INTRODUCTION 2 1 



ment of all cameras of those days. I conceived the 

 idea of making the individual pictures in the film 

 at one or two second intervals and at once my pic- 

 tures of the cliffs sprang into life, the clouds went 

 drifting by and their shadows on the cliffs added 

 to the lifelike appearance. It took much more skill 

 to judge the speed of the clouds in order to produce 

 on the screen a slow, steady movement otherwise 

 they would race across the screen when projected at 

 the normal rate, then, of sixteen pictures a second. 

 The method had wonderful possibilities for all sorts 

 of slow moving subjects. 



At this time I had made still pictures of many of 

 the Sierra flowers, and they, like motion pictures of 

 the cliffs, lacked life and movement. So I decided 

 it was feasible to do in motion pictures of the flowers 

 what I had done to the cliffs in giving them action, 

 picturing the movements of the clouds and cloud 

 shadows on their stationary sides. The flowers had 

 their own natural movements if I could only picture 

 them. 



It was, of course, impossible to make pictures at 

 uniform intervals by hand day and night, of the 

 flower buds as they opened, nor could it be done 

 out of doors, as the wind would blow them about be- 

 tween exposures and the light could not be uniform. 

 So I designed a motor gear to run the camera and 



