258 Photography for the Sportsman Naturalist 



great beauty if one can but see it and understand 

 how to group them so as to bring it out. 



One little suggestion may be of service : never 

 crowd the flowers ; much better to have too few 

 than too many. A single spray is often suffi- 

 cient and, almost invariably, two, or at the most 

 three or four, give better results than do a dozen 

 or fifteen. Occasionally it is necessary to use 

 more than this, but very rarely, and one's judg- 

 ment should tell him when to do so. 



I use bottles to hold the flowers, as I find that, 

 their necks being small, the flowers can more 

 easily be made to stand erect than in an ordinary 

 vase. It is well to use two or three of these 

 bottles for a group, for if only one bottle is used 

 it shows the stems of the flowers all rising from 

 the same point. 



With vines and flowers that are pendent, such 

 as the locust blooms, I use a square frame with 

 notches cut in the top, which I can stand up on 

 the table, and from which I can hang the flowers ; 

 for they should always be shown in the natural 

 position in which they grow. 



Photographing wild flowers, growing out of 

 doors in their native haunts, is a somewhat dif- 

 ferent matter from photographing them indoors 

 completely protected from the wind. If it were 

 not for the fact that the slightest breath of air, 

 almost imperceptible to us, will cause a growing 



