There are numerous objects in our collection that do not link with Andrew Carnegie’s life story and as a result rarely leave our collections store. Among those objects are these four photographs. When I first spotted them in our collection I was immediately intrigued by them – looking at the photographs one can’t help but be mesmerised by the deep dark colours of the night and the bright, almost glowing figures of deer.
Image: Hark! by George Shiras III. ACBM collection
You may have already spotted a faint copyright watermark on the bottom left corner of these images, crediting these photos to George Shiras 3rd (b. 1859 - d. 1942) - a lawyer in Pittsburgh (USA) and a close friend of Andrew Carnegie’s brother Thomas. Andrew Carnegie was living in New York by then - his closest contact with the Shiras’s was George’s father, George Shiras Jr., who was a lawyer for Carnegie Steel and Andrew’s fishing partner. There were thus numerous connections between the two families - but why, how and when the Carnegies received these particular photographs still remains a mystery.
Image: Innocents Abroad by George Shiras III. ACBM collection
These photographs are in fact part of a larger set called Midnight Series, a suite of ten pictures taken by Shiras in 1896. Shiras is often credited as being the father of wildlife photography. He was admired for his artistic eye, for mastering photographic technology in difficult nighttime conditions and for understanding the habits of the animals. He experimented with various methods – including camera traps, feeding stations and flash photography – in order to entice animals close enough to be captured by his camera lens. Shiras’ process was thus rather different from wildlife photography today – animals often scarpered in fear, having been blinded by his camera flash.
Image: Spike Horn Buck by George Shiras III. ACBM collection
Although Shiras was not a professional photographer, his series became internationally renowned. Shiras was invited to exhibit his prints both at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 (you may recognise the latter from Judy Garland’s film Meet Me in St Louis). In Paris, the photographs won a Silver medal in the photography section – a competition in which they were not even officially entered!
Image: Midnight Reflections by George Shiras III. ACBM collection
In 1906, these photographs were the first animal photographs ever published in the National Geographic Magazine. They were printed in the magazine’s July issue along with Shiras’s 70 other animal photographs and a short article. The issue was so popular that a second print run was printed soon after the first. Over the years, Shiras also developed an interest in wildlife protection. He was involved in the development of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act in America, and advocated for a gun law that prohibited hunting wildlife out of season.
Join us again later this month when we’ll take a closer look at the photographs themselves.
