had to choose between the two instruments and confine himself to one, he would unhesitatingly choose the Folding Pocket Kodak.

The difficulties of winter photography in Alaska do not end with the making of the exposure. All water must be brought up in a bucket from a water-hole in the river, and though it be clear water when it is dipped up from under the ice, it is chiefly ice by the time it reaches the house, during any cold spell. One learns to be very economical of water when it is procured with such difficulty, learns to dry prints with blotting-paper between the successive washings, which is the best way of washing with the minimum of water. Blotting-paper is decidedly cheaper than water under some circumstances.

While the rivers run perfectly clear and bright under the ice in the winter, in summer the turbid water of nearly all our large streams introduces another difficulty, and photographic operation must sometimes be deferred for weeks, unless the rain barrels be full or enough ice be found in the ice-house, over and above the domestic needs, to serve.

[Sidenote: EFFECT OF COLD ON EMULSIONS]

It seems certain that the speed of the sensitive emulsions with which the films are covered is reduced in very cold weather. To determine whether or not this was so, the following experiments were resorted to. The camera was brought out of the house half an hour before noon, at 50° below zero, and an exposure made immediately. Then the camera was left in position for an hour and another exposure made. There was little difference in the strength of the negatives, and what difference there was seemed in favour of the second exposure. Evidently, if the emulsion had slowed, the shutter had slowed also; so opportunity was awaited to make a more decisive test. When there remained but one exposure on a roll of film, the camera was set outdoors at a temperature of 55° below zero and left for an hour. Then an exposure was made and the film wound up and withdrawn; while a new film, just brought from the house, was as quickly as possible inserted in its place and a second exposure made. The latter was appreciably stronger. Even this test is, of course, not entirely conclusive; one would have to be quite sure that the emulsions were identical; but it confirms the writer's impression that extreme cold slows the film. It would be an easy matter for the manufacturers to settle this point beyond question in a modern laboratory, and it is certainly worth doing.

There is much sameness about winter scenes in Alaska, as the reader has doubtless already remarked; yet the sameness is more due to a lack of alertness in the photographer than to an absence of variety. If the traveller had nothing to think about but his camera, if all other considerations could be subordinated to the securing of negatives, then, here as elsewhere, the average merit of pictures would be greater. Sometimes the most interesting scenes occur in the midst of stress of difficult travel when there is opportunity for no more than a fleeting recognition of their pictorial interest. "Tight places" often make attractive pictures, but most commonly do not get made into pictures at all. The study of the aspects of nature is likely to languish amidst the severe weather of the Northern winter, and the bright, clear, mild day gets photographed into undue prominence. Snow is more or less white and spruce-trees in the mass are more or less black; one dog team is very like another; a native village has to be known very well, indeed, to be distinguishable from another native village. Yet there is individuality, there is distinction, there is variety, there is contrast, if a man have but the grace to recognise them and the zeal to record them. Snow itself has infinite variety; trees, all of them, have characters of their own. Dogs differ as widely as men and Indians as widely as white men.

[Sidenote: INDIANS AND PHOTOGRAPHS]

The fear of the camera, or the dislike of the camera, that used to affect the native mind is gone now, save, perhaps, in certain remote quarters, and these interesting people are generally quite willing to stand still and be snapped. They ask for a print, and upon one's next visit there is clamorous demand for "picter, picter." A famous French physician said that his dread of the world to come lay in his expectation that the souls he met would reproach him for not having cured a certain obstinate malady that he had much repute in dealing with; so the travelling amateur in photography sometimes feels his conscience heavy under a load of promised pictures that he has forgotten or has been unable to make. He feels that his native friends whom he shall meet in the world to come will assuredly greet him with "where's my picture?" The burden increases all the time, and the Indian never forgets. It avails nothing even to explain that the exposure was a failure. A picture was promised; no picture has been given; that is as far as the native gets. And the making of extra prints, in the cases where it is possible to make them, is itself quite a tax upon time and material.

Just as it is true that to be well informed on any subject a man must read a great deal and be content not to have use for a great deal that he reads, so to secure good photographs of spots and scenes of note as he travels, he must make many negatives and be content to destroy many. The records of a second visit in better weather or at a more favourable season will supersede an earlier; typical groups more casual ones. The standard that he exacts of himself rises and work he was content with contents him no more. Sometimes one is tempted to think that the main difference between an unsuccessful and a successful amateur photographer is that the former hoards all his negatives while the latter relentlessly burns those which do not come up to the mark--if not at once, yet assuredly by and by. So the surprise that one feels at many of the illustrations in modern books of arctic travel is not that the travellers made such poor photographs but that they kept them and used them; for there can be no question that poor photographs are worse than none at all.