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Nature Through the Lens

Richard and Cherry Kearton, born and reared at the head of a Yorkshire dale, became internationally renowned as wildlife observers through a camera lens. They began innocuously in 1892 with the purchase of a cheap camera which they focused on a song thrush in a garden at Elstree. Three years later, they compiled British Birds’ Nests, the first natural history book to be illustrated with authentic wildlife photographs. The Keartons’ attempts to get close to wildlife led them to develop the type of “hide” that is still in regular use. Early efforts produced a stuffed sheep, recumbent, with a camera lens protruding from its chest and the stump of an artificial tree with splashes of white paint to simulate bird droppings. Richard earned renown as a lantern lectures and photographer. Cherry, smitten with wanderlust, regarded the world as his film studio and entertained millions of people with sequences shot in Africa. Their work popularised Nature – and contributed to its preservation.


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