March, 1923 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
5 
THE PHOTOaEAPHER NATURALIST. 
By R. L. HIGGINS. 
(Presidential Address.) 
It has been said that Photography as a means to an 
-end — whether that end be pictnre-makingj scientific re- 
search jonrnalisin, or any of the daily in- 
creasing applications of the craft — must make 
progress until it attains proportions of wliich we 
now hardly dare to dream. Although this q^uota- 
tion was made some years ago. yet it is now correct 
in certain spheres of scieiitific work to-day. The accuracy 
and rapidity which formed so marked a feature in photo- 
graphic methodr^ are no doubt mainly answerable for the 
increased employment of the camera by naturalists. The 
naturalist, however, will not necessarily be content with 
a single accurate and rapidly executed picture of his 
subject — ^he requires rather a scries of i)ictures which are 
not only accurate, but also characteristic and coherent. 
To init briefly the three qualities that are essential to 
good Natural History illustrations are accuracy, charac- 
ter, and continuity. Accuracy need not be dilated upon, 
as it speaks for itself, but ehai*aeter and contimiity are 
qualities the absence of Avliieh liave been the cause of 
failures in Natural History work. 
Ciiaracterkation m realised in a zoological photo- 
graph when the snihject is represented in a characteristic 
-■attitude and amlil cliaraeteristic ?'urroundings. It is 
therefore in these respects' that photographs of stuffed 
.animals are as a rule 'unsatisfactory. 
Publications on Natural History entirely illustrated 
by photographs jnit fairly and squarely before the public 
art to which one could hardly take exception. 
The cons’ideration of character, movements or atti- 
tudes characteristic of different animals have become so 
familiar in many cases as to have passed into proverbs. 
To “cree]) like a mouse/' to ‘'stare like an owl/' are 
expressions wliich occur to one, and such expressions' arc 
■origitrally the result of close o'bseiwal'-’oii. 
Most animals, including man, adopt certain definite 
l)Ostnres and expressions more frequently ithan others. 
'These, from constant repetition gradually come to be re- 
