Onctda Castle. N. Y. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/lettersonlandscaOOrobi_0 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF H. P. ROBINSON. The Art and Practice of vSilver Printing. (Third Edition.) Paper covers, 50 cents. Library edition, 75 cents. Picture Making by Photography. Finely illustrated. Paper covers, 75 cents. Library edition, $L00. The Studio : and What to do in it. JUustr ited. Paper covers, 75 cents. Library edition, $1.00. Pictorial Effect in Photography. Finely illustrated. Paper Covers, $1.00. Cloth bound, $L50. Letters on Landscape Photography, with Photogravure Portrait of Author. Cloth bound,- $1 50. For Sale Oy all dealers in Photographic Materials, or sent post-paid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers, Scovil! Manufacturing Company, 423 BROOME STREET, W. IRVING ADAMS, Agent. NEW YORK CITY. 1 — Scovlll's Complete PhotograpMc Series. Price, Per Copj . No. I.— THE PHOTOGRAPHIC AMATEUR.— By J. Traill Taylor. A Guide to the Young Photographer, either Professional or Amateur. (Second Edition.) Paper covers, 50 cents. Library Edition $1 00 No. 2.— THE ART AND PRACTICE OF SILVER PRINTING.--By H. P. Robin- son and Capt. W. de W. Abney, R.E., F.R S. (Third Edition.) Paper covers, 50 cents. Library Edition 75 No. 3.— Out of print. No. 4.— HOW TO MAKE PICTURES.— By Henry Clay Price. (Fourth edition.) The A B C of Dry-Plate Photography. Paper covers, 50 cents. Library Edition ; 7c No. 5.— PHOTOGRAPHY WITH EMULSIONS.-By Capt W. De W. Abney, R.E.,F.R.S. A treatise on the theory and practical working of Gelatine and Collodion Emulsion Processes. (Second Edition.) i 00 No. 6. — No. 17 has taken the place of this book. No. 7.— THE MODERN PRACTICE OF RETOUCHING —As practiced by M. Piguepe, and other celebrated experts. (Third Edition) 25 No. 8.— THE SPANISH EDITION OF HOW TO MAKE PICTURES.— Ligeras Lecciones sobre Fotografia Dedicados a Los Aficionados i od No. 9.— TWELVE ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN PHOTOGRAPHIC CHEM- ISTRY.- Presented in very concise and attractive shape. (Second Edition.) 2^ No. 10. — Out of print. No. ri.— Out of print. No. 12.— HARDWICH'S PHOTOGRAPHIC CHEMISTRY —A manual of photo- graphic chemistry, theoretical and practical. Ninth Edition. Edited by J Traill Taylor. Leatherette Binding 2 co No. 13.— TWELVE ELEMENTARY LESSONS ON SILVER PRINTING. (Second Edition) No. 14.— ABOUT PHOT( )GRAPHY AND PHOTOGRAPHERS.-A series of in- teresting essays for the studio and study, to which is added European Rambles with a Camera By H. Baden Pritchard, F.C.S so No. 15.-THE CHEMICAL EFFECT OF THE SPECTRUM.- By Dr. J. M. Eder 2S No. 16.— PICTURE MAKING BY PHOTOGRAPHY - By H. P. Robinson. Authof of Pictorial Effect in Photography. Written in popular form and finely illustrated. Paper covers,' 75 cents. Library Edition i oc No 17.— FIRST LESSONS IN AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY.- By Prof. Ran- dall Spaltlding. a series of popular lectures, giving elementary instruc- tion in dry-plate photography, optics, etc. (Second Edition.) Paper covers, 2s cents. Library Edition 75 No. 18.-THE STUDIO: AND WHAT TO DO IN IT.— By H. P. Robinson. Author of Pictorial Effect in Photography, Picture Making by Photog- raphy, etc. Paper covers, 75c. Library Edition. 100 No. 19.— THE MAGIC LANTERN MA-NUAL.— (Second edition.) By W. I Chadwick. With one hundred and five practical illustrarions : cloth bound. 7s No. 20. -DRY PLATE MAKING FOR AMATEURS.-By Geo. L. Sinclair, M.D. Pointed, practical, and plain Leatherette binding . co No 21.— THE AMERICAN ANNUAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND PHOTO- GRAPHIC TIMES ALMANAC FOR 1887.— (Second Edition.) Paper cover 50 (postage, ten cents additional). Library Edition i 00 No. 22.— PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINITNG METHODS.-By the Rev. W. H. Bur- bank. A Practical Guide to the Professional and Amateur Worker. Cloth bound , I 00 No. 23.- A HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Written as a Practical Guide and an Introduction to its Latest Developments, by W.Jerome Harrison, F. G S., and containing a frontispiece of the author. Cloth bound i 00 No. 24.— THE AMERICAN ANNUAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND PHOTO- GRAPHIC TIMES ALMANAC FOR rr888.— Illustrated— Paper cover. ... 50 (when bv mail, ten cents additional.) Library Edition i 00 No. 25.~THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEGATIVE. -A Practical Guide to the prepar- ation of sensitive surfaces by the calotype. albumen, collodion, and gelatine processes, on glass and paper, with supplementary chapter on development, etc , by the Rev. W. H. Burbank. Cloth bound i ro No. 26.-THE PHOTOGRAPHIC INSTRUCTOR FOR THE PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR.— Being the comprehensive series of Practical Lessons issued to the students of the Chautauqua School of Photography. Re- vised and enlarged. Edited by W. T. Lincoln Adams, with an Appendix by Prof. Charles Ehrmann. Paper covers 75 Library Edition 1 No. 27.— LETTERS ON LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY.— By H. P. Robinson. With a photogravure portrait of the Author, and nine illustrations from his own photographs. Cloth bound i cq No. 28.— THE AMERICAN ANNUAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND "PHOfO- GRAPHIC TIMES ALMANAC FOR 1885. Finely illustrated. Ready December ist. Paper (by mail, 12 cents additional!, 50c. Library Edition i 00 LETTERS ON LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY, BY H. P. ROBINSON, Author of " Pictorial Effect in Photography,''^ Picture Making by Photography'' " The Studio" Etc. Reprinted from "THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TIMES." Revised by the Author. NEW YORK: ScoviLL Manufacturing Company, 423 Broome Street. 1888. Copyright, 1888, By ScoviLL Manufacturing Company. W. Irving Adams, Agent. IPubliebere' preface. The following letters were originally written for the columns of the Photographic Times y wherein they duly appeared throughout the year 1887, ^^^^ were received with widespread interest and appreciation. Their popularity and real value seemed to warrant republica- tion in a form more permanent and conven- ient than the photographic periodical in which they first saw the light, and they are, therefore, again presented to the photographic reading public in their present form and revised by the author, with confidence that they will certainly meet the reception which they truly deserve. These letters will be found of greatest value to those, who, by their study and practice of photography, are enabled to produce a techni- cally perfect negative, but who do not know how to put their knowledge to pictorial use. They are not intended to point out a royal road to art, but rather to act as a stimulus to activity in the search for subjects for the camera, and to teach how readiness of re- source may help good fortune in turning them into agreeable pictures. New York City, October, 1888. Contenta. PAGE No. I. Preliminary, 7 No. II. Art in Photography, 18 No. III. The Photographer's Control over his Subject, 28 No. IV. The Choice of Subject, 37 No. V. On the Mountain, 48 No. VI. Various Subjects, 57 No. VII. Figures in Landscapes, - - - - 67 No. VIII. Another Day Out, 75 No. IX. A Talk in the Billiard-Room, - - - 84 1IUu6tration0. Calling the Cows, Trespassers, Models, Gathering Berries, The Swan, Stepping Stones, ' Gathering Wild Roses, Artists, The Mill Door. LETTERS ON LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. No I. — Preliminary. F^EAR Blank. — As these letters are to be published, I must call you Blank, your name as yet not having any interest for photographers. But we may be permitted to hope the time will come when your true appel- lation will be that of a shining light in the Art which has light for its source. I now propose to go into the subject of Landscape, more particularly as it can be represented by photographic means. As long as you were playing with toys — ten dollar sets — I was compelled to decline giving you any 8 PRELIMINARY. instructions, because I could have been of very little use to you. I have not a word to say against these cheap sets of apparatus, which make me wonder how they can be made for the money, and I have taken, and seen taken by amateurs, admirable little pictures with them ; but serious art requires serious tools, and should not be satisfied with less than the best. You have now, however, got over the youthful maladies of the art — the chicken-pox and measles of photography — and you have tried the usual remedies, such as endeavoring to find a means of photographing in color, and a rem- edy for bad art in a new developer. You have also ceased to ascribe a lack of brilliancy in your negatives to want of definition in your lens. You have, in fact, got over the initial little perplexities and troubles, and are ready to provide yourself with proper tools, so that you will have no difficulty in following out my instructions, and you will find your work inter- esting. You are an amateur with leisure, which gives you a great advantage. Hard-working profes- sional photographers can afford but little time for prosecuting the better parts of their art. I remember how surprised you were when I told PRELIMINARY. 9 you that I seldom devoted more than a fort- night in the year to landscape photography, and then had to take my chance of weather. But, after all, shortness of time for actual work- ing has its compensations. I get through a great deal of work in the time, because I have everything ready, everything cut and dried for use. I am always on the watch for effects and subjects, and ideas of all sorts, and jot them down in a pocket-book, so that perhaps a sub- ject or scene is a year or two old before I use it. But I have the subjects so handy," if I may so call it, in my mind that they are ready for use at any moment. And I take care when I have my landscape holiday that everything shall be in perfect order, not omitting the models for figures, and that nothing shall be doubtful, except the weather. It may turn out bad, but we trust the larger hope." Indeed, even in the matter of the weather, we are not so much in doubt as formerly. We turn to the meteoro- logical reports in the morning papers to see what kind of weather you are sending us from your side of the water, and ''govern ourselves accordingly." Although you never predict any- thing but storms, we learn how to dodge be- tween them. lO PRELIMINARY. Just as the proverbial millionaire began his working life with half-a-crown, so has many a now well-known photographer begun his art with a cigar-box and spectacle lens, and it is not easy for the new generation of photog- raphers to understand the difficulties through which the beginner of thirty years ago had to grope his way. To a modern dry-plate worker it would be like listening to a foreign language if I told him of some of the difficulties of the collodion process. What does he know of comets, oyster-shell markings, and lines in direction of the dip? In apparatus, also, the early photographers had to put up with what they could get, and what was not always very convenient for use. Weight and French pol- ish seemed to be the chief objects aimed at by the makers. Both camera makers and op- ticians were very stiff-necked in that genera- tion, and would not allow that photographers knew what they wanted, so the camera was set up almost as solidly as if it were an astro- nomical telescope, and the lens was made with the definition of a microscopic objective with the focus all on one plane. We have changed all that. We can now get apparatus and lenses adapted to our bet- PRELIMINARY. II ter known wants. Cameras, especially land- scape cameras, without any loss of beauty in their manufacture, have been made very much lighter, and lenses are made sufficiently opti- cally imperfect to diffuse the focus more in accordance with what the eye sees. The work- ers of the present day, who are benefitting by these improvements, have no idea of the trou- ble photographers of twenty-five years ago had in persuading opticians to make lenses with what they called diffusion of focus, be- cause, as the opticians thought they convin- cingly replied, the instruments would not be optically perfect. And now I come to what you really will re- quire. I take it that you will not give your ambition at the outset two great a chance of over-leaping itself in the matter of size. The time will, I hope, come when you will feel the compelling influence of sufficient skill to make your work become visible in exhibi- tions, and you will feel you cannot do your- self justice in a less size than ii by 14; but at present 8 by 10 will be large enough for you. You can put nearly as much art in a picture of this size as into one of much larger dimensions, and the smaller 12 PRELIMINARY. size saves you a lot of worry and bother in porterage. First, of the Camera. This essential tool should be light, strong, and have all the neces- sary movements. It must at the same time be observed that in some modern cameras there are movements which are not at all neces- sary, and appear to be added only for the purpose of displaying the ingenuity of the in- ventors. These clever machines defeat the object for which they are intended. If a camera is efficient, it cannot be too simple. With a perfect camera a photographer of even small experience knows how it works at once, and what to do. The tripod stand should be firm and rigid, as well as light and portable. This you will easily judge for yourself. The lens is always considered the most im- portant of all the tools the photographer em- ploys. So it is ; but I should like to say boldly that, within limits, I do not care what make of lens I use. It is as well to have the best your means will allow, but there has always been too much made of particular variations in the make of lenses. It has been the fashion to think too much of the tools PRELIMINARY. 13 and too little of the use made of them. I have one friend who did nothing last year be- cause he had made up his mind to buy a new lens, and could not determine whose make it should be, and he was tired of his old appara- tus. His was of the order of particular and minute minds that try to whittle nothing to a point. I have another friend who takes de- light in preparing for photography, and spends a small fortune in doing so, but never takes a picture. But I am wandering from my sub- ject. You will want a lens for general use. This should be of the rapid rectilinear form, and should not include too wide an angle. The focus should not be less than 13 inches for an 8 by 10 plate. You will find this lens useful for all ordinary landscape purposes as well as out-door groups and portraits. But there are some subjects which would be impossible with a narrow angle lens, such as interiors and subjects in confined positions where you cannot get far enough away to include as much as you want with the ordinary lens. For this purpose you must have a lens that includes a wide angle of view. To be quite complete you should have a iol4 inch also, as well as a 14 PRELIMINARY. single meniscus, but this is not necessary at present. I need not go into the question of appara- tus further. The experience you have already had will have taught you v\^hat else you will require, but I have one or two words to say on plates and developers. Find one good make of plate and learn all about it — all its peculiarities, how long it takes under the developer before the image should appear, how long a properly exposed plate takes to become rightly intense, and how it looks — and stick to this plate. I do not say don't try any other at any time, but make the chosen plate the standard. To be con- tinually using different makes of plates con- fuses the judgment, and you scarcely know where you are. I do not recommend the quickest plates that are advertised, because some plates are made so rapid as to be un- manageable. We ought by this time to be able to give the sensitiveness of any plate to the sensitometer, but I have never known one in which I could place the slightest reliance. Much confusion prevails. One maker's 30- times" is quicker than another's **40-times," while the names given to the plates are most mis- PRELIMINARY. 