As a child, Sir David Attenborough was transfixed by the works of Cherry Kearton, a photographer and filmmaker who almost single-handedly changed the way we views the natural world.
小时候，大卫·爱登堡爵士被切里·基尔顿的作品深深吸引；基尔顿是一位摄影师兼电影制作人，几乎凭一己之力改变了我们看待自然世界的方式。
In the later 19th Century, photography was a laborious process suited more to indoor portraits than the great outdoors.
在19世纪末，摄影是一个费力的过程，比起广阔的户外，它更适合室内肖像拍摄。
The highest-quality cameras shot on glass plates and were cumbersome constructions made of hardwood and brass.
最高品质的相机使用玻璃底片拍摄，而且是由硬木和黄铜制成的笨重装置。
The plates needed plenty of time to expose an image – hence the studied gazes of subjects in Victorian studios, standing stiffly in front of the camera's lens.
这些底片需要很长时间才能完成曝光，因此在维多利亚时代的照相馆里，被拍摄者总是刻意凝视着镜头，僵硬地站在相机镜头前。
It was only towards the turned of the century that cameras became small enough to being truly portable.
直到世纪之交前后，照相机才变得足够小，真正便于携带。
In a leafy corner of Surrey in England, two brothers out on a walk used one to taking pictures of a birds's nests.
在英格兰萨里郡一处绿树成荫的角落，两兄弟外出散步时用一台相机拍摄了一个鸟巢。
It turned out to be the first-ever photo of a bird's nest with eggs in it.
结果那成了有史以来第一张带有鸟蛋的鸟巢照片。
In doing so, one of them – Cherry Kearton, the younger – not only became probably the world's first professional wildlife photographer, but helped inspire a young boy who would later become the most famous naturalist of the television age – Sir David Attenborough.
在这样做的过程中，其中一人，也就是年纪较小的切里·基尔顿，不仅可能成为了世界上第一位职业野生动物摄影师，还启发了一个后来会成为电视时代最著名博物学家的小男孩——大卫·爱登堡爵士。
"Kearton's films captured my childish imagination," Sir David said ahead of the radio series Attenborough's Life Stories in 2009.
“基尔顿的影片抓住了我童年时期的想象力，”戴维爵士在 2009 年广播系列节目《阿滕伯勒的生命故事》播出前说道。
"It made me dream of travelling to far-off places to film wild animals."
“它让我梦想着去遥远的地方拍摄野生动物。”
In 2012, Sir David even travelled to Bradford to the National Science and Media Museum to view the cinema camera Kearton designed himself and which he used to shoot his 1935 documentary The Big Game of Life.
2012年，大卫爵士甚至前往布拉德福德的国家科学与媒体博物馆，去看基尔顿亲自设计、并用来拍摄其1935年纪录片《生命的大游戏》的电影摄影机。
Richard and Cherry Kearton grew up on a Yorkshire farm in the late 1800s.
理查德和切里·基尔顿于19世纪末在约克郡的一座农场长大。
John Bevis, who wrote a biography of the brothers called The Keartons: Inventing Nature Photography, says they "were from a very working-class family who were mostly miners; Richard was the elder brother by about nine years".
约翰·贝维斯为这对兄弟写过一本传记，名为《基尔顿兄弟：发明自然摄影》。他说，他们“出身于一个非常工人阶级的家庭，家人大多是矿工；理查德是哥哥，大约年长九岁”。
Richard had been invited to a job in publishing in London, and eventually his younger brother Cherry joined him.
理查德受邀到伦敦从事出版工作，后来他的弟弟切里也来与他会合。
"They were out together with friends in Elstree, about 1892, and Cherry was always very interested in the latest innovations, and cheap cameras, pocket cameras, were just becoming available, and he'd brought along a camera.
“大约在1892年，他们和朋友们一起在埃尔斯特里外出游玩，而切里一直对最新发明很感兴趣；当时廉价相机、袖珍相机刚开始买得到，他也带了一台相机。
Richard was more knowledgeable about natural history, and he found a bird's nest and he said, 'Cherry, having a going at taking a photo of this.'
理查德对自然史更有了解，他发现了一个鸟巢，便说：‘切里，试着给这个拍张照片吧。’
"They had an idea on the spot that they would making a books, illustrated entirely with photographs, of birds and birds' nests.
“他们当场冒出一个想法：要做一本关于鸟和鸟巢的书，并且全书都用照片作插图。
There hadn't been a book like that up 'til that time.
在那之前，还没有出现过那样的书。
That meant travelling all across the country, because a lot of birds have very site-specific nesting locations."
