A CAMERAMAN'S TROUBLES 195 



afraid now that a good many of our elephant pictures 

 are too good. They make the elephant look hardly 

 more dangerous than a slightly discontented cow. 

 To get these pictures of the elephant in his own 

 private home life meant the invasion of places where 

 we were never supposed to be, in terms of any 

 common sense. Often we had to run for our lives; 

 and once we had to shoot our way out of a very bad 

 mix-up. I suppose we had fifty close calls before we 

 were satisfied with the pictorial results. 



A great deal of the elephant work was in forest 

 where pictorial problems are always the most 

 difficult. The winds tend to blow from everywhere 

 boxing the compass every few hours and carrying 

 the scent of the hunter to all nervous animals. 

 Further, the light is constantly changing with every 

 change of position and directly under the trees there 

 is very little light at all. Any trees or grass absorb 

 a great deal of Hght ; and one has to give about twice 

 as much exposure in timber as on the open plains 

 because there is no reflection from the dark trunks 

 and leaves. 



From about ten o'clock in the morning until three 

 in the afternoon — 'when the light is the strongest — is 

 not a satisfactory time for making pictures because 

 with the sun nearly straight overhead, shadows 

 obsciu'e details in the animal and at the same time 

 make the general scene flat. Moreover, this is the 