15 leading. The plate I like best and use almost entirely — that is, when I am not compelled to take a very quick picture — is called by its maker "Special Instantaneous," but is by no means a quick plate, compared with some others. There is one thing about which you may be quite sure. If the plate is not covered with a good body of emulsion — if it looks thin, blue, and poor — you will not get the best obtainable negative on it. The last word I have to say in this letter is about developers. Many amateurs try every newly-suggested modification of the devel- oper as it comes out, and fritter away their time and muddle their brains with weights, and measures, and homoeopathic differences in proportions. My advice is — and I cannot state it too strongly, particularly as you wish to be an artistic photographer, and not merely a dabbler in chemistry — keep to one developer, and let that be as simple as possible. I have used one developer only since I commenced with dry plates, and have not found any want of quality in my negatives ; but perhaps I am easily pleased in this respect. This developer was suggested by Mr. B. J. Edwards, and is as follows : i6 PRELIMINARY. No. r. — Pyrogallic acid i ounce Citric acid 40 grains Water 7^ ounces No. 2. — Bromide of potassium 120 grains Water 7 ounces Ammonia .880 i ounce To make the developer, take three ounces of water and add one dram of No. i and one dram of No. 2. This quantity should be suffi- cient to develop an 8 by 10 plate. There are occasions when the quantity of No. 2 should be increased or diminished. If you prefer any other developer, such as the carbonate of soda, which is now much used, I have no objection ; all I ask is, that you should keep as much as possible to one developer, and study it thoroughly. That is all I have to say on the technical or chemical side of photography, in this place ; but don't mistake me. There are those who look upon technical excellence with indiffer- ence, but I would not have you be one of them. While I look upon great manipulative skill by itself as good work thrown away, there cannot be the least doubt that bad workmanship mars good ideas, and it is distressing to see beautiful conceptions wasted by the slovenly way in which thay are sometimes set forth. It is for- tunate, however, that great mechanical excel- PRELIMINARY. 17 lence is now within easy reach of any ordinarily intelligent mind. Plates and almost all other materials are now so prepared for the use of the photographer, that with care and attention to instructions it is difficult to go wrong. But there is this to be said. The student must have a good knowledge of what a negative really ought to be. He must also learn how the ''values" of nature should appear in a print, and he will find that his mechanical means will enable him to get what he desires. This power of seeing values belongs to the art side of photography, and is not so easily at- tained ; but what I want to point out is, that when you can ''see," there is no great difficulty in mastering the mechanical means of repre- senting what you see. I do not, therefore, go into the preliminary chemical rudiments of photography, but assume your knowledge, and leave you to perfect it from any of the manuals now published. No. II. — Art in Photography. A FTER several weeks, in which you have certainly not been idle, I have received the prints taken from negatives produced with the new apparatus, and find them most interest- ing. They show that you have completely conquered the slight difficulties met with on the scientific side of photography, so wrongly thought by many to be the end of the art, and are now ready to try to make pictures with the tools you have selected, as other artists select, whether they will use the brush, the chisel, or the graver. Your prints show a great approach to mechanical excellence ; they are fair to see ; they are sharp, clear, soft, rich, of good color, but they are not pictures ; they tell us nothing, there is not an idea in the lot ; they are dead bodies, admirably embalmed, without a soul amongst them. I speak very frankly, as I could not help gathering from your letter that ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. 19 you think these prints, because of their me- chanical excellencies, approach very near to perfection ; but I am anxious that mere execu- tive dexterity should not have the first place in your mind. Touching this same something " beyond mere mechanical perfection in photographs, I think I had better say what I have to say about it at once, and get it out of the way. That much vexed question, is art possible in photography? has been discussed over and over again, yet I have always been content to keep out of the controversy, and with endeavor- ing to show, however feebly, in my work, how art could be made of it. I have never called myself an art photographer — that title is usually usurped by those who know nothing of art — but have been content and proud to call my- self simply a photographer, thinking it better to leave pretension to those who pretend. Nevertheless, I have always held a very firm belief, and had a profound faith, that photog- raphy used by an artist produces art. The lines of those who now try to put a little art feeling into their photographs are laid in pleasanter places than were those who made the attempt a few years ago. There are still 20 ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. some who deny that anything artistic can be done by a photographer, but it is my experi- ence that the best painters now call the pho- tographer brother" when he deserves it, and recognize that he can put thought, intention, and even a vein of poetry into his work — that mysterious something beyond the border line of hard fact which is felt perhaps more than seen in a picture. Of course, it is only those who produce art, in whatever material, who should be called artists. Original genius is one of the rarest gifts in this age of imitation. Anything absolutely new seems to be almost impossible. Emerson says : The new in art is always formed out of the old," and unfor- tunately some of those original geniuses who create their novelties out of old ideas are not unlike that divine " Who took his discourse from the famed Dr. Browne, But preached it so vilely he made it his own." It does not seem to be rightly understood what art is. A man might be a good painter or a good photographer without being an artist at all. A man who paints is not an artist be- cause he paints, or a photographer an artist because he photographs. Both are artists when they can produce fine art with either ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. 21 paint or chemicals, or any other materials. The fact is the critics have confounded the art with the operator. There can be no question that ninety-nine per cent, of the immense mass of photographs produced year after year have no claim to rank as art any more than the works of the millions of art students in this country can rank as art. That, however, is no reason why art cannot be produced by the camera. Every candid per- son knows it is, as usual, a question of degree. Art has been and is produced in the camera ; the great difference is, that it is more difficult to produce art with our instruments than with the brush. I should be rash if I attempted to define minutely what fine art is, but I will limit myself to accepting the dictum that art is the result, in the first place, of seeing rightly, and, in the second place, of feeling rightly, about what is seen." I also hold it true that art is interpretation by means of a creative idea, and never a stupidly exact copy." There are, of course, incapable photographers, as there are incapable painters, but that is not the question. The question is, is it possible for a photographer to put his own ideas into his work, to alter, add to, or modify ; or is 22 ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. photography to be, as Mr. Mantilini would say, one demmed eternal grind?" The camera may be a machine, if you like ; I will go further, and admit that it is a ma- chine, but you cannot be a machine if you would, and will not be able to prevent yourself putting yourself into your work for better or worse ; indeed, there is so much mannerism in the work of many photographers, that one who is used to studying photographs scarcely re- quires the names of the producers. A year or two ago I was one of the judges at an exhibi- tion. The names of the photographers were not given to us, but I soon found we were talk- ing of the pictures as the work of So-and-so, and So-and-so, almost as freely as if we had been supplied with the names. I have seen it argued, somewhere, that the charm and value of art consist, in every case, of its difference from nature as well as its like- ness to it. There is just a slight streak of truth running through the idea. The differ- ence is often the root of our enjoyment ; old facts are presented to us in a new way and be- come more interesting, but when it is claimed that every step in advance from the mirror or camera to the master-pieces of painting and ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. 23 sculpture is a step of difference, we must pause. When the difference " shows a purpose, an idea, or a sentiment, then the piece that is dif- ferentiated from nature becomes a work of art. There is more common sense spoken about art now than there used to be. There is not so much said about the awe-inspiring mys- teries." The painter now kindly allows that others may care for and be able to see and feel the beauties of nature. More than twenty years ago, when the opposition to art in pho- tography was at its fiercest, there was a capital article on landscape painting in a now dead review. Of course its tendency was against there being any art in anything but paint. It was particularly severe on the Chemical Me- chanic," and the author gives an illustration of how out of sympathy with nature the camera is. His illustration depends on the quality of the photographer he introduces. The mere fact of using a camera does not put a man out of tune with nature. That the exact opposite is the fact would be nearer the truth. The perfect and unadulterated loveliness of the conceit, that none but the painter artist can see and feel nature, is delicious. This is what he says : 24 ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. " To begin with sympathy. In the midst of the forest when you are alone, and are begin- ning to hear the finer sounds, the turn of the leaf, the thud of the nut, did you ever feel as if you were an attraction there, as if all were drawing round you ? I remember, when tour- ing in Scotland, swinging out of a wood on the top of the stage from Oban, into a wide space of sea and sky, with a glorious foreground of cattle and their doubles in the lucid shallows of the bay ; color so pure, so bright, so precious, that it drew a grunt of admiration from the Highlander on the box. I was put down, and disposed myself quietly in a corner of the wood, and was soon part of the color, from the water to the sky. The ripple hardly broke louder than my pulse. Presently a stoat bounds into the road, and I had time to ob- serve what enjoyment of life there was in the unalarmed, untamed step of the creature. The heron rose near me ; and as I was beginning to take it all in with half-shut eyes, and to re- mark how the powerful tones of the cattle, fawn and flame color, white and yellow, blood- red and black, seemed to give infinitude to space, a photographer walks briskly before me, and with an air and noise of satisfaction begins ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. 25 to Open and adjust his box. I give you my word that the look of quiet horror that came over the scene was unmistakable — not horror exactly — did you ever remark the face of a girl when she sets it ? It was precisely that. Not only did the stoat disappear, but — I don't know whether it was the creaking of the machine, or the business-like stare of the man — the cattle grew conscious and uncomfortable, and it was not without satisfaction that I saw a mist creep up from the sea, and steal away the shimmer and the charm. I left him some cows lashing their tails, some blackthorn and Scotch fir, and the average coast formation." All this is very fancifully and prettily writ- ten, and it serves to show with what contempt the painter treated the photographer twenty years ago. This sort of tip-tilting of the nose at photography as an art is only possible now with fifth-rate painters, or in the press, with their friends, or those who have failed in art. Anyhow, what you have to do, and what other photographers have to do who care for the status of their profession, is to keep peg- ging away at the production of good pictures. Taking pleasure in your work, but never being satisfied ; being always determined that the 26 ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. next picture shall be better than the last, your feeling for nature will increase and become more intense, and this love for and better understanding will shine forth in your work. As you progress you will find that, metaphori- cally, the stoat will be no longer startled or the bird disappear, the machine will no longer creak, and — who knows ? — you may feel that you are an attraction to nature, and she may draw all around you as she did around the young gentleman who lay down in the corner of the wood. You may console yourself further ; you may feel that photography has taught art to artists. It is acknowledged that portrait painting has enormously advanced since the introduction of photography. Painters are now ashamed of the conventional absurdities of the pre-photo- graphic days, when they ''had plenty of taste, and all of it very bad." The column with voluminous curtains dangling from the skies is now never seen. Perhaps the photographer has taught the lesson, as the Spartans cured drunkenness, by showing awful examples ; but the lesson was learnt, and portrait painting is now the one thing we have reason to be proud of in ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. 27 English art. Photographers had nothing but bad examples to follow in the portraiture of thirty or forty years ago, and most of their early faults in taste and composition were due to the painter's work, which was then wor- shipped as art, and is now looked upon with contempt. No. III. — The Photographer's Control Over His Subject. ET us go into the country, camera in hand. Here, at the outset, I meet with a diffi- culty which places me at a great disadvantage. I shall have to refer to the aspects of nature, and your nature differs, I believe, considerably from the kind we have in England, and I can only refer to the scenery of this part of the world. I have to confess, with sorrow, that I have never been in the States. I have had many invitations and a few chances, which I feel ashamed of not having accepted, but in spite of Shakespeare's saying : " Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits," I have never been able to tear myself away from home, especially as I feel it impossible to disabuse myself of the, doubtless erroneous, notion that the more accessible Wales con- tains in itself all the elements of foreign travel — mountain, lake, ruin, rock, and river, as well as a most picturesque seaboard — be- CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. 