Subjects for Field Work 



BY GEO. W. KELLOGG 



The camera-worker who imagines he must 

 wait for vacation time, or go on a long journey, 

 to find subjects of sufficient interest to photo- 

 graph makes a mistake. If not in the field 

 early in the season as well as early in the day 

 he is missing great opportunities. Whether he 

 lives on the mountain or in the valley, on the 

 plain or near the coast, there is an abundance 

 of available material unnoticed and neglected 

 by the average amateur photographer. 



Such has been the writer's experience. As 

 he is indebted to others, some of whom never 

 used a camera, for suggestions of possibilities 

 which certain special lines of work offered, so, 

 he hopes, that by his suggestions others may 

 be induced to get out of the ruts and to work 

 along different lines. 



Don't go to a mountain top and there try to 

 include in your exposure everything possible 

 in the panoramic scene. Rather take for your 

 subject a rock, a shrub or a tree; and let the 

 other portions of the scene be subordinate to it. 



A tree; either with its branches naked or in 

 foliage, flower or fruit; a winding brook, 

 either at low water or during or after a freshet; 

 a foggy morning; a rainy day; clouds, sunrise 

 and sunset — all offer a series of ever-changing 

 effects, which to secure and retain on the 

 sensitive plate are worthy the efforts of the 

 most skillful worker. 



In some city parks are enclosures containing 

 wild animals. Unless the use of cameras there 

 is prohibited, a good photographer may get 

 permission to go within the enclosures, where 

 with patience and perseverance he may secure 

 pictures without a suggestion that the animals 

 are in captivity. Subsequently a few good 

 prints presented to the superintendent or his 

 assistants will be sufficient to guarantee 

 future concessions as occasions require. 



There was one who made such a hobby of 

 rocks, ravines and waterfalls that a friend once 

 said to him, "Tell me, if you can, one thing in 

 which you are interested aside from your 

 d d rocks." Unconsciously the photog- 

 rapher was making a partial photographic 

 record of local geology, which subsequently 



interested some of the faculty of a university 

 and yielded the photographer a substantial 

 return for scientific work which he had un 

 consciously performed. 



Wild flowers offer a fascinating and in- 

 exhaustible field. One need not hesitate, even 

 though he know little about botany, for others 

 who knew no more have succeeded. For this 

 work a camera with a long bellows is desirable. 

 But with a hand camera and a short bellows, 

 or even a box camera with fixed focus lens, by 

 attaching a supplementary portrait lens to the 

 regular lens, the focus will be shortened 

 sufficiently to enable the operator to work 

 close to his subject, and to get a comparatively 

 large image of it on the plate. A tripod is a 

 necessity and snap-shots to be avoided. 



Go into a colony of foreigners who adhere to 

 foreign customs. Or, if you can, get friendly 

 with some of the Indians on our reservations. 

 A few unmounted prints will make you a good 

 fellow. Be one with them, with your hand 

 camera in commission. Do not have your 

 subjects pose. Wait until they are interested 

 in something, or doing something. Then snap. 



Get acquainted with the farmers. Try your 

 skill on pictures of them plowing, planting, 

 cultivating, berry and pea picking, haying, 

 harvesting, trading horses. Get out! away from 

 your backyard. Stop making piazza pictures 

 and go to getting something real. 



The field is so large and the opportunities 

 so many that no camera worker need be in a 

 rut, unless he so elects. Get away from beaten 

 paths. The conventional photographs mo.de 

 at the hunting camp, and about the summer 

 boarding-house, of strings of fish and carcasses 

 of slaughtered game, of groups of grinning 

 faces and with eyes staring at the lens, are too 

 common, too unsightly, to attract attention. 

 Seek some unfrequented spot in Nature's 

 garden, even if you go alone. If accompanied 

 by a fellow worker, let each work out his pic- 

 ture, instead of doing as did the companions 

 who placed their cameras side by side and each 

 practised on the same subject. Strive to do 

 work of good quality, rather than of a great 

 quantity. Get up early. Try being on your 

 working ground before sunrise; the early hours 

 are the best; make the most of them. When the 



