Cave photography the hard way
Jack Campin
Someone asked about cave photography in rec.photo a while ago, so let me
follow up with another piece in the same vein as my Man Ray anecdote. This
is an article by Chris Howe in "Photography", April 1989:
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A WORLD WITHOUT SUN
To most people, the thought of crawling underground in dank, dark and muddy
conditions is less than appealing. "What do you see down there?" they ask.
"Why do you do it?" Those unwilling to descend to the depths of the
underworld can at least have their questions partly answered by photographs,
but therein lies a major problem. How can pictures be produced that depict
the special environment found only in a cave?
Today, caving is a sport with thousands of followers, and with modern
technology, wetsuits, ropes and ladders, reaching the far end of a cave is
now a relatively straightforward proposition. Photography is a very
specialized branch of the sport, made easier by using electronic flash,
slave units, and even fully protected underwater cameras. For the pioneers
of underground photography, however, life wasn't quite so easy.
Harry Savory was one such pioneer, a remarkable man with unusual skills.
He was born in 1889, the son of Ernest Savory, who made his living as a
printer and publisher of greeting cards. At the age of six the family
moved to Bristol, where new studios were set up, and Harry began work in
the first decade of the new century. An interest in Somerset's Mendip
Hills led to Harry's first visits to the Mendip Nature Research Committee,
a club involved in exploration of the local caves, and he was first taken
underground in 1910.
The concept of caving as a sport was a new one at that time, with the
emphasis clearly on exploration for scientific purposes. Photographs were
considered an essential recording medium, and in the land without sun,
Savory's skill with a camera was unsurpassed. Others had tried and met
with only limited success, but Savory, under the same difficult conditions,
produced some of the finest underground photographs this country has ever
seen.
Equipment was crude, and anyone wishing to transport and use it underground
in locations like Swindon's Hole needed a great deal of determination.
Although flexible film had been invented by 1910, plate cameras were still
the commonest form of photographic equipment. Savory used a quarter-plate
camera for his early work, but later switched to a half-plate or even a
whole-plate in easier locations. Protecting the equipment was difficult;
mud and grit would cause the mechanism to seize, and water often swelled
the mahogany and prevented the dark slides from operating, the slide
binding in its runner. Camera, tripod and a haversack of plates had to be
carefully passed through small passages with only limited airspace, adding
greatly to the time spent underground. An expedition down Swindon's Hole,
then being actively explored, might take 12 hours, rather than the one or
two required today.
Protection for the camera was slight - it was either held in a canvas bag or
wrapped in a macintosh. Cavers normally dressed in old clothes, and had to
expect a thorough soaking when they entered a wet cave in a cast-off,
threadbare jacket. There were no neoprene wetsuits, or waterproof oversuits,
to combat the cold. Herbert Balch, Savory's companion for many years,
considered a candle the most useful lighting for caving. This was termed
his 'beady eye', or Balch's Dependable Illuminant (B.D.I.) Not all cavers
agreed with him however, and acetylene lamps attached to cloth caps or trilby
hats were also in use.
Lighting was the greatest problem which had to be overcome, not just for
cavers, but also for photographers. Neither electronic flash nor
flashbulbs existed, so Savory had to choose between limelight, some form of
magnesium such as flashpowder or wire. Limelight was a common illuminant
in studios before World War one, and was just about portable enough to
permit its transport underground. A limelight burner depended on cylinders
of compressed hydrogen and oxygen, which were mixed and burned to give a
very hot flame. This heated a solid ball of 'lime' - calcium carbonate -
until it glowed with an incandescent light.
Unfortunately, while it was bright to the naked eye, limelight was rich in
the red part of the spectrum but not the blue 'actinic' component that the
plates of the time were sensitive to. When limelight was used at Wookey
Hole, for example, the exposure extended to two hours, the main
illumination coming from a flash of magnesium at the end. Limelight was
only ever used in the easier locations such as Wookey Hole and the caves of
the Cheddar Gorge.