29 sides a language which few but born natives can understand. This is of the less consequence, as when you were here at Tunbridge Wells we took many walks together in the neighborhood, and when I talk of heather, gorse, and whin, you will understand what I mean, and turn the application to scenes in your own country. Besides, were you not with me during that de- lightful fortnight in North Wales, when it first dawned upon you that there might be some- thing in the claims of photography as an art ? But this came to you only after one of the two Royal Academicians, who were of the party, had fiercely advocated our cause (in which the other, being Scotch, cautiously agreed), and demonstrated that it was not the material, but the man, that produced fine art. It was there also where Gelligynan, Llanarmon, Dwygy- fylchi, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, and other names of places, were too much for your tongue, and compelled you to quote, with your usual readi- ness, the lines from the Ingoldsby Legends : *' For the vowels made use of in Welsh are so few, That the A and the E, the I, O, and the U, Have really but little or nothing to do ; And the duty, of course, falls the heavier by far, On the L and the H, and the N and the R." so CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. Above all — and to me this is of the greatest importance — it was there that you were first inspired to do or die as an artistic photog- rapher, and determined to carry the world with a fifty-shilling set. When you assisted me to get some pictures it seemed to you so easy to do my part of the work, which you said con- sisted principally in shouting, while you were acting as cowboy, collecting the cattle together and worrying them about until I got the three white cows in exactly the position in the group I desired, and when you defied the big brindled bull — like another Buffalo Bill — while I photographed him. A short descrip- tion of the photographing of one of these cattle pictures — a type of many others — may be of interest to other readers than yourself. It is a much quoted proverb that every- thing comes to him who waits." In this age of hurry it is not everybody who can wait — it is said to be especially difficult on your side of the water, so perhaps I am suggesting something you would find impossible ; but I waited for this picture as I have often waited for other subjects. Two years ago it struck me that there was the material for a good subject in this bit of meadow, trees, and CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. 31 Stream ; I therefore made a rough sketch of it in my pocket-book, indicating the cattle and the figure as objects I must get in some- how. I even noted down the title, " Calling the Cows." At that time there were no cows in the field, but there were some very pretty calves, which the farmer told me would not be removed for a year or two, so I could wait for them to grow. At the same time the banks of the stream were so overgrown with under- wood, and the trunks of the trees so covered with foliage, that the pretty glimpse of the river was lost, and the best part of the picture would have been obscured by a dense mass of alder leaves. Orders were given to have all this obstruction, as well as one of the trees, cleared away during the following winter. The next summer the hand of the hedgerwas too plainly visible, and the picture was allowed to wait still another year for the effect of the severe pruning to be outgrown. Critics say photography can have no con- trol over nature. This erroneous notion has often been confuted ; nearly every photog- rapher worthy of his camera makes some changes in the subject before him, to show that he may make even considerable changes 32 CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. in the aspect of a scene I give a view taken from the same spot, but with different figures before the alteration. Everything was ready last summer. The calves had grown up into young cows, and we soon prepared a figure to call them. What a delightful morning that was ? How you, with two or three other assistants, worked at get- ting the cows together so that the right colored animals should come in the right place, and that they should express the feeling of being called. How we failed again and again, and how we got them at last so that I did not find anything in them that I should care to alter ? Yet some people say : How lucky you were to find such a beautiful group of cattle in such a picturesque place ! " ''True ease in writing comes from art, not chance ; " so also in picture-making, it is better to rely on the art which you may depend upon, than the chance which may fail you. Touch- ing the figure calling the cows, do you re- member the first time you saw her? Do you remember the first day you joined as I took you for a walk along a rural lane, where you were surprised to find a poor girl in rags hard at work at a large and masterly painting CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. 33 in oils of the scene before her? How I said nothing, but allowed you to admire and won- der if this was the ordinary occupation of the aboriginal Welsh girl, and how astonished you were when you found the poor tatterdemalion was a clever lady-artist, whose works are often well placed in the Royal Academy Exhibitions, and who had so often to act as one of my models that she found it more convenient to wear the clothes until we gave up work for the day? It was on this holiday you first learned to see. Our party consisted almost entirely of artists, and some of them were entomologists and botanists, all worshippers of nature. The talk, the thought, was all of nature and how to imi- tate her, and there you had your first lessons in noticing, like Browning's Lippo Lippi, "The shapes of things, their colors, lights and shades, changes, surprises." This faculty of artistic sight, or, indeed, the faculty of seeing anything, only comes with training. The ordinary observer only takes a superficial view of things. He is sensible that the view is pretty." He may even go so far as to feel the grandeur of a mountain, but he can have no feeling of the exquisite sense of 34 CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. beauty that appeals to the trained mind. The artist can get very real enjoyment out of ob- jects and sights in which the ordinary eye would only see the common-place. The aver- age man only sees the most gaudy of the flowers and butterflies, the entomologist and botanist see realms of beauty that do not exist for the other, and so it is throughout all arts and sciences. I will not further enforce this necessity for learning to see here, as I shall, I hope, have further opportunities of alluding to the subject. I will content myself with saying that to see artistically you must learn art. To do this you must learn what has been consid- ered as the backbone of art for all ages — com- position. Of late years it has been the fashion with a certain school of painters to decry com- position as artificial, false, and quite too old- fashioned for modern use ; but I notice that the more these painters emerge from their pupilage state, the more do their pictures show that they are glad to make use of the old, old rules. Rules were never intended to cramp the artist's intellect, and I have never advo- cated that the artist should be the slave of any system ; but I know the value of what are called the Laws of Composition and Chiaros- CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. 35 euro, when used as a walking-stick to help you along, and not as a crutch to lean upon. It is time we got out the camera, so I will finish with what I have to say in this letter be- fore we begin our work. Enjoy your work, or drop it. You can never do good work as a task ; good photography, perhaps, but not good art. One of the best things said by William Hunt, whose delightful " Talks on Art " are as much enjoyed in Eng- land as in his native country, was, Draw firm, and be jolly ! " You must enjoy even your failures, for one of the best teachers is failure. Like the poets, ** Who learn in suflfering what they teach in song," the art photographer teaches himself by his mistakes, and arrives at beauty through much tribulation. I don't ask you to so far enjoy your failures as to welcome them with joy whenever they arise, but you may rejoice that there is something more to overcome, and that you will be the better for it. On the other hand, don't be too easily contented. Art is not easy, and it is only the incapable who are always pleased. To conclude, I will quote another William Hunt — old William Hunt, the painter of 36 CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. Bird's-nests, Primroses, Country Life. His advice used to be, "Paint what you love, and love what you paint." No. IV. — The Choice of Subject. S to the choice of subject. A great deal has been claimed for the extraordinary range of art, from the hues of a cabbage- leaf to the sufferings of a Christ." " Nay, there is nothing that man has ever dreamed, or hoped, or feared, suffered, enjoyed, or sinned in, which is not a subject matter for art," says Mr. Quilter, one of the most acute art critics of our time. But all who practise art must appreciate the limitations of the par- ticular department of art which they practise. The painter in oil has the widest range and an almost unlimited choice of subjects ; the water-colorist has a narrower scope, so also has the sculptor ; and shall I be wide of the mark when I say it is left for the photographer to show the greatest ingenuity in the choice of subjects in which to exhibit his skill as an artist ? The photographer should try to understand and be satisfied with the limitations with 38 THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. which he is " cribbed, cabined, and confined," and endeavor to turn them to his use ; or, rather, find in the very Hmitation a certain fit- ness and use, because it clears away a vast number of impossible subjects, confines his study in a narrower groove, and enables him to give more complete attention to **the things that are his." We are in the habit of claiming for pho- tography an unlimited range of subjects, from the infinitely little to the infinitely remote ; from the microscopic diatom, dredged up from the depths of the ocean, to the infinitely dis- tant nebula in star-packed space ; but there are some things that may be possible which are yet unaccomplished. In landscape photography, which is our present sTibject, there are one or two things that have not been done. For instance, have you ever seen a photograph in which one very common fact in nature is adequately repre- sented — I mean the effect of storm and wind on an inland landscape ? I say inland, be- cause such efifects are easy enough in sea pic- tures. The effect often seen in pictures by Salvator Rosa and Caspar Poussin. The bending and swaying branches of the trees, THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. 39 the driven sky, and the fluttering garments of the figures. The effect of wind is, unfortun- ately, too often to be found in photographs, always to the disfigurement of the picture, but no lightning" or "special instantaneous" plate has yet been made that could enable us to do justice to the grand and pictorially fit effects I have suggested. Then, again, I have never seen a photograph which gave me any proper idea of mountains. Photographs of the Alps always remind me of toy mountains, and I want to see a child's Noah s Ark on the highest peaks. Perhaps it is because we now-a-days make such fun of what were once inaccessible solitudes. We go up Ararat on a bicycle, instead of waiting for the orthodox flood as Noah did. There is another effect which has never been quite properly captured. In a mountain- ous country, when the sun has set to the observer, it still shines on the mountains. The effect is often one of the most beautiful in nature, but the non-actinic color of the sun's rays at that time of the evening has hitherto prevented anything like success in photograph- ing this subject. As Milton says : "Yet from these flames, No light, but rather darkness visible." 40 THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. However, this is a difficulty that may soon be added to the many conquered in the past. Orthochromatic plates will solve this problem, and when you have obtained a really fine ex- ample of the effect, here is a title for it (there is a good deal in a title) from Tennyson's new " Locksley Hall," but make the picture worthy of the line : " Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day." This reminds one of another important thing. Never give your picture a title it can- not support. I like good titles. I don't mind even if there is a bit of sentiment — not senti- mentality — in them, so that it is healthy, and the boundary between the sublime and ridicu- lous be not over-stepped ; but beware of any- thing in the nature of an anti-climax. If you have a picture in an exhibition, and the spec- tator, before seeing your poor little work, reads an ultra-poetical title, with perhaps a verse attached to it in the catalogue, his expecta- tions will be so raised that when he sees the picture he may feel a cold fit of disillusionizing bathos come over him that he may remember against you for some time. While I am talking of titles, I may just add an illustration of how it is possible to go THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. 41 wrong in naming even the simplest subjects. I am told that the cows in the photograph of which I gave a reduction in my last letter were not cows at all, but are what are called in Scotland " Stirks." I am quite aware that the natives in that far-country, with an inde- pendence which is perhaps praiseworthy but slightly puzzling, call things by names beyond the comprehension of other parts of the world, yet I believe I am almost wrong in calling these animals cows. Some of them may attain the dignity of cowhood by and by. Now for subjects that are possible. It is a true saying that each student must discover for himself what is beautiful. It is not every kind of scene that appeals to the feelings of all alike. Some of us delight in particular kinds of landscapes, some like grandeur, others are content with quiet sim- plicity. Each of us is constituted," writes Mr. Hamerton, with, perhaps, not a few verbal impediments, ''with a special idiosyncrasy related in some mysterious way to a certain class of natural scenery, and when we find our- selves in a scene answering to our idiosyn- crasy, the mind feels itself at home there, and rapidly attaches itself by affection." 42 THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. The student may be guided in his search for beauty, but it is not wise in a teacher to insist too strongly on what is picturesque or the reverse. Many painters will make good pictures out of subjects which would seem to be quite inadequate to others. Many of the greatest landscapes are of the most ordinary scenes. What could be more commonplace than the scenery of Gainsborough's Market Cart," Turner's Frosty Morning," or any of the pictures by De Wint and David Cox ? A writer I have already quoted has written so much to the point on this subject that I can- not help quoting him again. When an old Greek made a perfect statue, he made it (so at least says one school of aestheticians) with absolutely no feeling, save that of enjoyment of its beauty ; all other meaning, all other emotion, was unnecessary. He wished simply to produce a beautiful thing ; he produced it, and it was good. But it is a very curious thing to note, though a little consideration will convince any art stu- dent of the truth of the fact, that there never has been in the world a great school of land- scape painting, or even a great landscape painter, whose motive has been restricted in THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. 