MARQUETTE, Mich.— A photography exhibition titled “George Shiras III: Hunting Wildlife with Camera and Flashlight” will open May 19 at the Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center gallery in 105 Cohodas Hall at Northern Michigan University. It is a remounting of a 1990 exhibition on the NMU campus and represents a collaborative effort between the Beaumier Center and the DeVos Art Museum, which loaned three dozen nature photographs taken by Shiras from its permanent collection.

Interpretive panels about Shiras’ life and work will give context to the photographs. Some of the apparatus designed and patented by John Hammer, which Shiras used to trigger flashes and cameras remotely, will be available for viewing. Cameras from the period will also be on display.

Shiras was a renaissance man who changed the way that people saw photography with his revolutionary techniques in capturing wildlife by day and night. Using the newest technology in portable cameras and high-speed film in late 1800s and early 1900s, Shiras was the first photographer to successfully capture fauna in its natural state.

His first forays into this photography were done at his family’s camp on Whitefish Lake in Alger

County. Shiras received the grand prize for photography at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and published several articles of his photographs in National Geographic magazine.

In addition to his work as a photographer, Shiras was a politician and ardent naturalist who worked with President Theodore Roosevelt to expand the National Park Service and protect endangered species in the United States. He saw his photography as an extension of these efforts to preserve wildlife and at the same time appreciate their qualities.

The exhibit will be on display through Aug. 20. The Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is free.