Of course Allan photographed the elephants. All the members wanted to photograph the elephants, and Major Mines induced the keeper to make special display of the Princess; and the Princess, while not at all guilty of looking pleasant, at least turned an almost motionless profile to the bristling battery of cameras.
“The big white bear.”
“Mercy!” cried Miss Manston, “I never should have supposed anything was so hard as photographing an elephant with so many people looking on!”
There were a great many onlookers, and many of them felt quite free to comment, not merely on the elephant and the camera, but on the photographers. Miss Illwin, with her head under the focussing cloth, was an object of much interest. Miss Illwin had a little loop stitched to her hat so that she could suspend it from a hook on the under side of the tripod after it had been set up. This left her free to study her ground glass without greater disturbance than the mussing of her hair, which did not seem to annoy her at all.
“All the members wanted to photograph the elephants.”
It was a balmy day, and the out-door cages were full of listless and sleepy lions, tigers, leopards, wild-cats; bison, zebras, camels, and deer roamed in the inclosures; the eagles screamed, and the monkeys were in their most talkative mood. Photographing through the bars was a delicate problem. The pelican and other queer birds strutted and squeaked and flapped their wings at the visitors and at each other. The children who peered between the bars of the cages, who laughed with the parrots, threw peanuts to the monkeys, or stared in awe at the dromedary, were a camera theme in themselves; and Mr. Austin often was seen to be picturing or talking to them, or slipping pennies into their hands on the outskirts of the crowd at the candy stall.
“Photographing through the bars was a delicate problem.”