AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY. 



405 



AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY. 



** For sport the lens is better than the gun. " 



I wish to make this department of the utmost 

 use to amateurs. I shall, therefore, be glad to 

 answer any questions ana to print any items sent 

 me by practical amateurs relating to their experi- 

 ence in photography. 



CAMERA NOTES. 



GENE S. PORTER. 



I have just returned from a picture-tak- 

 ing jaunt, and with both eyes wide open 

 for everything photographic I noticed that 

 there were even more cameras in evidence 

 this year than ever before. Fully half the 

 cameras in use were arranged for focusing. 

 Last year the fixed or universal cameras 

 held sway, and extension fronts were rare. 

 Almost every camera I saw this year was 

 accompanied by a tripod, and their users 

 gave evidence of doing careful work. I 

 met only 3 or 4 cases of rank folly in many 

 hundred miles of travel by land and water. 

 One young thing, with an excellent kodak, 

 did the St. Clair flats in a perfect carnival 

 of snapshots. She snapped straight against 

 the sun, and snapped under black storm 

 clouds, in a stiff wind. It seemed to fill 

 her soul with glee to watch the finder and 

 reel off exposed film; and at each exposure 

 she would joyfully cry, "I got that!" It 

 is many moons since. I wonder if she 

 feels she has "got that" now. 



At the Soo, where we crossed to Can- 

 ada, was another girl with a 5 x 7 exten- 

 sion camera. Tripod, case, and all the ac- 

 cessories were the best of their kind. She 

 had her instrument set up and focussed on 

 the locks, waiting to take a big boat as it 

 came through, and she had aimed straight 

 at the sun. It is a mystery to me how 

 anyone could know enough to get together 

 an outfit so complete and yet be ignorant 

 of the first principles of its use. 



Another young woman made a great 

 show of carrying a costly outfit. One day 

 I told her of the girl of the locks. She 

 smiled at me loftily and said, "I have a 

 lens myself so fine that I can take pictures 

 with it almost directly against the sun." 

 I asked her what make her camera was, 

 and she said, "I really don't know, but it 

 was made in Germany." Later I suggest- 

 ed to her father that she seemed devoted 

 to her camera. "Yes," grunted the bluff 

 old gentleman; "at the present moment it 

 is her fad. She has carried it from Florida 

 to Canada, and I've footed the bills; but 

 I've never seen a picture, and I never ex- 

 pect to." That was what I wanted to 

 know! 



The worst of all, and I wish I could 

 truthfully say it was a man, but it was not, 

 was a woman who said she had been crazy 

 for a camera and Fred bought one before 



he knew what she wanted. He bought a 

 thing that had to be screwed on legs and 

 pulled out in front. She had to put her 

 head under a cloth and look through in the 

 back, and a plate had to be put in every 

 time she took a picture. She said that 

 after all that fuss she didn't get 6 decent 

 prints out of a dozen. She said the only 

 thing to have was one of the box kind, 

 with a lot of plates in. All you had to do 

 was point it at a thing and press a button. 

 Then you could send the plates to a gal- 

 lery and you got the finest pictures made 

 every time. She said she was going to sell 

 her camera as soon as she had a chance, 

 and get a box one. One of the party sug- 

 gested that she wouldn't sell it soon at 

 that rate, and she replied that she didn't 

 wish to work off a thing like that on her 

 friends. She was saving it f6r someone 

 she wanted to even up with. 



Against these there was an army of well 

 equipped, serious, painstaking workers. 

 They were out after pictures. They stud- 

 ied every situation and took nothing but 

 pictures. 



In the upper peninsula of Michigan, I 

 have located a camera paradise, and have 

 made arrangements to start next year in 

 May, when the bear and deer are running 

 and the trappers are holding high carnival. 

 My paradise has 3 lakes and 2 trout 

 streams, well stocked; and Molly-Cotton 

 pathetically remarked, when she shoul- 

 dered her little 22 caliber Stevens, "Seems 

 as if I need a bigger gun when there's 

 everything in the woods but lions." Pull- 

 ing into a little bay one morning on my 

 return from a picture taking trip, I saw a 

 big golden eagle, a bunch of wild ducks 

 with purple and green markings on their 

 necks and wings, and the biggest cfane I 

 ever saw, rising clumsily from the water 

 and sailing away with a bullfrog in its 

 bill, struggling for freedom. 



Yes, Belovedest; I had 3 cameras with 

 me, and every reflex and snapshot plate 

 was gone. So were the birds, before I 

 could set up an extension front. I groaned 

 and watched them sail away; but I have 

 pre-empted a spot and engaged a guide 

 6 feet 4; weight, 250; strength of Sandow. 

 I am going back there again. There were 

 others that didn't find me out of plates, or 

 sail too soon. 



Everywhere I found Recreation and 

 the fruits of its good work. Occasionally 

 I met a man who set my soul singing for 

 joy. One man told me I could vastly im- 

 prove my pictures if I would carefully 

 study the Porter articles in Recreation. 

 I told him I would. 



To make honest outdoor pictures of 

 birds and game in their native haunts and 

 wild state requires earnest, conscientious, 

 faithful work, coupled with superb physi- 