这意味着要走遍全国，因为许多鸟类筑巢的位置非常固定，对地点要求很具体。”
Written by Richard and illustrated using Cherry's pioneering photographs in 1898, the book British Birds' Nests: How, Where and When to Find and Identify Them was the first nature book to be entirely illustrated with photographs.
《英国鸟巢：如何、何地以及何时寻找并识别它们》一书由理查德撰写，并在1898年采用切里的开创性照片作为插图，是第一本完全以照片配图的自然类书籍。
More books followed, and the pair would publish together for more than a decade.
随后又有更多书籍问世，两人后来共同出版作品长达十多年。
"Cherry was a very good photographer; compared to the natural history photographers of the time, his composition was very nicely framed, he had an artistic eye," says Bevis.
贝维斯说：“切里是一位非常优秀的摄影师；与当时的自然史摄影师相比，他的构图框取非常漂亮，很有艺术眼光。”
He adds that having catalogued the birds' nests and eggs of the British Isles over thousands of photographs, "[Cherry's] next thing was to get photos of birds themselves, and they needed to make some kind of [animal] hides".
他补充说，在用数千张照片系统记录了不列颠群岛的鸟巢和鸟蛋之后，“[切里的]下一步就是拍摄鸟本身，而他们需要制作某种[动物]伪装掩体”。
"They came up with this series of wonderful realistic hides, the most famous of which was the Hollow Ox, which was a cow's hide over a wooden frame with just enough room for a photographer inside, standing in there bent double, with the camera sticking out of a hole in the neck.
“他们想出了这一系列非常逼真的绝妙伪装藏身装置，其中最著名的是‘空心牛’：把一张牛皮罩在木制框架上，里面刚好有足够空间容纳一名摄影师，他弯着腰站在里面，相机从牛脖子处的一个洞伸出去。
It was very good, it was very effective, but it was an absolute pain to operate.
它非常好，也非常有效，但操作起来实在麻烦透了。
"There was a stuffed sheep, which was too small for a photographer, so they setting it up in front of a likely perching spot and pointed a camera out of a hole in the neck and operated it with a pneumatic tube."
“当时有一只填充羊模型，对摄影师来说太小了，所以他们把它安放在一个鸟儿可能停栖的地点前，把相机从羊脖子上的一个洞口对准外面，并用一根气动管来操作。”
The Keartons used ladders supported with ropes to get shots of nests on high branches; Cherry learnt to abseil so he could snap seabird nests built in the nooks of cliffs.
基尔顿兄弟用绳索支撑梯子，拍摄高处树枝上的鸟巢；切里还学会了沿绳索下降，这样他就能拍下筑在悬崖凹处的海鸟巢。
Little seemed too difficult or dangerous.
似乎几乎没有什么事会显得太困难或太危险。
The Keartons' designs were fiendishly inventive, and Richard Kearton would become known as the "Machiavelli of bird photography".
Kearton 兄弟的设计极其巧妙而富有创造力，理查德·基尔顿后来被称为“鸟类摄影界的马基雅维利”。
Cherry's fascination with technology went far beyond photography; the turn of the century also brought ways of capturing sound, such as recording onto wax cylinders.
切里对技术的痴迷远不止于摄影；世纪之交还带来了捕捉声音的方法，例如把声音录到蜡筒上。
Cherry, got his hands on one.
切里弄到了一台。
"He made the first ever recording of a bird in the wild… it wasn't a great recording, but it was the first one in the wild," says Bevis.
贝维斯说：“他完成了有史以来第一段野外鸟类录音……那段录音并不出色，但它是第一段在野外录下的鸟声。”
The Keartons also embraced the moving image, setting up a studio where they created the first rudimentary wildlife documentaries.
Kearton 兄弟也接受了动态影像，建立了一间工作室，并在那里制作了最早的雏形野生动物纪录片。
In 1908, Cherry took the first moving images of London from the air, having hired an airship which took off from Wandsworth Gasworks south of the River Thames.
1908年，切里租用了一艘从泰晤士河南岸旺兹沃思煤气厂起飞的飞艇，拍下了伦敦最早的空中动态影像。
Six years later, while in Belgium, he would take the first moving images of the war that would devastate Europe and kill more than 17 million people.
六年后，他在比利时拍下了那场战争最早的动态影像；这场战争后来摧毁了欧洲，并夺走了超过1700万人的生命。
His first successful film came after former US president Theodore Roosevelt, an enthusiastic hunter, requested a meeting in Africa.