43 like degree to the beauty, pure and simple, of nature. Landscape painters have continually sought beautiful scenes, and painted them with more or less ability ; but the greater the man, the more individual, the more per- sonal to himself, and to men in general, have been his pictures. And so truly is this the case, that the rank of great landscape painters might almost be determined by reference to this fact alone. Beauty sought per se in land- scape has always hitherto destroyed itself; and people have turned ignorantly but deter- minedly from the compositions of snowy Alps, clustered vines, and deep-blue waters of Italy, to gaze upon David Cox's muddy lanes, shel- tered by dark trees, beneath whose shadow the peasants plod wearily homeward ; or on a pic- ture of some bleak expanse of rain-beaten, moorland, across which a belated traveler struggles in the teeth of the wind." Don't be so conceited as to fancy there are so few subjects sufficiently important for your camera. Of all things, simple subjects obtain the widest sympathy. Simple things appeal to everybody ; the commonplace is always attractive when well-treated. These simple scenes have the advantage of exercising the 44 THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. photographer's picture-making abiHties more than the more obvious and grander subjects. It is a greater triumph to find beauty worth recording in every-day homely scenes than in those of which every amateur can feel the beauty. Many a commonplace scene, as I hope to show, requires only the proper lighting, and perhaps a figure of the right kind in the right place, to make it beautiful. Let us, in imagination, stand on this wide piece of waste land, covered with gorse and broom and bramble, and experimentalize a little in "effects." We are on high ground, and all around us is presented good middle distance bounded by low hills. Bits of broken foreground, one of the most important parts of a photographic landscape, are to be met with everywhere. Materials for pictures are here in quantity, but there is nothing very striking, nothing that shouts aloud, Come, take me !" Here is a chance for selection and treatment. Subjects are so plentiful, that the best picture, other things being equal, will be the one that is best lighted. Let us stand with the sun behind our backs and observe the scene. We find it, although beautiful in itself, pictorially flat and tame. The sunlight, THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. 45 being directly upon every object, affords no shadow. The sun, being broad on everything, allows no breadth of light and shadow. There is no relief, no mystery. The equal illumina- tion flattens all before us. Now turn half-way round, and you will have the scene lighted from the side. There is more relief, and this kind of lighting is very suitable to many sub- jects, but there is still more relief and still more picturesque effect to be obtained. Turn so that the sun is nearly — not quite — in front of you. Now we get the utmost amount of relief, and in this case breadth, for the great mass of gorse and junipers in shadow, their edges being only just skimmed or kissed with sunlight, form a broad mass of dark which is opposed to a grand wedge-shaped breadth of broken sandbank in sunlight, which fills nearly half of the picture. We now only want a dark object, which shall be the darkest in the picture, joined with, if possible, a precious speck of white, to put the whole into tone, and afford us all the elements of the picturesque, balance of composition, breadth of light and shade, and tone. I want to avoid, if possible, going too fully into any part of my subject, on which I have 46 THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. written at length in my little handbooks. About composition and chiaroscuro I have said all that is necessary in " Pictorial Effect," but there has been so much said about " Tone" — and, what is nearly the same thing, ''Values," of late years, that I may as well have a word or two on the subject here. " Values," or the right relation of one shade to another in a picture, appears to be looked upon by the young school as the newest and most marvelous discovery in art. Tone," or the right relation of one shade to another in a picture, is as old as art itself. Some people — especially those painters who call themselves of the naturalistic school — seem to think this is the only aim and end of art. It is really only part of the beginning. A picture without tone can never be pleasing in effect, but it must contain a great deal more than this to be effective. The study of tone is of more importance to the painter than the photographer, although a knowledge of it is of vast use to the latter. In photography, tone, like drawing, is done for the artist, if his work is properly accomplished, and both may be untrue if he does not under- stand his work. A scene may be distorted — THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. 47 put out of drawing — by a bungling use of the camera and lens, and the values in a photo- graph may be entirely falsified by under or over-exposure or development. A due appre- ciation of values, also, enables the photog- rapher to choose and add to his views, as I have already pointed out in selecting the scene on the common. It is especially useful in rela- tion to the introduction of figures. The lights and shades and leading lines of a scene may be all out of tune, but the introduction of a figure of the right value may ''pull it together." I cannot do better than recommend you to read carefully a little book I have already quoted, "Hunt's Talks about Art." The au- thor is mad on values, and goes far towards making his reader mad also. It is delightful reading, full of quaint thoughts, admirable advice, apposite anecdotes, sound sense, and bewildering contradictions. No. V. — On the Mountain. JUST the day for photography ! The wind ^ is still ; not a breath shivers the delicate leaves of the Lombardy poplars ; the sky is not quite cloudless, for numbers of small clouds float lazily over the blue, affording varieties of lighting, either all sunlight, all shade, or, by careful waiting and observation, a little of each — often useful when softness and sparkle are wanted in the same picture. I don't think I can do better than imagine you are with me. It may be, like a legal fiction, most convenient ; besides, you know the scenery. Fill your slides, look over your camera to see that everthing is in order, for however sure you may be that everything is right, it is always best to have an inspection before marching. To forget a screw, if you have a loose one, and only discover your loss when you are miles from home, and the view ON THE MOUNTAIN. 49 before you is " perfect," is to promote, pos- sibly suicide, certainly profanity. There are some things better left at home if you unfor- tunately possess them. One of them is any kind of actinometer. I never knew anything but harm from this instrument when used to help to judge exposure. Another perfectly useless worry can be got out of " exposure tables." It takes all the ''go " out of a picture if you have to do a sum in arithmetic when you ought to be concentrating all your heart, and mind, and soul on your subject. Knowl- edge of exposure must come by experience to be of use. No calculations based on length of focus and stop are of any service to a prac- tical photographer. All other things being equal — which they never are — they would be an infallible guide, but otherwise they are misleading. After the plate has been exposed, and the excitement is over, it would be useful to make a few notes for further guidance — such as kind of lens, stop, and length of time, also of the light and nature of the scene. Besides the apparatus there is another very important help to picture making, which is seldom thought of — some models. It does not matter much what kind they are, whether t 50 ON THE MOUNTAIN. old men, young girls, or children, or mixed ; the one thing of the utmost importance is that they shall be appropriate to the scene, for there must be no suggestion of sham about the finished results. The illustration, which was done on a day that turned out unfit for good work with the camera, shows some of my models. A painter is making use of one of them, while two others are watching the artist, and another is reading in the foreground. One of the many disap- pointments which happen frequently to the pho- tographer is to go out fully prepared to do a good day's work, and to see the quality of the light collapse as he walks to his ground. We will have a lofty beginning to-day. Let us go to the top of the mountain — Moel-y-plas — a hillock you called it, with your transatlantic contempt for little things, but it is 1,442 ft. 8 in. high, according to the minutely exact calcula- tion of the Ordnance Survey, and at least affords us that sense of standing on a round world spoken of by the author of Adam Bede " as one of the out-door delights she most cared for. Shall we find a picture here ? The hill is glorious with purple heather just coming into flower ; green ferns and bracken, * ON THE MOUNTAIN. 51 mingled with the orange and brown of last year's decay — new life springing from death. As we ascend, we startle a brood of grouse, which goes whirring down the valley. We need not mind them now ; next month their turn may come. The land dips into valleys all around us ; to the north the lovely vale of Clwyd, beyond which, afar off, is a glimpse of the pale gray sea ; to the south, the Llanar- mon valley running for miles in the direction of Chester ; and to the west, the grand range of mountains known as Snowdonia. We are standing on the oldest bit of Britain, from the geological formation down to the Druids. The scene calls up memories on which every Welshman loves to dwell. There rise up be- fore us in mental vision, Llewellyn and his dog, Owain Glyndwr, and King Arthur and his round table ; but this is not what we are here for. The question of the moment is, Where are we to point our camera ? I cannot see anything that will afford a good subject. A magnificent view is before us, palpitating with actuality," but it is beyond our reach. It would be impossible to give any adequate representation of those distant hills— they would be dwarfed into insignificance, and, if 52 ON THE MOUNTAIN. relied on to come on the same plate as the foreground, over-exposed to the verge of blankness. The foreground is too insignificant in itself to make a picture, and the view, as a view, consists of the valleys and mountains. So we must remember the limitations of our art, and give up the impossible ; but don't pack up the camera, for here comes our picture. He is a group of children, five of them, gather- ing bilberries. We will give up the mountains for the present, and make a picture of the chil- dren. We will send one of our young lady models to make friends with them and rub off the edge of their shyness. That she is dressed in shabby clothes will be in her favor ; the children will be more natural and familiar with her. We will select a spot where the under- growth is not too dense, but broken up with plain patches of turf or bare earth. You have already made up your mind roughly how the group shall be arranged, and have placed the camera approximately on the right spot, and focused, pulling out the top of the swing-back before focusing, so as to get greater depth of definition from foreground to distance. The more exact focusing may be left until the group is nearly ready. ON THE MOUNTAIN. 53 Two children to the left of the picture, three to the right, and, to make a principal point, the trained model, not quite in the middle of the picture, but a little to the left of the centre, and nearer the camera than the others. Let the principal figure be standing with her left arm outstretched over a large basket, looking to the ground on the left, as if searching for berries. She, knowing what is expected of her, will not stand in an awkward attitude, resting evenly on both feet, but you may rely on her, when you have given her the leading idea, to carry it out instantly. The sun is shining to the right front of the camera, throwing out the figure dark against the distant mountains, but touched with a brilliant edging of sunlight. Take care in exposing to lift the cap as if it were hinged to the top of the hood of the lens, for it will then act as a sunshade. If the least touch of sunlight rests on the glass during ex- posure, the plate will be hopelessly fogged. It is with the children that the trouble comes. This, however, we get over with a little pa- tience, taking care that each figure appears to be as unconscious of the camera as possible. Now expose two or perhaps three seconds. . . . That stupid child looked up, just as 54 ON THE MOUNTAIN. you took off the cap, to see why you were keeping her waiting so long. Quick ! another plate before she is aware you mean another. That is the picture. It is often the second shot that brings down the bird. To succeed with a picture of this kind re- quires quickness of decision, and the faculty of seeing at once what ought to be done, and promptly acting on that insight. The photog- rapher also must be able, without hesitating or waiting for words, to say, or oftener to shout, the right thing at the right time to the models. In fact, the life of the picture depends on your doing absolutely the right thing in several directions on the spur of the moment. This facility can only be attained by long practice, good knowledge of composition and light and shade, and keen observation of effect. In the scene described above, the figures predominate over the landscape. We will now reverse the effect, and the landscape shall be of the most importance. We won't give up the mountain now we have taken the trouble to climb so high. Let us see if we can get a good picture by taking it on two plates instead of one. Some people say that combination printing is not quite orthodox, but whether it is so or not, ON THE MOUNTAIN. 