CHAPTER IV. 



Beginners' Subjects. 



THE person who wishes to study Nature — photogra- 

 phically or otherwise — and whose lack of oppor- 

 tunity or means limits his operations to the 

 suburbs of one of our cities, is prone to take the 

 view that his ambitions, as a Nature student, cannot be 

 realised. Nothing could be further from the true posi- 

 tion. The outer suburbs form an ideal training ground 

 for the beginner, and quite a sufficient number and variety 

 of birds will be found there to keep a photographer busy 

 for a considerable time. Little expenditure is involved, 

 moreover, in reaching the scene of operations, which is a 

 decided advantage during the period when wasted plates 

 will be numerous. It is quite bad enough to waste plates 

 without wasting railway fares as well. 



In the year 1909, at the age of about sixteen years, we 

 set out with a vast amount of confidence, a total lack of 

 experience, and apparatus of the most primitive kind, to 

 photograph the native birds to be found on the outskirts 

 of the suburb of Preston, not more than seven miles from 

 the heart of Melbourne. We really expected to complete 

 the job in a few weeks, and then to work further afield in 

 the direction of Greensborough and Eltham. In actual 

 practice it was about two years later that we first felt 

 justified in an extension of our field of effort — even then 

 we left the suburban birds sadly unfinished. We had 

 reckoned without the inevitable difficulties which beset the 

 bird-photographer, and without those additional ones aris- 

 ing out of the use of an unsuitable apparatus. 



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