他的第一部成功影片源于美国前总统西奥多·罗斯福要求在非洲会面，而罗斯福是一位热衷狩猎的人。
"Roosevelt was trying to get away from being in public eye for so many years," says Bevis.
“罗斯福多年来一直想摆脱公众视线，”贝维斯说。
Cherry was only interested in shooting with a camera, and took a dim view of Roosevelt's hunting.
切里只对用相机“拍摄”感兴趣，并不赞同罗斯福的狩猎行为。
He said that helping "accomplish the extinction of anything beautiful and interesting is a crime against future generations".
他说，帮助“让任何美丽而有趣的事物走向灭绝，都是对后代的犯罪”。
Cherry and Roosevelt were both drawn to Africa's wildlife but for very different reasons, says Austin Farahar, the head of photographica at Chiswick Auctions in the UK, who sold some of the Kearton's archive and cameras in early 2026.
英国 Chiswick Auctions 摄影器材部门负责人奥斯汀·法拉哈尔说，切里和罗斯福都被非洲野生动物所吸引，但原因截然不同；他曾在2026年初售出部分 Kearton 的档案和相机。
"They had a certain level of admiration, but I don't think they saw eye to eye, because Roosevelt was going through Africa, shooting everything, and just having a great laugh," says Farahar.
法拉哈尔说：“他们在一定程度上彼此欣赏，但我不认为他们看法一致，因为罗斯福当时穿行非洲，到处射猎，而且玩得非常开心。”
"Obviously Kearton was slightly less of the opinion that that was how to do it."
“显然，基尔顿不太认同那就是应该采用的做法。”
Bevis adds that Roosevelt only met up with Kearton "a bit reluctantly", but was persuaded that the British wildlife photographer could accompany him and shoot footage.
贝维斯补充说，罗斯福只是“有点勉强地”与基尔顿见了面，但后来被说服，同意这位英国野生动物摄影师陪同他并拍摄影像。
Kearton made a successful film of Roosevelt's safari across eastern Africa; it was released with much fanfare in 1910 as Roosevelt in Africa.
基尔顿拍摄了一部关于罗斯福横跨东非狩猎旅行的成功影片；该片于1910年以《非洲的罗斯福》之名隆重上映。
Given their completely opposing views on wildlife, it was an odd – if lucrative – collaboration.
考虑到他们对野生动物的看法完全相反，这次合作虽然赚钱，却显得很奇怪。
Kearton then spent much of the First World War as part of an allied unit in East Africa, formed of "mavericks" who were at home in the African bush, says Bevis.
贝维斯说，随后在第一次世界大战的大部分时间里，基尔顿都在东非的一支盟军部队服役；这支部队由一群“特立独行者”组成，他们在非洲灌木丛地带如鱼得水。
"In the early 1920s he got married to a South African opera singer [Ada Forrest]… I think from that time forward he started to have a more comfortable life – the safaris became a little more sedate," he adds.
他补充说：“20世纪20年代初，他娶了一位南非歌剧歌手［艾达·福雷斯特］……我想从那时起，他开始过上更舒适的生活，狩猎旅行也变得稍微从容安稳了一些。”
Kearton, however, was by no means slowing down.
然而，基尔顿绝没有放慢脚步。
Cherry and Ada travelled to an island off the coast of South Africa, and lived as the only human inhabitants in a warden's shack among what Kearton described as "five million" penguins.
切里和艾达前往南非海岸外的一座岛屿，住在管理员的小屋里，成为岛上唯一的人类居民，周围则是基尔顿所描述的“五百万只”企鹅。
They made a film – called Dassan: An Adventure in Search of Laughter, Featuring Nature's Greatest Little Comedians – which was released in 1930.
他们制作了一部电影，名为《达桑：寻找欢笑的冒险，主演为大自然最伟大的小喜剧演员》，并于1930年上映。
(The island's name is actually spelled "Dassen".)
（这个岛的名字其实拼作“Dassen”。）
"They spent six months filming and photographing and writing about these penguins," says Bevis.
“他们花了六个月拍摄、摄影并撰写关于这些企鹅的内容，”贝维斯说。
"And that was the film that a young David Attenborough saw in 1933.
“那就是年轻的大卫·爱登堡在1933年看到的那部电影。
When Kearton wasn't filming and photographing, he was doing lectures around the country, and Sir David Attenborough would have gone to one of those and seen that film."
