252 Photography for the Sportsman Naturalist 



one attempt it with the impression that it is all 

 plain sailing he will be speedily undeceived, and 

 maybe he will not entirely enjoy the undeceiving 

 process. In order to give my readers some idea 

 of what they will have to contend with, I wish to 

 say that I have often worked from four to six hours 

 over a single flower without obtaining a satis- 

 factory negative and have finally been forced to 

 desist on account of waning light, and many times 

 have I been compelled to hunt up a new speci- 

 men of some flower, the ones I had having 

 become wilted beyond all resuscitation while I was 

 trying to obtain with them the results which I 

 wished. 



One man, who has made some of the finest 

 flower studies which I have ever seen, once told 

 me that before he obtained a result that pleased 

 him, when he first started at this work, he made 

 and discarded over a thousand negatives. He 

 v^'as probably almost hypercritical, but it is much 

 better to be too particular than not particular 

 enough. 



I hope all this will not discourage any one, how- 

 ever, or deter them from trying the work. I 

 simply tell it that those who are entering the field 

 of flower photography may not expect too much 

 at the beginning. After having once acquired 

 the knack of knowing just when and how to 

 make an exposure and what length of exposure 