55 let us break away sometimes. It is awfully dull to be always correct. It is not easy to an active mind to be satisfied with "the priceless merit of being commonplace." The difficulties of the subject before us are these : we have a near foreground of comparatively dark and non-actinic character, a blue sky, with some small strongly defined clouds, a distance com- posed of gray-blue mountains, and middle dis- tance ; this latter part of the scene, however, is a long way off. The problem is how to combine these apparently incompatible ele- ments, giving the least prominence to the fore- ground. No lens would get the foreground and distance together with anything like a passable focus, and no dodging of the exposure would afford both the widely different times they would require. These difficulties are easily surmounted by combination printing. Get the immediate foreground on the plate with an exposure of, say, ten seconds (for you will use a small stop), and all the other part of the picture on another plate, with an ex- posure, say, of one second. These exposures are only approximate. It would be better in practice, in taking the distance, to move the camera forward a little, so as to take in more 56 ON THE MOUNTAIN. than is required. This will facilitate the join- ing. I have fully described the various methods of combination printing which may be of use to the landscape photographer in " Silver Printing," and it would scarcely be worth while to go over the subject again. No. VI. — Various Subjects. E did not finish the day's work in the ' last letter. Indeed, we have only taken one picture and parts of another. But if that one picture is right, we have done a good day's work. For I do not count the value of the day's work by the quantity of pictures secured ; yet I, as do all other enthusiastic photographers, like to get all I can out of one of the few days in the year that are perfect for the practice of our art. On our way up the mountain we passed a small lake — Llyn Gweryd — a wild tarn amongst the hills, on which we have often enjoyed pleasant sails and rows in the summer days, and fishing with the long line from the punt in the evening twilight of the days in the photo- graphic time of year. Let us see what kind of picture we can make of the boat-house, which is a picturesque, weather-worn wooden build- ing, covered with decayed and moss-grown thatch. We get out the old punt, in which 58 VARIOUS SUBJECTS. there is room for ten or a dozen people. This we draw to the bank to the right of our pic- ture, and it makes a grand object for our fore- ground. It should keep clear of the boat- house, which is to the left, and allow the boat and any figures we may have to appear dark against the shining waters of the lake beyond. In the middle distance is a tiny island with a tree or two on it, and beyond a beautiful curve of the banks of the lake, fringed with low trees and undergrowth, and backed with hills which are far enough off to look pale and atmospheric. This is not a case for rustic figures, so our models are useless. But here come some of the lazy people from the house who find it too hot to paint or play tennis. We will impress them into our service. We will take the camera a sufficient distance away to avoid making the figures too important. What we want is a landscape with a little life in it to give additional interest. The party from the house is coming nearer. Don't let them know what you are going to do. The punt is so placed that some of them, with their aquatic propensities, cannot fail to jump aboard. It follows as I said. One of the men takes up a boat-hook and walks to the head of the punt VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 59 to Steady it while the others get in. Another man now jumps in, and is helping a lady to get on board, while several others stand on the bank waiting their turn. Now is your time. Yell out, Steady all, keep your places." They know what you mean, and keep as they are while you make a little alteration in the group — not more than you can help, and without fuss. The man with the boat-hook should put some action into his figure, and the others should be intent on what they are doing ; but don't exaggerate ; don't let the figures look as though it were a matter of life and death to them to look natural. Nature does not always compose. Awkward lines will happen ; and there is that stupid na- tive carpenter, who has been at work repairing the boat-house, and looks on with wonder to see what we are doing, standing just where he will come in the picture. Take him by the arm and run away with him. There is no time to explain, and he will understand nothing less. The camera should be quite ready. You know where all the points are, and have had time to focus, arrange the swing-back, and make all the other little arrangements, so that nothing is left but to expose. You cry out, "Steady all!" 6o VARIOUS SUBJECTS. and in two or three seconds you have certainly secured a fine picture. You could have taken all this with a drop- shutter, but let us see what you would have missed. In the first place, you must have used a large aperture to your lens, and as the figures must, whatever else suffers, be in focus, the lovely distance would have been blurred and dis- figured. Now I don't mind a part of a photo- graph being out of focus when necessary, or when it is conducive to pictorial effect ; but this is a kind of picture in which moderate defi- nition is required in all parts. Just a little softening of the distance through being slightly out of focus would not matter, but it must not amount to astigmatism, as it would have done if the full aperture had been used. But it is not the optical point that is the most important. Your picture is now the result of design, not accident. For if it had been taken instan- taneously without the figures knowing what was going on, it would have been full of faults, and all the credit you could have taken would have been for the selection of the subject and laying out the punt like a trap to catch the figures — all very creditable in its way, but not VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 6i complete. As it was, you had to select your moment, improve the pose of the figures, re- move the carpenter, and, as I was glad to see you do, all out of your own head, alter the oars on the ground so that they should not make objectionable lines, and improve the composi- tion by arranging the heap of boat cushions and shawls as a balancing point. However tempting it may be to take another picture, with variations, of the boating party, we will refrain. There can be no greater mistake than to take several pictures much alike to each other, especially if you intend to exhibit. Your pictures become simply portraits of your model in various attitudes, or hesitating efforts, with- out knowledge, to get the best of your view. Always conceal the art if you can, and never show your failures. Get all the lessons you can out of your mistakes, and then destroy them. I once had something to do with an exhibition to which a number of beautiful little pictures were sent by a clever photographer on your side of the Atlantic. There was one real gem amongst them, but the artist had sent several other pictures of the same subject that just missed being perfect. The gem looked like an accidental success amongst a lot of 62 VARIOUS SUBJECTS. failures. I saw them before the hanging was completed, and took the perhaps unwarrantable liberty of getting the inferior pictures removed. The gem got a medal, which it thoroughly de- served, but which it probably would not have got if it had been surrounded by the various attempts to attain success. Now for another picture. Just to the left of the boat-house, rising from a bit of land that projects into the lake, are two beautiful speci- mens of the graceful silver birch, called here the " lady of the woods." The leaves of this tree are seldom still. To-day, when all Nature seems hushed in repose, affords us an oppor- tunity we must not neglect. This must be an upright picture. No figures will be necessary, for the water-lilies, now in blossom, and the reflections, will give us all we want to make up the foreground. We shall not require any help from the swing-back. The sun is nearly full on the trees, which, in this instance, is not unsuitable, and will give you a chance for a quick exposure. A trout was rising a few minutes ago in the clear patch of water between the lilies. Wait a little while on the bare chance, and see if you can secure the surface rings he makes on the water. There he is, VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 63 and you were in time with the exposure. I be- lieve you will find them in the negative, but if not it will be no great matter, as the picture ought to be good enough without them. The lesson I want to inculcate is, never miss a chance. I see at a little distance down the valley a shepherd gathering his flocks on the hill-side. The large mass of sheep huddled together ought to afford material for a good picture. Let us walk towards them. Here is a pretty sight ! The shepherd is greatly assisted in his labors by his collie, who appears to understand every word and motion of his master, and I notice that the old dog is teaching a young one his business. This is a most interesting sight ; I have only seen it once or twice before. These Welsh collies are the most intelligent dogs in the world. See how the old one runs round the sheep, and then stands at gaze on the high ground to see that all is going well and that no sheep strays. Notice how the young dog is giving his mind to his lesson. Now the old dog runs in among the sheep and detaches about a dozen of them, then barks to the younger dog to bring them back. He has done this to give his pupil some practice. We 64 VARIOUS SUBJECTS. must secure this scene, if we expend the re- mainder of our plates on it. We will place the camera on the rising ground opposite ; the back horizontal and the focusing glass swung back, for our subject gradually recedes from us. The broken hedge and the little rill between us will give a good foreground. Put in a middle-sized stop, for there is no great depth of focus re- quired that the swing-back will not correct, and the exposure must be quick — just on and off of the cap — or the picture may be spoilt by one or two of the many sheep bolting. I may state here, as a general rule, that it is better to have a little loss of definition through using a large stop, than to have disfiguring blurs through long exposure. For all that, I like a rather long exposure when I can get it with safety. Wait until the dogs and shepherd stand to take another look at their flock, then expose. I believe you have got them, but try another plate to make sure ; you may never again have such another subject. We have a couple of plates left, so will re- turn to the lake. We must have a general view of the whole piece of water. We see it in a totally different aspect to that of the morn- VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 65 ing. The wind is now beginning to stir ; the clouds are gathering over the far end of the lake, leaving a vivid break reaching to the horizon. The breeze is also beginning to stir the surface of the still water in little puffs, a pretty effect easily secured. The near water is broken up by picturesque groups of sedges and deep-green horsetails," degenerate de- scendants of the gigantic Equisetum of which our coal measures are largely composed. Al- though there is sunshine on the foreground, the distance is in gloomy shadow from the lowering clouds. The feeling or sentiment of this aspect of the lake is distinctly solitude, which should be carried out as much as pos- sible. The figure of a heron standing silent, solitary, on that point in the foreground, just clear of the rushes, where his dark form would show as a precious spot of dark against the white reflection of the rift in the clouds, would tell splendidly in the picture ; it would be a grand illustration of how tiny a point in a composition would be the making of it. This, however, cannot be. Many herons visit the lake, but it would be one of the thousand to one chances that sometimes occur to the pa- tient photographer — who ought, however, not to trust to chance for his effects. He may and 66 VARIOUS SUBJECTS. must take advantage of the accidents of nature, but if he plays to win miracles he must expect to lose this time. Here the painter has one of his many advantages over us. He could easily put the bird in at home — and so could we by double printing. One almost feels inclined to run down to the house and get out that old stuffed heron that has ornamented the hall so long, but the critics would call this illegitimate — if they found it out — though what difference a knowledge of how a picture was done should affect in the Art value of that picture I never could discover. In exposing this view of the lake, it would be well to lift the cap slowly, as if hinged to the top, and lower it slowly ; by this means the foreground will get more exposure than the sky, and you will save the clouds. Now, as all our plates are exposed, and the afternoon is far advanced, let us get home and forget photography for the day, if we can accomplish that almost impossible feat. We shall doubtless find the others of our party on the tennis-lawn, as it has become cool enough for a game before dinner — dinner always fol- lowed by those discussions in the billiard-room, chiefly on art and kindred subjects, you so much enjoyed, and of which I may, perhaps, give you a sample in a future letter. No. VII. — Figures in Landscapes. rHEN I left you we had just taken a view ^ ^ in which we sadly wanted a heron. Our artistic instincts craved for that long-legged bird, but it was denied to us. By the intro- duction of the heron the picture would have been raised from insignificance to a position of some importance ; it would have shown inten- tion, acquired a meaning, been sensibly im- proved in sentiment, and the proprieties of composition would have been observed ; yet we did without the figure rather than use a stujffed one which we had at hand, and which, if used, could not have been distinguished in the print from the live, feathered, fish-eating biped. From a miserable fear of being found out we spoilt our picture. We refrained from doing something which nobody would have detected, and which, to blissful ignorance, would have been harmless — nay, very good — because we were afraid of the critics. How 68 FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES, useful critics are to keep us guiltless of decep- tion ! — and that is the only moral I can find in it. Even a bird — and a live one, too — may sometimes be made to pose as the balancing point in a photograph. I once selected the corner of a small piece of water as a good sub- ject, if I could only get a point" of light or dark in the right place on the water. A boat was not available, but there was a solitary swan that appeared to be very much interested in what we were about. After playing with him and throwing him biscuits for nearly an hour, I got him to the place where he was wanted, when he steadied himself in expecta- tion of more crumbs. At the time of exposure a puff of wind ruffled part of the water and greatly improved the effect by giving surface, as the reflections give depth. The swan makes a very small point in the picture, but is invaluable to the effect. I won't go into the reason why. You have read my little book, " Pictorial Effect in Photography," in which I have gone fully into the subject of the balancing point. I would rather that you should now know and feel that the picture is made by the swan. Imagine the FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES. 69 scene without the swan, and you will at once see how little there is in it. All this is much more apparent in the photograph than in the little illustration. This would be a convenient time for me to enter a little into the question of figures in photographic landscapes. In one of his de- lightful papers, written always with rare humor, and nearly always with sound sense, my friend, Mr. Andrew Pringle, gives many reasons why the photographer should not attempt to intro- duce figures. Writing in the British Journal of Photography , he says : A very crucial test of a man's artistic power is his selection and arrangement of figures in a landscape. I do not wish to be hypercriti- cal, and the stone I throw hits myself often, but I must say that in ninety-nine out of every hundred landscapes with fig ures that I see, the figures ruin the whole affair. They are inap- propriate figures, inappropriately dressed, in- appropriately occupied, inappropriately posed, inappropriately and wrongly placed, and in most cases would be better at home in bed. Wherever figures are in a landscape picture, they are sure to catch the eye ; if they are near the camera, the eye can with dif^culty 70 FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES. look beyond them ; if they are at a moderate distance, they irritate