基尔顿不拍电影、不拍照片的时候，就会在全国各地演讲，而大卫·爱登堡爵士应该去听过其中一场，并看过那部影片。”
There is, in effect, only one degree of separation between a boy fascinated with the wildlife he saw on a Yorkshire farm in the 1880s, and the natural history documentaries we enjoy watching today: Bevis believes the brothers would have greatly appreciated the effect their films had.
实际上，从19世纪80年代在约克郡农场被野生动物深深吸引的一个男孩，到我们今天爱看的自然历史纪录片之间，只隔着一层联系：贝维斯认为，这对兄弟一定会非常欣慰于他们的影片所产生的影响。
"The Keartons were very interested in the educational aspect, and they were very interested in spreading the word."
“基尔顿兄弟对教育层面非常感兴趣，也非常热衷于把相关知识传播出去。”
Cherry was a keen inventor, and had been frustrated at how cumbersome many of the cameras he had to take with him were.
切里热衷于发明创造，而他一直对自己不得不随身携带的许多相机过于笨重感到沮丧。
In the early 1900s he fashioned a more portable camera using a rifle stock with a plate camera attached – but after the war refined it into a much smaller device, one that could use lighter roll film and which would automatically advance to the next frame after every shot – technology that wouldn't become mainstream for another two decades, says Farahar.
法拉哈尔说，20世纪初，他用一个装有底片相机的步枪枪托制作出一台更便携的相机；但战后，他又将其改进成一台小得多的设备，可以使用更轻的卷片，并且每拍一张后会自动推进到下一帧，而这种技术还要再过二十年才会成为主流。
The camera was sold earlier this year as part of a large lot of items from Cherry Kearton's estate (he died in 1940, and Ada in 1966), including books, letters, prints and the various paraphernalia Kearton had used to take his pictures and films.
这台相机于今年早些时候作为切里·基尔顿遗产中一大批物品的一部分被出售；切里于1940年去世，艾达于1966年去世，这批物品包括书籍、信件、照片印刷品，以及基尔顿用来拍摄照片和电影的各种器具。
"It becomes so rewarding to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle back together again," says Farahar.
法拉哈尔说：“把这些拼图碎片重新拼回去，会变得特别有成就感。”
"And that's what it was like with this camera… there's no picture of him with it.
“这台相机就是那样……没有他拿着它的照片。
It's very, kind of naïve, and very rough… he literally battened it together in his shed.
它非常，有点天真质朴，也很粗糙……他真的是在自己的棚屋里把它用木条拼装起来的。
But it works."
但它确实能用。”
Farahar couldn't wait to get his hands on the camera, which is now more than 100 years old.
法拉哈尔迫不及待地想亲手拿到那台如今已有一百多年历史的摄影机。
There was no manual – it was a one-off Kearton had built using his own intuition.
它没有说明书，那是 Kearton 凭自己的直觉打造出来的一件独一无二的作品。
Farahar says he showed the camera to an old schoolfriend – wildlife cameraman Hector Skevington-Postles, who has worked on some of Sir David's own documentaries, such as Planet Earth and Asia.
法拉哈尔说，他把这台摄影机拿给一位老同学看，那人是野生动物摄影师赫克托·斯凯文顿-波斯特尔斯，曾参与过戴维爵士本人的一些纪录片，如《地球脉动》和《亚洲》。
"He was at my house, and he said, 'Got anything interesting at the moment?'
“他当时在我家，他说：‘你现在有什么有意思的东西吗？’
And I literally thought, 'This rifle camera!'
我当时真的想：‘这台步枪相机！’
I was like, 'What you make of that?'
我当时就想：‘你怎么看这个？’
And he said: 'Are you joking, this is incredible!'"
他说：“你是在开玩笑吗，这太不可思议了！”
Before the sale took place in February, Farahar was able to spend more time with the device.
在2月拍卖举行之前，法拉哈尔得以花更多时间研究这台装置。
Playing around with it before the sale, he was able to get its transport mechanism whirred into life – proving Kearton's remarkable talent.
出售前他摆弄了一下这台机器，竟让它的传送机构嗡嗡作响地运转起来，这证明了基尔顿非凡的才能。
"I was trying to get to grips with it for a long, long time," he says.
“我花了很长很长时间想把它弄明白，”他说。
"I was like, 'How does this thing work?
“我当时就想：‘这东西是怎么工作的？
What are the secrets of this camera?'
这台摄影机有什么秘密？”
And then I eventually figured out how it cocks and whines.
后来，我终于弄明白它是怎样上弦并发出嗡嗡声的。
Everyone in the office was going mad because I was making so much noise."
办公室里的每个人都快疯了，因为我弄出的噪音太大了。”
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