The outdoorsman who made wildlife photography a big deal for National Geographic
A century ago, George Shiras III put down his gun, picked up his camera, and revolutionized how we look at animals.
George Shiras III, arguably National Geographic’s first famous photographer, earned his renown by taking photos of animals at night. To make those pioneering pictures more than a century ago, he pushed the boundaries of his era’s technology. This image, taken in 1893, shows Shiras (at right) on Whitefish Lake in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Using a lantern, he spotted wildlife on shore, then aimed his box camera and ignited magnesium powder in a homemade reflecting tray, creating a flash that exposed a glass-plate negative for a fraction of a second.
In 1906, National Geographic, which then ran few photos, took a gamble on Shiras that would define the magazine’s future—an entire issue filled with his artful images of deer, raccoons, lynx, beavers, and other animals in the wild. Controversy was immediate. Two National Geographic Society board members resigned in protest, insisting that pages full of photos undermined the seriousness of the organization’s scientific mission. But editor Gilbert H. Grosvenor held firm, and the issue was so popular it had to be reprinted to meet demand.
In an accompanying essay, Shiras described the joys of “hunting with the camera.” At a young age, he’d started hunting with a rifle. On summer trips to the Upper Peninsula, the native Pennsylvanian learned from Ojibwe hunters how to use a small fire, carried in a pan in the bow of a canoe, to illuminate and distract nocturnal creatures long enough to take aim. But the decline of game species caused Shiras to question the sporting life he loved. After a kill, he wrote, every true hunter feels a vague sense of “repentance and sorrow.” Not so with photography.
He spent countless nights on the water, capturing haunting, beautiful images of animals briefly mesmerized by his lantern. He also pioneered the use of camera traps—trip wires strung through the woods to trigger shutters and flashes. Apart from his photography, Shiras was a staunch advocate for wildlife preservation. Representing Pennsylvania as a congressman from 1903 to 1905, he championed conservation legislation, then played a crucial role in creating the first international agreement to protect migrating birds, which remains in force today.
His all-wildlife edition of National Geographic represented such a turning point for the magazine that Shiras was honored in the 75th anniversary issue, in 1963, when editors made and marked up this mounted proof. “Before his time,” read a caption accompanying the picture in print, “no one dreamed such photographs could be made.”
See this photo and others from our archives at the new National Geographic Museum of Exploration, opening June 26 in Washington, D.C. Visit natgeo.org/moe.