and distract, unless treated with the greatest skill ; if at a great distance, they look like defects in the plate ; if they appear near one side of the picture, they are in almost all cases fatal ; while in the middle they are almost invariably mischievous. I have never myself learned properly to arrange figures in a landscape, and I prefer sins of omission to those of deliberate commission, so, as a rule, I leave figures out, and among the photographers of the world I cannot count more than three or four who ever use figures perfectly, and not one who is always happy in his arrangement. Among the hundreds of landscape negatives with figures in my posses- sion, not one satisfies me in this respect, while most of them are actually criminal in their ugliness. The commonest faults are (i) Making the figures so important that one can- not say whether the ''subject" of the picture is a landscape or a figure subject ; (2) Making the figures so small as to distract and harass the eye, and to produce a sensation of super- fluity ; (3) Putting figures in without any con- nection with the landscape, or where figures are not wanted at all." FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES. 71 The writer gives one excellent reason for figures in landscapes, which should be all-suffi- cient to the enthusiastic photographer. He says that to introduce figures properly requires the greatest skill, and is a ''test of a man's artistic power." Ordinary photography is so easy and so entirely mastered down to its chemicallist depths by Mr. Pringle, that he should be rejoiced to find there is still some- thing left to call for his reserve powers. I agree with much that my friend says. It does too often happen that the figures are inappro- priate to the last degree — wrongly dressed, wrongly occupied, wrongly placed. All this only shows that there^ is a good deal of art- ignorance and want of taste amongst photog- raphers, and that the great thing they really want is art-teaching. What is the use of all their fine manipulation if they cannot turn it to a good use ? All photographers strive to get beautiful gradation in their negatives ; this is the one bit of art beyond which they do not attempt to go. Why cannot they go fur- ther, a step at a time, until they really learn how to "put squadrons in the field?" That figures attract the eye is true — it is one of their chief functions ; that they irritate and 72 FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES. distract is, as Mr. Pringle justly says, from want of skill in the artist ; but how they can be especially fatal when they appear on one side of the picture puzzles me ; figures are often very useful at the side. Their quality, though small in size, will often balance mere quantity on the other side. For an illustra- tion of this see the little picture, " Calling the Cows," in Letter No. 3. Mr. Pringle would probably call this composition ''juist a wee ae-sidet," but to my eye the mass of trees to the right is perfectly balanced by the greater pictorial value of the cows to the left. To leave out figures, to prefer sins of omission to sins of commission, is not worthy of the pluck I know Mr. Pringle possesses. Mr. Pringle points out the " commonest faults ; " my answer as a teacher is, don't com- mit them. Not that I think the first of them a very great defect. I don't know whether it is necessary to anybody but a statician to know whether a picture is a landscape or a figure subject. If it is interesting, it will give suffi- cient pleasure without being tabulated. A landscape without a figure in it can seldom claim rank as a picture. I have taken the trouble to look through the exhibition of the FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES. 73 Royal Academy for examples of pure land- scape without figures, and have found very few — not one per cent. I call to mind one or two fine exceptions, of which Millais' " Chill October " is the chief, but their beauty depends almost entirely on the splendid power of execu- tion. They do not translate well into black and white, and can therefore be no guide to the photographer. Of course there are some scenes which come under the head of land- scape in which figures would be inappropriate or impossible, such as some aspects of Niagara, yet in one view of this tremendous scene I have seen a tiny steamer which, by contrast, added immensely to the realization of the majesty of the mighty rush of water, and I have seen others in which the impertinence of the figures have made me sorry that photog- raphy was ever discovered. There can be little doubt that ''combining the aspects of nature with the doings of man " is at the root of all great landscape, whether painted or pho- tographed. I grant that it is difficult to obtain good models, but it is a difficulty which can be surmounted. Then, again, I am often told by young beginners that they cannot think of incidents, cannot find anything for their figures 74 FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES. to do. All I can say is, these things will come by constant study, and the more subjects an in- telligent photographer may use up, the more will come to him. Ideas seem to come with practice. John Stuart Mill, who had more ingenious ways of making himself miserable than any dozen other pessimists, used to reflect on a time when all musical combinations would be exhausted ; and the artist also may look with apprehension to the time when all pos- sible subjects may be used up. But he need not fear. It may be said of nature as of Cleopatra — " Nothing can stale her infinite variety." No. VIII. — Another Day Out. IT may be worth our while to take just one more walk with the camera. There is that lonely lane, famous for its wild roses, and the river, and the mill, and more particularly the miller. New and useful experience is obtained from every picture you make, if you study the subject earnestly, and put all you know into the representation of it. As it is near at hand, we will begin with the lane, and I know at least one subject there that is properly lighted at this time of the day. Climbing over a stile we come to a picturesque part of the lane where a small stream meanders along, while dotted across the stream is placed a row of stepping stones beautifully varied in their forms. These stones are to be the subject of, and give name to, our picture. The sun shines from the side, but slightly in front of us, casting the shadow of part of the hedge over the foreground, throwing up the stepping-stones 76 ANOTHER DAY OUT. — our subject — into brilliant light. The scene as we now see it is pretty, but it is not a pic- ture, it is only good material for a picture. It is even badly composed. There are several parallel lines running in the direction of the stones. This must be corrected. We must have a figure, and the place for a figure is obvious. We have brought a model with us. On the way she has amused herself gathering ferns, and is carrying the great fronds over her shoulder. Get her to cross the stones, and call her to stop at the right spot and remain in the act of stepping. Try again and again until you are satisfied with the action of the figure. Don't be afraid of giving trouble ; she is here only to obey your command ; you may obey hers when she changes her dress. In her present capacity she would take any trouble to help you, or she is not worthy of her office. Don't you see how that dark hat she is wearing is lost in the dark hedge behind it ? It is essential to make the figure stand well out from its background, therefore change the hat for a lighter one, which you will find in the basket of odds and ends of rustic costume we always carry with us. Now you will find that the figure has converted a scene not worth ANOTHER DAY OUT. 77 photographing for itself into a picture. The composition is corrected, the parallel lines are broken and are no longer prominent, the eye is centered on a principal object. I almost think you may exhibit this picture if you do not muff it in development. Expose an extra plate for fear of accidents. Going up the lane we turn and find this scene. The scene is well composed in itself, and the lines of pathway are so varied and picturesque that we won't hide them by plac- ing a figure in front of any part of them, al- though a small figure, some way down the lane, would be effective. However, we elect to have the figure rather nearer, for the sake of the blossoms. She shall be gathering wild roses, which will give us a title. Now when you are doing a thing it is as well to do it thoroughly, therefore I recommend you to gather some more branches of roses and add to the rather scanty supply growing in the place for our figure. The girl must appear to take interest in what she is doing. In this case the upper part of the dress would have been more effective if not so dark in color, but we have neglected to bring a lighter jacket. We come to the mill just in time to catch 78 ANOTHER DAY OUT. the miller feeding his two calves, and they fall easy victims to our camera. A little way up the river is one of the artists painting, and another of the boys looking on. They happen to be in exactly the right place, so we will not disturb them. Say nothing to them. They will pretend not to notice what you are about —professional etiquette, I suppose — but they see what you are going to do, and will be quite still all the same. This suggests that some subjects must be shouted to, and others left to themselves. Don't omit to have a shot at that splendid group of cows cooling themselves in that quiet pool. Half of them in sunshine, the other half in shadow from the trees and bank, they make a fine effect of light and shade. Be quick, but don't be in a hurry ; there is nothing gained by going ofi your head. Above all, don't be tempted to under-expose. In this subject there is great contrast of light and dark, and it is essential that the cows in shadow should be very well defined, to give transparency and depth to the shadow, and that the lights should not be chalky. This can only be secured by sufficient exposure. If you blow a dog whistle just before you are going ANOTHER DAY OUT. 79 to expose, you will find it will sufficiently attract the attention of the cows without making them move away. It may even have some effect on their whisking tails, which are always a nuisance. We are again in luck. Here comes material that must suggest a grand picture for our final effort to-day. Let us call up all our forces. The miller's donkeys are coming up to be loaded with great bags of flour for his boy to deliver to some of the villagers. The miller is always our friend, and will do anything to oblige us, so that we don't take up too much of his time. Range the two donkeys up to the mill-door, put some bags and the boy on one, and let the miller be loading the other. See that he does it with vigor. What more natural than that a couple of passing girls should stop to observe the interesting opera- tion and have a chat? We have two models with us, who are soon in their places. It so happens that the gamekeeper who accom- panies us to carry our camera and plates is coming up the river ; stop him in the act of walking before he gets up to the group. His dark figure is in the right place to carry the eye into the landscape, where in the distant 8o ANOTHER DAY OUT. meadow among the trees on the other side of the river I see some cattle, but I fear they will come too much out of focus to be of much use. Your models now all know their duty, and the only doubtful part of the problem is, will the donkeys be still ? It is of very little use trying to attract the attention of these animals, so your only chance is, in fact, to take your chance, and several plates. In this case the figures are larger than is usual in landscape, and, perhaps, not large enough to make what would be called a figure subject. It may be either, or anything you like to call it, so that it makes a picture. There is much diversity of opinion as to what is a landscape. I once took a medal for genre with a picture that contained only three small figures in a large landscape. This was at an exhibition where the exhibits were strictly divided into classes, and the selection must have been left to the porters. I don't know that it would serve any good purpose to go through other scenes with you at present. Every picture you do should be the outcome, first, of a deliberate purpose ; secondly, of the operator availing himself of every accident. These latter differ with every ANOTHER DAY OUT. 8 subject. I should like to impress upon you before we part that the world is full of beauty. This is an evident platitude, but it is not so evident that there is beauty in almost everything ; it depends on how you look at it. It does not follow that every beautiful thing would make a picture. A great deal that is beautiful in nature is far from adapted to pictorial treatment. I remem- ber you once said to me that a good deal of this so-called beauty was not visible to you. That was probable ; you had not learnt to see. You also posed me by asking me what beauty I could see in chimney-pots. At the time I really had no reply. I could not defend chimney-pots, but it happens I have since had a grand opportunity of studying these useful, but not very attractive objects. Perhaps I may be allowed to relate the per- sonal experience, possibly more interesting to myself than to others, when I found that a little mist, aided by as much imagination as is within nearly anybody's reach, give beauty — even grandeur — to the much maligned chim- ney-pots. It depends on how you look at it. Anybody who likes to think so has a good look out, even if his view is only, like Dick Swivel- 82 ANOTHER DAY OUT. ler's, an uninterrupted view of "Over the way." It was my unhappy fortune in the early part of 1886, to have to lie on my back for some weeks, after a remarkable exploit in vivisection of which I was the victim, in an upper room at the back of a large house in one of the London squares. There was a large plate-glass window overlooking a spacious court, in which were some low buildings with flat roofs of lead, the back of some old dilapidated houses, and a splendid collection of chimney-pots, amongst which the chirpy London sparrows held carni- val. As many a London photographer will remember, there was scarcely a day in town during January and February of that year that was not foggy, the nature of the fog varying from a delicate silvery gray mist on some days, through drizzle, sleet, Scotch-mist, pea-soup, to the blanket of the dark " of Macbeth, and the absolute darkness of collied night " on other days. Thus thinly or thickly obscured, the view underwent every variety of pictur- esque change. The chimneys sometimes be- came towers and castles ; the otherwise ugly and ignoble backs and roofs of houses, rocks, and mountains— the scenery of the Rhine ANOTHER DAY OUT. 83 without the river ; and when the lead roofs be- neath were wet with rain, it was not difficult to imagine the scene where — " The castled craigs of Drachenfels Frown o'er the wide and winding Rhine." Sometimes the rare gleams of the low sun struggled through the houses and illuminated the mist, then the backyard became a scene of enchantment, and when a touch of delirium came on, as it would now and then, the cloud- capp'd towers and gorgeous palaces of Shake- speare were nothing to compare with the mystic view. There is much pictorial virtue in mist ; even fog may be beautiful, in the right place. I have seen that backyard since on a clear summer day, and all the beauty had vanished with the mystery of the fog and mist. Per- haps, also, I was in better health. Corot, the most poetical of the French land- scape painters, is said to have seen a great deal to like in a London fog, and I know nothing to surpass in fairy-like beauty a still, misty, silver-gray day in the country, with a dash of sunshine on the foreground. No. IX. — A Talk in the Billiard-Room. T PROMISED I would give you something *■ like a report of one of the discussions that take place at night in the billiard-room during our annual visit to Wales. I fear I shall not be able to recall any particular night, there- fore you must be content with a ''blot" or *' impressionist memory " of several. A smok- ing chat, well mixed with chaff, is not easily reportable or profitably readable, so I will omit a good deal that may not be interesting or teach you anything. White : Our photographer was painting to- day ; how did he get on ? Black : I was much complimented by the miller, who takes an acute interest in art. His great desire is, he says, to go to London to see all the pictures in the Tower. He had never seen me painting before, and it gave him great satisfaction. He said in his best Anglo- Cambrian, ''Ah ! you do do them by hand, too. It is well when a man can turn his hand to A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. 