It’s one thing to capture pictures of rapidly-moving animals using a mirrorless camera with blazing-fast burst mode, it’s a whole other ball game doing it with a cumbersome glass plate camera that, on average, could take three frames per minute.
Well, that’s exactly what official British Army photographer, John Warwick Brooke, did during WWI.
Stationed on the Western Front, when not attending the more horrendous affairs of the conflict, behind the lines, Brooke photographed cavalrymen galloping their horses at speeds you would imagine to be way too fast for cameras of the day.
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(Image credit: National Library of Scotland | License: CC BY 4.0)
The exact camera Brooke used to photograph his four-legged subjects was never recorded, but it was almost certainly either a Goerz Ango Anschutz (C. 1911) or ICA Minimum Palmos (C.1909), models used by other official British Army WW1 photographers.
These cameras were both medium format and captured images by exposing a 9 x 12cm glass plate coated with a gelatin emulsion to light entering through the lens. They featured a fixed f/3.5 and f/4.5 lens respectively and a maximum shutter speed of 1/1200.
When you consider the technical limitations of these cameras – especially the less-than-stellar 1/1200 maximum shutter speed – and the speed at which the horses would’ve been charging at, you’ve got to don your hat to Brooke’s skill.
(Image credit: National Library of Scotland | License: CC BY 4.0)
Taking a closer look at his images, I can’t see any distortion either. Although I can’t be sure that the images haven’t been digitally restored in any way.
John Warwick Brooke’s vast portfolio of images depicting horses during WW1 is proof that what matters more than high-end specs is the person behind the camera.
Of course, having the latest tech in your camera makes a difference, but if Brooke could frame galloping horses with a glass plate rig, then there’s hope for the rest of us.
During the war, Brooke also shot what I think is probably the most tense series of images ever, snapped just before a group of soldiers went over the top into No Man’s Land.