276 Correspondence. [AnrU 



Where the hght is exactly right in your studio, and will remain so suffi- 

 ciently long for your purpose, spread on the floor your background, which 

 may be a square yard of black velvet, or white blotting-paper, or other 

 material according to the kind of eggs you are to photograph and the 

 result you desire to obtain. Here I used white blotting-paper, a large- 

 «ized sheet. Again, governed by the light, place on this background two 

 convenient supports of precisely the same height. Their tops must be 

 smooth, exactly in the horizontal plane, and broad enough to support a 

 perfect pane of glass (very thin, 14 X 20), so that it, too, is horizontal, and 

 will remain perfectly steady in its place. Arrange your vertical camera 

 above this contrivance, so that the imaginary visual line is perpendicular 

 to the floor, and passes through the center of the pane of glass. This 

 latter rests on the supports near the margins of the short sides, thus ful- 

 filling the required conditions as given above. 



Best try a single egg first, so as to study the focus, the reflections, the 

 light and the shadows, and numerous other points before placing all three 

 eggs on the upper surface of the glass where they are eventually to rest to 

 be photographed. 



Everything depends upon keeping the egg in the exact position you want 

 it during the exposure. It must rest upon the glass in such a way that you 

 can move it at will in any direction, and have it stay there. This I accom- 

 plish by placing beneath it a little pile of wheat flour, — just enough so it 

 will not be seen in the resulting negative. This keeps the egg off the glass, 

 thus running no risk of breakage or soiling, permitting the specimen to be 

 instantly turned in any direction. In fact, by this simple scheme we can 

 study the egg from all points of view, and have it in the exact position to 

 make a scientific photograph of it. Moreover, when the three eggs are 

 on the glass, resting upon their three little piles of flour, we can in a moment 

 get their axes parallel; study the shadows; rotate them to the sides we wish 

 to photograph, and so on. In the case of eggs the shape of Murres' eggs 

 (see Plate), we must make sure that the apices do not dip down or up, so 

 as to shorten any egg in the picture we get. In all cases, the long axis of 

 the egg must be parallel to the plane of the glass upon which it rests, and 

 likewise parallel to the egg or eggs on either side of it, or, in some instances, 

 in the same line with axes of eggs before or behind it. Where eggs of vari- 

 ous sizes are taken on the same plate, I support the smaller ones on appro- 

 priate stalks of soft wax, so they may be turned in any direction. 



These are some of the main points in the photography of eggs to be 

 looked after, and experience and observation must do the rest, as space 

 here will not admit of pursuing the subject any further. 



Yours very truly, 



R. W. Shufeldt. 