85 anything. You do yours by machine mostly, and can make many, but it takes the other gentleman a long time to do them by hand !" White : Ante up the product. Black : There is the interesting and valu- able result. Speak your mind, Brown, you are a great painter ; but as is often the case with great painters, now-a-days, you don't know much about art, but we will take your opinion on the smudgery part of it. Brown : Oh ! I can't be bothered with such juvenile efforts. You ought never to waste good oil-colors. Turn it upside down and begin another if — and only if — you can't find something better to do. But why do you bother yourself with paint ? Black : Eliger Goff says, When a man forgets his first mother it's time for him to be born again," and this is not the first time I have painted. Gray : The Renaissance was a healthy time for art. Black : The appositeness of the application excuses the interruption. I don't see why I should not paint occasionally ; I acknowledge that disuse of the brush has made it more diffi- cult for me to express my thoughts in the easier 86 A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. vehicle than with the camera. There was a time when painting was easier to me than pho- tography, and I don't know now which is the less difficult, the machine — as the miller calls it — or the brush ; if, indeed, the brush also is not a machine. Gray : We are all machines in our way. We — even we painters — we can own it among ourselves, are all adepts at turning on steam and stoking. It is, perhaps, shameful, but nevertheless true, that we are most of us manufacturers. As I read in a provincial paper the other day : " The great painter turns out so many pictures a year, just the same as the machine turns out so many legs and backs. All his materials are provided for him, and are very convenient. His tubes, his easels, his fanciful brushes, his arrangements of light, all simplify the task for him ; and, perhaps, as he sits and paints, a faint dream crosses his mind of a happy day when artists will paint portraits by electricity, playing them out on the keys of a piano-like instrument." The writer should have made exception, but I am afraid he is right in the main. White : Really, Gray, I wonder how you can be so dreadfully candid. Success has made A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. 87 you reckless. It does not do to exhibit your thoughts in the nude in that barefaced manner ; you should clothe them a little. It is positively indecent to talk as you are doing. Brown : Especially now we have got the public to believe that painters are the only poets in art ; and that Black here, with his machine, isn't in it. Gray : You know I don't agree with you there. I have always maintained that there were art possibilities in photography. The difficulty has been in the ease of the process. The art work of the few in photography has been swamped in the rubbish of the million. All men are not born to play Bach's fiddle fugues, as Browning somewhere says, and it is reserved for the few to get the right tune out of the camera box. Photography has not had time enough to produce a large crop of geniuses. There are those who think that really great geniuses in painting — an old art like that — are only lately born, and that only we, the latest seed of time," know anything about it. I am an old-fashioned painter my- self, and don't believe it. Brown : Well, I think we are showing them how to do it, if I may be allowed to say so. 88 A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. Black : Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit." Brown : Go to ! irreverent youth. Tell me if anything has ever been seen in art like some of the suggestions of nature some of us give you ? Black : Never ! Small things were never done so greatly, so few great things done. Brown: Your emphatic ''never" scarcely sounds like applause. Let us see what the others have been doing. Ah ! Gray and White have been painting the same scene. Both of the pictures are like the subject, but they are a long way from looking like each other. This shows how man's mind comes in. The photographer cannot do that with his boxes. Black : Can't we ? As usual, you are per- versely ignorant of what we can do. I never yet saw two photographs of a scene that were alike, and if I saw two by different men, and I had been accustomed to their work, I could tell you who had produced which. Gray : Different people see differently and translate what they see differently, it is aston- ishing to how great a degree. Ask any two men to describe the effect of no rain for forty A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. 89 days. One will go from Charing Cross to Yokohama to describe it ; the other will just walk round his garden and do it better. Black : That is what I claim for Photog- raphy. White : Take it, and be happy. Brown : Both sketches are good. White's only wants the details of the trees, which he can easily get from one of Black's photographs, to make it a finished picture. Black : Just like you painters ; everybody's property is your own. You only look on pho- tographs as something you may possibly pur- loin. I totally differ on this subject. Why should the photographer play jackal to the painter's lion, and collect scraps for him ? The photographer should be above this, and make complete pictures for himself. I would no more copy another man's photograph than I would his sketches. I don't mind painters refreshing their memory" with photographs, but there are some who are not ashamed of stealing complete and perfected ideas. They soothe their honor by persuading themselves that the photograph is not the work of man but of nature, and nature, they say, is open to everybody. I am often pirated. Once there go A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. appeared in one of the London galleries a large painting, copied, ''lock, stock, and bar- rel," from one of my photographs. After I had kicked up the demon's own row, and threatened to claim the painting, as I could do under the Copyright Act, the painter apologized for the *' inadvertence ! " Ancient Pistol said, ''Con- vey the wise it call," but the modern art euphemism for making a mistake in the owner- ship of property is "inadvertence." White : Do you object to painters photo- graphing ? Black : I no more object to painters taking photographs and copying them than I would object to their making sketches with a pencil for the same purpose ; but he must be a very experienced painter with a fine memory for color who could make a good use of photo- graphs. It must be very deleterious practice for the young, immature student. He had much better keep to nature and draw and think for himself. Now for Brown's picture. Brown : There it is. If you see anything worthy of your approbation you can put your hands together, but don't wake the house. Black : It reminds me of the criticism of a famous R.A. on your last year's great effort. A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. 91 '*and he had so much promise!" Take it away. Brown : It is not composed artificially enough to suit Black. A picture is not a pic- ture if not composed, or I have read what he has written on the subject wrongly. Compo- sition is not the whole of art. Black : I agree with Brown for once. Chalk it up. In the endeavor to be simple and clear, I believe I am often too definite and precise. Many people think that I am trying to teach art when I am struggling to give them some notion of composition and light and shade. It is nothing of the sort. I know perfectly the distinction between the means and the end. I am afraid I am sometimes wearisome in the way I explain that rules, and laws, and prin- ciples are only the skeleton of art, and not the living soul ; yet dense fellows, like Brown, will misread me. Gray : The principles of composition are the principles of common sense, and run through all the doings of civilized life — from a picture or building to a dinner or a company of friends. These annual holidays of ours, for instance, have been going on for twenty years, and how harmonious they have been ! — never 92 A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. a hitch anywhere. This is all due to skilful composition. The components were selected and put together by an artist who understood composition. We have balance, contrast, light and shade — and havn't we our " values ? " The result is a harmonious whole. Brown : Ingenious, but too gaudy. It would be interesting to know what you pho- tographers do, that you claim to be artists and judges of art. Black : Everybody is a critic now-a-days, so why not photographers ? Touching the other part of your question, we invent, we select, we modify, we execute. What more do you want ? Modern painters do little more. We confess there are many things we cannot do. We do not aspire to such subjects as " The Last Judg- ment," or the Battle of Waterloo." We have the sense, which painters have not, to avoid such impossibilities. But we can do many things. If nature does not suit us, we can alter nature, just as a painter does. White : Your alter-native is to alter nature ? Black : Yes, if nothing short of a pun will suit you, we even alter the natives when they do not suit us raw, or provide substitutes for them. Like that grim Earl Doorm we read A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. 93 of in the Idylls to-day, we compel all things to our will. See the changes I have had made in the river to suit my work. Brown : It is not every photographer who can lay waste a country side for the sake of his pictures. White : And call it art ! Black : I only want to show our resources. I do not advocate an indiscriminate felling of timber. I could go into details touching in- vention, etc., and how we can modify nature, also how we can modify our execution of it — what you would call treatment " — but it would be the old tale over again ; we have had it over a score of times. You all agree with me, but, being excellent draughtsmen, you love to draw " the photographer. Gray : Whether he is an artist or not, we must all agree that his affection for art reminds us of that ardent lover who worshipped the very smoke that came out of his mistress' chimney. Brown : Perhaps the analogy is nearer than you intend. You imply that the photographer gets no nearer the flame of art than the smoke. Black : It certainly seems to come under the 94 A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. head of contentious matter, but I am content to accept the compliment Gray intended. I am not to be drawn any further. I feel that my verdancy begins to assume a russet hue. I am not so green as I have been. Good nieht. " Tasteful, well edited and crammed full of technical information is Thb Photographic Times," —The Journalist. ' The Photographic Times is an able, vigorous, and enterprising periodical."— J?enj. French & Co. The Photographic Times, Is a WEEKLY JOURNAL devoted to the THEORY, PRACTICE, antl ADVANCEMENT of PHOTO&RAPHY. ITS IDEIFART^IENTS Hditorial Articles on practical subjects, and Editorial Notes. Contributed and Miscellaneous Articles by the best photographic writers at home and abroad. Communications to Societies, including Papers, Lectures, Demonstrations, etc. PJotes and PJews— Editorial Notes, and gleanings from current literature. Correspondence— Scientific and practical discussion of important and interesting questions, by practical photographers, and letters from all quarters of the globe, by intelligent and observing correspondents. lUeetingfS of Societies— Stating date and place of meeting of all Photographic Societies, both professional and amateur, and giving full proceedings of all meetings. Our Kditorial Table— Reviews of books, exchanges, and impartial criticism and notice of all photographs sent in. Queries and Answers— Answers by the Editors to correspondents in search of knowledge. Commercial Intelligrence— Description of new photographic appliances, studio changes, business notices, etc., etc. A PARTIAL LIST OP WEITEES TO THE PHOTOGEAPHIO TIMES. R. E., F. England. Capt. W. de W. Abney W. M. Ashman, W. E. Debknham, " H. P. Robinson, " G. Watmough Webster, F.C.S. ... " Arnold Spiller " W. Jerome Harrison, F. G. S., . . . " Prof. W. K. Burton Japan. Andrew Pringle, Scotland. Charles Scouk, Vienna. Dr. Mallman, " Karl Schwier, Germany. Victor Schumann, " W. J. Stillman Rome. Dr. H. D. Garrison Chicago. S. W. Burnham, " Henry L. Tolman, " Gayton a. Douglass, .... " Rev. W. H. Bubbank, . . Brunswick, Maine. Gustav Cramer St. Louis. Prof. Wm. H. Pickering, . . Harvard Observatory. W. H. Sherman, Milwaukee. George Eastman, Rochester J. R. Swain, .... Newport, Ind. Prop. H. W. Lord, Columbus. H. McMichael, Buffalo. John Carbutt, ...... Philadelphia. W. H. Walmsley, Frederick a. Jackson, Prof. Randall Spaulding, Prof, Wm. Habkness, U.S.N. , Dr. John H. Janeway, . C. D. Cheney, D.D.S., . Prof. Karl Klauseb, Geo. H. Johnson, Philadelphia. New Haven. . Montclair, N. J. Washington, D. C. U. S. A. Hoboken, N. J. Farmington. Bridgeport. Miss Adelaide Skeel, Newburgh Charles Wager Hull New York Rev. G. M. Searle C. W. Ganfield, P. C. Duohochois, Henry M. Parkhurst, Rev. C. E. Woodman, Ph.D., . H. Edwards-Ficken, .... s. h. horgan Wm. Kurtz J. M. Mora Prof. L. C. Laudy A. Bogardus, Chas. D. Fredricks, .... A. Moreno C. W. Dean, ...... Dr. O. G. Mason, Ernest Edwards, Prof. Chas. Ehrmann, .... The Photographic Times, W. I. LINCOLN ADAMS, Editor. j Monthly Edition issued on the 1 \ last Friday in the month. j SUBSCRIPTIONS. Issued Every Friday. One copy Weekly issue, postage included, to all points in U. S. or Canada, _ _ - $3 00 " " Monthly " " " u u » u _ . . . 2 00 " " " " Illustrated, postage included, to all points in U. S. or Canada, - 3 00 Weekly issue to foreign addresses, postage included, ------- _ 4 OO Monthly " " " " " - - 3 00 " " " Illustrated, postage included, 400 The Weekly Photographic Times, for one year, with the American Annual of Photography, (either year), to one address, post-paid, - $3.50 With both issues of the Annual, ------ 4.00 Single copy. Weekly, 10 cents. Single copy, Monthly, 25 cents. A month's trial (four weeks), of the Weekly for 30 cents. Remit by Express Money Order, Draft, P. O. Order or Registered Letter. A specimen number free. Subscriptions to the Photographic Times received by all dealers in photographic materials in this country, Canada, West Indies, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and by the SCOVILL MAUUFACTUmG COMPANY, PuTjlishers. '* The Photographic Times is one of the most progressive technical journals published." —Lowell Morning Times. It is the leading publication of its class, bright, newsy, interesting and instructive. The Times has a wide field, which it fills completely."