THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



are so accustomed to the same that he will be able to take 

 his picture from as close a distance as he desires. Then 

 again, he may find that after he has been able to take a 

 few pictures of the object in question, most of these, or 

 possibly all, are complete failures on account of too poor 

 light, too short exposure, or some defect in film or plate, 

 which latter I myself had to contend with on several oc- 

 casions. This was particularly annoying to me in a roll 

 of films which I used on the Laikipia Plateau in photo- 

 graphing a big bull giraffe. For, in some way still un- 

 accounted for, three of the most important exposures of 

 the roll were so much sunstruck as to spoil almost entirely 

 the effect of the picture. After such an experience it may 

 be weeks before the sportsman has an equally good chance 

 at the same kind of animal, and, therefore, time is one of 

 the first considerations in big-animal photography. 



The patience required is certainly more than the aver- 

 age man is possessed of, for time and again the animal 

 will not appear in the place at the time wanted, or some 

 unfortunate crack from stepping on a branch, or other 

 noise, may scare the shy beast away before the sportsman 

 has a chance to use his camera. It is very often the case 

 with night photography that a miserable hyena or jackal 

 will snap the string and set ofiF the camera which was 

 placed and fixed for the king of beasts, and thus the pho- 

 tographer has to set and reset his apparatus perhaps a 

 dozen times during several nights before he is able to get 

 a single good photograph of a lion in the act of springing 

 on its prey or coming down to drink at a stream. Another 

 thing that requires patience in this kind of big game pho- 

 tography is the motionless endurance of mosquitoes and 



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