IN ORDER TO ENSURE SUCCESS WITH MY FLASHLIGHT-PHOTOS, I USED TO MAKE CONTINUAL EXPERIMENTS BEFOREHAND. I USED TO MAKE SOME OF MY MEN ACT AS MOVING MODELS, AND GET THEM TO WAVE CLOTHS IN THEIR HANDS.
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.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
FLASHLIGHT FAILURES II. BLACK-HOOFED ANTELOPES COMING DOWN TO THE WATER-SIDE TO DRINK. THE BLEMISHES WERE CAUSED BY BITS OF THE MATERIAL WITH WHICH THE FLASHLIGHT POWDER WAS COVERED TO PROTECT IT FROM DAMP BEING BLOWN INTO THE AIR AND BURNING AS THEY FLEW IN FRONT OF THE LENS.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
HOW MY FLASHLIGHT PICTURES WERE APT TO BE SPOILT. I. THE ZEBRA IS BEHIND THE STICK TO WHICH THE COMMUNICATING STRING IS ATTACHED.