George Shiras III is widely known as the world’s first successful wildlife photographer. He roamed the woods near Marquette, Michigan, and captured remarkable images of wild animals with a cumbersome camera and an innovative magnesium flash setup.

National Geographic published 74 of Shiras’ photos in 1906. At the time it was a staid, text-oriented scientific publication. The photo-intensive edition was wildly popular and inspired the magazine’s transformation into a world leader in nature photography.

Shiras was not a native of the Upper Peninsula. His grandfather, George Shiras I, came from Pittsburgh to Marquette in 1849 in search of brook trout, and vacations in the UP became a family tradition. Shiras was 11 years old when his own father brought him and his brother north for a summer camping, hunting, and fishing expedition.

It was French-Ojibwe guide Jack LaPete who brought Shiras to Whitefish Lake near Deerton in Alger County and introduced him to the fine art of wilderness exploration and survival.

LaPete was a guide to visiting dignitaries, industrial magnates and politicians who were looking for an authentic wilderness adventure. He escorted B.F. Childs on an 1870 photographic expedition around Lake Superior that produced an epic collection of 500 stereographic images that was marketed worldwide.

LaPete taught Shiras the method of night-hunting in a canoe with a small fire or lantern in the bow to illuminate and freeze deer on the riverbanks (what we would now call “shining”). Shiras later adapted that technique to wildlife photography.

Shiras was an avid hunter for years. He turned from hunting to photography in the late 1880s as the thrill of the kill began to fade. Hunting with a camera took the same skill and patience as hunting with a gun, he said, but allowed the animals he deeply admired to survive.

Wildlife photography in the late 19th century was awkward and complicated. Shiras used glass-plate negatives in large format view cameras. He teamed up with a machinist named John Hammer to create some unique photo accessories, like a pistol-grip “flashlight” that tripped the shutter and fired the flash powder simultaneously to get a property exposed image. They rigged tripwires that snagged animals and set off a camera and flash that they left set up in the woods. Their most extraordinary photographs combined two cameras and flash units. When the first flash was triggered by a passing animal, it would startle. The second camera and flash fired a moment later, capturing the animal in flight.

Shiras and his family returned to Whitefish Lake annually throughout his life. The lake was on property owned by Peter White, a prominent businessman and founding citizen of Marquette. The two families had a longtime friendship based on a mutual love of hunting and the natural world, and shared a Whitefish Lake compound. George Shiras III, the sportsman and wildlife photographer, married Peter White’s daughter, Frances "Fannie" White in 1885.

Shiras practiced law and maintained his principal residence in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was elected to Congress in 1902 and used the platform to press for a federal migratory bird protection law that finally passed in 1918, long after he left office. He used his prominence as a wildlife photographer to promote “hunting with a camera” as a humane alternative to gun hunting.

Shiras was a close friend and advisor to Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, and collaborated with him to advocate for a national park system. He discovered and documented a unique subspecies of moose in Yellowstone National Park, named Alces alces shirasi in his honor.

Shiras settled permanently in Marquette in 1938 and died there in 1942.

The author utilized Google Gemini AI as a research tool for this article.