-^ 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. 



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 life 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, With 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 difficulty arising from the fact that 

 the illustrations could be reproduced only by a process in 

 which unfortunately much of the finer detail of the originals 



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