<+> From Cave-dweller's Sketch to Photograph 



These pictures were the first to show really wild 

 animals in full freedom, just as they actually live their 

 life on velt and marsh-land, in bush, forest, air, and 

 water. They showed nature in its unalloyed reality, and 

 therefore a peculiar stamp of truth and beauty must have 

 imprinted itself upon them. They came, too, as a surprise, 

 for in many points the hitherto accepted representations 

 of the animal world and those given by my photographs 

 did not agree. 



o 



Mere subject counts for so much in a picture with 

 most people that it takes them a long time to appreciate 

 a work of art the subject of which does not at the first 

 glance appeal to them. This applies peculiarly to my 

 African photographs. It is not a very easy matter for 

 the eye to grasp the movements of the varying forms of 

 animal lite in their natural freedom. Often their appear- 

 ance is so blended with their surroundings that it requires 

 long practice to distinguish the individual characteristics 

 of each, the fleeting graces of their momentary aspects. 



I could not, therefore, help feeling a certain apprehen- 

 sion that every one would not at once be able to understand 

 and decipher my pictures in my book, }}^ith Flashlight 

 and Rifle. It is necessary when one looks at them to 

 understand, in some degree, how to read between the 

 lines ; one must make an effort to grasp their more 

 elusive features ; in short, one must devote oneself to the 

 study of them with a certain gusto, a certain intelligence. 

 There was a further difficult}' arising from the tact that 

 the illustrations could be reproduced only by a process in 

 which unfortunately much of the finer detail of the originals 



89 



