344 PHOTOGRAPHING HORSES. 



I generally try to "take" animals with full sunlight coming, 

 if possible, from behind my back ; I fully understand that I 

 would do better, were I to wait for the light to become 

 diffused by the intervention, for instance, of a translucent 

 cloud. But being a busy man, I am obliged to utilise the 

 opportunities I get. The distance at which I like to photo- 

 graph horses standing still, is from 7 to lo yards ; and horses 

 in motion, from 10 to 25 yards. I use a quarter-plate 

 twin-lens hand camera, which can be focussed up to the last 

 moment, and which was devised for me by Messrs. Newman 

 and Guardia. Its full aperture is one inch in diameter ; its 

 equivalent focus is about 6\ inches ; and it has two shutters : 

 one working at ^-^q second, placed between the lenses ; the 

 other, at from i second to -^^ second, behind them. I may 

 explain that, up to the present, no shutter has been made 

 which can be regulated with approximate accuracy, between 

 these extreme limits, with the aperture I have mentioned. 

 When time and light permit, I stop the lens down to from 

 4 to tr- When taking rapidly moving objects, I find it best 

 to direct the lens, ;by means of the finder, on some point 

 at which I wish to make the exposure, and, while holding 

 the camera as steady as I can, I continue looking at the 

 moving object until I think it is in right position, and I then 

 press the release. In such cases, one has to receive every 

 possible help from light, plate, developer, and, if need be, 

 intensifier. In temperate climates, the best light for very 

 short exposures will usually be obtained about mid-day ; in the 

 tropics, some time from eight to ten in the morning, or from 

 two to four in the afternoon, so as to avoid getting the light 

 from too nearly a vertical direction. 