The main source of lighting underground was magnesium. Burned as wire or
ribbon, there were always difficulties with fumes: during long exposures
smoke would rise to the roof, curl around in clouds and occlude the scene,
ruining the picture and preventing further photography. On one occasion, a
resourceful Savory even resorted to using fans on bamboo poles to try to
clear the air, but this was an extreme measure. To avoid the problem,
flash-powder could be used: only a single exposure was possible in one
place, because the fumes still filled the air, but as the flash was
finished before the smoke descended, the photograph could easily be
completed.
However, there were dangers in its use. Flashpowder was produced by mixing
magnesium powder with an oxidising agent such as potassium chlorate. These
could be purchased as a pair of reagents in two separate tins, ready for
mixing, although for cost reasons many photographers bought bulk supplies
and prepared their own compound. The problem was in keeping the powder dry
while mixing it in the cave, or alternatively transporting the ready-made
flashpowder, because once the oxidising agent was added, a mixture was
formed that had roughly twice the power of gunpowder, and accidents were
not uncommon. Above ground, where the mixture could be used with relative
ease, limbs and even lives had been lost, so you can imagine how much more
dangerous its use would have been underground. Certainly burns - some of
them severe - were common amongst cave photographers.
To take the picture, Savory carefully posed any caver appearing in it, and
then erected his cumbersome tripod and plate camera. Composition was
checked by moving a candle around the scene, after which all lights were
extinguished. Only then could the flashpowder, mixed in a tray or heaped
on a flat rock, be lit. Because of descending clouds of smoke, there was
no way to bracket exposures, so Savory had to correctly estimate all the
variables of composition, distance, aperture and amount of powder before
making his one attempt to capture the scene.
That Savory succeeded so well is a lasting testimony to his professional
approach and expertise, and his photographs are still regarded as some of
the finest ever produced. Sadly though, his pictures of Mendip have for
many years been reproduced in publications without any idea of the
difficulties he encountered. Indeed, countless thousands of visitors to
Gough;s Cave must have bought postcards made from Savory's pictures, which
have been on sale for about 20 years, without realizing their quality, or
even who had taken them.
Savory worked hard for his pictures. How many men would remain in a cave,
cramped in a narrow passage, while it was deliberately flooded, so that
they could photographs the water pouring through cracks? Savory was an
exceptionally dedicated photographer, who was prepared to go to such
seeimingly ridiculous extremes in his attempts to record the passages he
helped explore. Now, on the centenary of his birth, his photographs serve
as an eloquent testament to his labours.
"A Man Deep in Mendip - the caving diaries of Harry Savory" contains 100 of
his photographs, and is edited by his son, John Savory. "To Photograph
Darkness - the history of underground and flash photography", by Chris Howes,
documents the development of artificial light for photography and is
illustrated with 160 photographs. Both are published by Alan Sutton Ltd,
prices (pounds) 14.95 and (pounds) 25 respectively.
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"Photography" is about my favourite photographic magazine. It's monthly,
fairly cheap, well reproduced, and is predominantly about images rather
than equipment. Addresses:
Argus Specialist Publications, Argus House, Boundary Way, Hemel
Hempstead HP2 7ST, phone (+44) 442 66 551.
USA subscription agent: Wise Owl Worldwide Publications, 4314 West
238th Street, Torrance, CA90505
Trade sales: SM Distribution Ltd, 6 Leigham Court Road, Streatham,
London SW16 2PG
To forestall any misunderstandings: I am not advocating a return to this
sort of technology. What I AM advocating is this sort of intelligence and
determination, which can be applied to any box of tricks of any degree of
technical complexity (or any price level - does anyone have Bert Hardy's
account of his Box Brownie photograph for "Picture Post" of the girls on
the railing?)
--
-- Jack Campin Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank
Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland 041 339 8855 x6854 work 041 556 1878 home
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