— T/ie Railway News. THE American Annual of Photography AND "Photographic Times" Almanac For 1887. C. W. CANFIELD, Editor. A STAOIRD BOOK OF REFEREIOE. It contains five full-page illustrations : AN EXQUISITE PHOTOGRAVURE, by Ernest Edwards. A BROMIDE PRINT, by the Eastman Company. A SILTER PRINT, by GustaT Cramer, of St. Loais. TWO MOSSTYPES, by the Moss Engraving Company. 19 7 pages of Contributed Matter, consisting of articles on various subjects, by 80 representative Photographic writers of this country and Europe. Also, in addition to the contributed articles : — Yearly Calendar. Eclip- ses, the Seasons. Church Days, Holidays, etc. Monthly Calendar, giving Sunrise and Sunset for every day in the year ; Moon's phases ; also, dates of meetings of all American Photographic Societies. A list of American and European Photographic Societies. Photographic Periodicals, Ameri- can and European. Books relating to Photography, published 1886. Ap- proved Standard Formulae for all processes now in general use. Tables of Weights and Measures. American and Foreign Money Values. Com- parisons of Thermometric Readings. Comparisons of Barometric Read- ings. Symbols and Atomicity of the Chemical Elements. Symbols, chemical and common names and solubilities of the substances used in Photography. Tables for Enlargements and Reductions. Equations re- lating to Foci. Tables of Comparative Exposures. Freezing Mixtures. Photographic Patents issued 1886. Postage Rates. All Tables, Formulae, etc., brought down to date and especially prepared or revised for this work. Price^ per Copy, SO Cents, By mail, 10c. extra. Library Edition, $1.00. " For sale by all dealers, and by the publishers, SOOVILL MANUFAOTUEING OOMPANY. ii THE American Annual of Photography AND Photographic Times Almanac For 1888, C. W. O^lsriT'IEIL.r:), Editor. It contains EIGHT (8) full-page high-grade Illustrations ; and over NINETY (90) Original Contributions, written expressly for its pages, by the most eminent Photographic writers of Europe and America. THE ILLUSTRATIOJfS COMPRISE A PHOTO-LITHOGRAPH, showing an improved new pro- cess, by the Photogravure Company of New York. A PHOTO-COPPERPLATE ENGRATINO of a Pictorial Landscape Subject, by E. Obernetter, of Munich. A MEISENBACH of " The Old Stone Bridge," by Kurtz. A ZINC ETCHING, from the Engraving, which is itself as fine as an engraving, by Stevens & Morris. A CHARMING CHILD PORTRAIT, by Crosscup & West s improved process. THREE MOSSTYPES of popular subjects. And NUMEROUS CUTS, DIAGRAMS, Etc., throughout the letter-press. The " Annual " is a yearly publication wherein the year's progress photographically in the world at large, and especially in America, is summarized, and improvements in theory and practice discussed freely by the prominent workers and writers in this and other countries. In addition, it contains an almanac and calendar ; lists of Amorican and Foreign photographic societies, with their officers and dates of meeting ; a list of American and Foreign photographic periodicals ; photographic books published and patents 'issued during the year ; approved formulae for all the photographic processes now in general use ; and the usual tables of weights and measures, chemical equivalents, specific gravities, etc. , specially revised and corrected. The size — royal octavo — and style of binding is uniform with last year's issue. 330 pagfes of valuable information. PAPER COVER, $0 50 LIBRARY EDITION, i 00 By Mail, 10 cents additional. ^ The American Annual of Photography and Weekly Photographic Times, for one year to one Address, post-paid, $3.50. For Sale by all Dealers in Photographic Materials, the American News Company and its Branches, Books Dealers, and the Publishers, SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY. iii TWO T] COMPLETE ♦ PHOTI By thk r^^K The Photographic Negative," (Scovill's Photographic Series No. 25.) A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE PREPARATION OF SENSITIVE SURFACES BY THE CALOTYPE, ALBUMEN, COLLODION, AND GELATINE PRO- CESSES, ON GLASS AND PAPER, WITH SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER ON DEVELOPMENT, Etc., Etc. CONTENTS. Chapter. Preface. I. General Remarks on Sensitive Surfaces, etc III Calotyp?^*^ Remarks on Exposure, Development, Fixing, etc. ^Jt mt'^^l^iJ^® Surfaces on Glass-Preparation of the Glass. V. The Albumen Process. VI. The Old Collodion Process, Wet Plates. VII. The Collodion Process, Dry Plates. t¥- EmuIsion-CoUodio-bromide of Silver. IX. The Gelatme Process. X. Coating the Plates. XI. Development, Fixing, etc. ^ff' ^^J?^*" Negatives -Stripping Films on Paper, Card-board, and Collodion, xm. Failures m the Gelatmo-bromide Process. XIV Methods of Stripping Films from Glass Plates. XV. Color-sensitive Plates. XVI. Black and White Negatives. XVII. Instantaneous Photography. XVIII. Touching-up the Negative. XIX. Photo-micrography. XX. Micro-photography. XXI. The Transformation of Negatives into Positives. XXII. Obernetter's Method for the Direct Productionof Negatives from Negatives. It contains a Meisenbach Frontispiece of a pictorial subject from a negative made by the author. Full description of his method for making the Emulsion ; also, much other valuable information, never before pub- lished. Profusely illustrated with cuts, two full-page pictorial M.osstypes, and more than two hundred pages of valuable reading matter. Price, cloth bound, with gilt stamp and lettering, $1.50. For sale by all dealers in photographic goods, or sent, post-paid, by mail, on receipt of price, by the publishers, SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY. BOOKS - •RM A GRAPHIC ♦ LIBRARY, ?V. H. BURBANK. (Scoviirs Photographic Series, No. 22.) A Practical Guide for the Professional and Amateur Worker. A volume of more than two hundred pa2[es, profusely illustrated. Thoroughly Practical. CONTENTS. Chapter. Introduction— Theory of Light ; Action of Light upon Sensitive Compounds ; Resume of Printing Processes. I. Printing with Iron and Uranium Compounds. II. The Silver Bath. III. Fuming and Printing. IV. Toning and Fixing— Washing. V. Printing on other than Albumen Paper. VI. The Platinotype. VII. Printing with Emulsions. VIII. Mounting the Prints. IX. Carbon Printing. X. Printing on Fabrics. XI. Enlargements. XII. Transparencies and Lantern Slides. XIII. Opal and Porcelain Printing. XIV. Photo-Ceramics— Enameled Intaglios. XV. Photo Mechanical Printing Methods. XVI. Various Methods for Putting Pictures on Blocks and Metal Plates for the use of the Engraver. XVII. Recovery of Silver from Photographic Waste— Preparation of Silver Nitrate, Etc. Index. The only book in photographic literature to-day, which covers this ground, and it does so completely. It contains two (2) full-page illustrations, which alone are worth the price asked for the complete book. Price, in substantial cloth binding, uniform with " The Photographic Negatiye," $1.00. For sale by all dealers in photographic goods, or sent, post-paid, by mail, on receipt of price, by the publishers, SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY. V " It is interesting as a novel and of vastly more value." — Rev. W. H. Burbank, SeOYILL'S PHOTOGRAPHIG SERIES, NO. 23. WRITTEN A PRACTICAL GUIDE AND INTRODUCTION TO ITS LATEST DEVELOPMENTS. By W. JEROMH HARK-ISOPiJ, G. S., AND CONTAINING A FULL-PAGE PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR, WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. o o o o o o o o o o o o CONTENTS. Introduction, Chapter I. — The Origin of Photography. Chapter II. — Some Pioneers of Photography — Wedgwood and Niepce. Chapter III. — The Daguerreotype Process. Chapter IV, — Fox-Talbot and the Calotype Process. Chapter V. — Scott-Archer and the Collodion Process. Chapter VI.— Collodion Dry Plates, with the Bath. Chapter VII. — Collodion Emulsion. Chapter VIII. — Gelatine Emulsion with Bromide of Silver. Chapter IX. — Introduction of Gelatino-Bromide Emulsion as an Article of Commerce by Burgess and by Kennett. Chapter X. — Gelatine Displaces Collodion. Chapter YA. — History of Photographic Printing Processes. Chapter XII. — History of Photographic Printing Processes(Continued). Chapter XIII. — History of Roller-Slides ; and of Negative Making on Paper and on Films. Chapter XIV. — History of Photography in Colors. Chapter XV. — History of the Introduction of Developers — Summing up Appendix. — Dr. Maddox on the Discovery of the Gelatino-Bromide Process. O O C) o o o o o o o o o The book is uniform in size of type and page with the other numbers of Scovill's well-known Photographic Series. Bound substantially in cloth, with gilt imprint. For Sale by all Dealers and the Publishers, I»Il.ICE, OXE 001,1, AR. * SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY. "It has the rare merit of being both concise and comprehensive."* — W. H. Sherjnan. vi The Photographic Instructor. Scovill's Photographic Series No. 26. FOR THE PROFESSIONAL AND AlIATEUR. With an Appendix by Prof. Charles Ehrmann. The most thoroughly practical instruction book 3'et published and the most complete, consisting, as it does, of the Comprehensive Series of Practical Lessons issued to the students of the Chautauqua School of Photography, revised and enlarged, with an Appendix of over thirty pages, on the Nature and Use of the Various Chemicals and Substances Employed in Photographic Practice, besides valuable Tables of References, etc. The original Lessons were contributed by such competent photographic writers as Charles Wager Hull, Siiperititendent of the Chautauqua School of Photog- raphy ; Prof. Randall Spaulding, Superintendent of the Montclair Public Schools ; Prof. Karl Klauser, of Farmington^ Conn. ; Dr. Maurice N. Miller, of the University of the City of New York; John Carbutt, the well-kno2vn Dry-plate Manufac- turer of Philadelphia ; O. G. Mason, of Bellevue Hospital, New York City; Prof. Chas. Ehrmann, Instrtictor of the Chautauqua School of Photog- graphy ; and W. L Lincoln Adams, Editor of the Photographic Times. Each being an authority on the subject of which he treats. The Appendix is a complete chemistry of reference in itself, and is invaluable to every photographic worker. A glance at the complete Table of Contents show the scope of the book : Lessons, I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. Preface. Introduction. Apparatus. Management of Apparatus in the Field. The Dark-room. Exposing. Developing. Fixing, Washing. Varnishing, In- tensifying, and Reductng. Printing on Albumenized Paper. Printing on Various Other Papers. Printing on Permanent Bromide Paper. Artistic Printing. Trimming and Moun ting the Prin ts . Spotting and Burnishing the Prints. Portraiture. Retouching the Negative. Lessons. XV. Photographing Interiors and In- animate Objects. XVI. Copying, Enlarging, and Reduc- ing. XVII. Orthochromatic, or Color-sensitive Photography. XVIII. Transparencies, and How to Make Them. XIX. Landscape Photography. XX. Stereoscopic Photography. XXI. Light and Lenses. XXII. Photo-micrography. XXIII. Photographing by Artificial Light. XXIV. Emulsion Making. Appendix on the Nature and Use of the Various Chemicals and Substances Employed in Photo- graphic Practice. The book is embellished with Five Fttll-page Pictorial Illustrations, besides numer- ous Cuts, Diagrams, etc., illustrating the letter-press. Two hundred pages of valuable Reading Matter, uniform in type and page with the other numbers of the excellent series, of which it is the latest issue. Price, in illuminated paper covers, - - - $0 75 Price, library edition, uniform with other numbers of the series, gilt stamp and lettering, - 1 25 For sale by all dealers in photographic goods, or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY. vii Photographic Publications. Selected from Scovill's Catalogue of Books. Price, Per Copy. HOW TO MAKE PHOTOGRAPHS.-Containing full instructions for making Paper Negatives. Sent free to any practitioner of the art. New edition fust out. ART RECREATIONS.— A guide to decorative art. Ladies' popular guide in home decorative work. Edited by Marion Kemble $2 00 THE FERROTYPERS' GUIDE.— Cheap and complete. For the ferrotyper, this is the only standard work. Seventh thousand 75 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIOS OF EUROPE.— By H. Baden Pritchard, F.C.S. Paper, 50 cts. ; Cloth i 00 PHOTOGRAPHIC MANIPULATION.-Second edition. Treating of the practice of the art and its various applications to nature. By Lake Price i 50 HISTORY AND HAND-BOOK OF PHOTOGRAPHY.— Translated from the French of Gaston Tissandier, with seventy illustrations. Cloth 2 50 AMERICAN CARBON MANUAL.— For those who want to try the carbon print- ing process, this work gives the most detailed information. Cloth 2 00 MANUAL DE FOTOGRAFIA.-By Augustus Le Plongeon. (Hand-Book for Spanish Photographers.) Reduced to i 00 SECRETS OF THE DARK CHAMBER. - By D. D. T. Davie i 00 HOW TO SIT FOR YOUR PICTURE.-By Chip. Racey and sketchy 30 THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S GUIDE.— By John Towler, M.D. A text-book for the Operator and Amateur i 50 A COMPLETE TREATISE ON SOLAR CRAYON PORTRAITS AND TRANSPARENT LIQUID WATER-COLORS —By J. A. Barhydt. Practical ideas and directions given. Amateurs will learn ideas of color from this book that will be of value to them. And any one by carefully following the directions on Crayon, will be able to make a good Crayon Portrait 50 THE BRITISH JOURNAL ALMANAC FOR 1888 50 PHOTO. NEWS YEAR BOOK OF PHOTOGRAPHY for 1888 50 CANOE AND CAMERA.— A Photographic tour of two hundred miles through Maine forests. By Thomas Sedgwick Steele. Illustrated 1 50 PADDLE AND PORTAGE.— By Thomas Sedgwick Steele i 50 PRACTICAL INSTRUCTOR OF PHOTO-ENGRAVING AND ZINC ETCH- ING PROCESSES.— By Alex. F. W. Leslie 5c PHOTO-ENGRAVING on Zinc and Copper in Line and Half-Tone, and PHOTO- LITHOGRAPHY. A Practical Manual, by W. T. Wilkinson. Cloth bound. 200 AMERICAN HAND-BOOK OF THE DAGUERREOTYPE.— By S. D. Hum- phrey. (Fifth Edition.) This book contains the various processes employed in taking Heliographic impressions 10 THE NEW PRACTICAL PHOTOGRAPHIC ALMANAC- Edited by J. H. FiTZGIBBON 25 MOSAICS FOR 18^0, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1875, 1878, 1882, 1883, 1884 each, 25 BRITISH JOURNAL ALMANAC FOR 1878, 1882, 1883, 1887 " 25 PHOTO. NEWS YEAR-BOOK OF PHOTOGRAPHY FOR 1871, 1882, 1887... . 25 THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S FRIEND ALMANAC FOR 1873 25 viii Wilson's Photograpllc Publications. For Sale by the Scovill Manufacturing Company. Price, Per Copy WILSON'S QUARTER CENTURY IN PHOTOGRAPHY.- By Edward L. Wil- son, Ph.D. "The best of everything boiled out from all sources." Profusely illustrated, and with notes and elaborate index $4 oo WILSON'S PHOTOGRAPHICS.-" Chautauqua Edition," with Appendix. By Edward L. Wilson, Ph.D. A most complete photographic lesson-book. Covers every department. 352 pages. Finely illustrated 4 00 THE PROGRESS OF PHOTOGRAPHY.— By Dr. H. W. Vogel. Revised by Edward L. Wilson, Ph.D. Gives special consideration to Emulsion Photog- raphy, and has an additional chapter on Photography for Amateurs. Em- bellished with a full-page electric-light portrait by Kurtz, and seventy-two wood-cuts 3 00 PICTORIAL EFFECT IN PHOTOGRAPHY.-By H. P. Robinson Fortheari photographer. Cloth, $1.50; paper cover 1 00 BIGELOW'S ARTISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY, with photographs 4 00 HEARN'S STUDIES IN ARTISTIC PRINTING, with photographs 3 00 BURNET'S HINTS ON ART. A fac simile reproduction of the costly original edition • 4 00 PHOTO-ENGRAVING, PHOTO-ETCHING, AND PHOTO-LITHOGRAPHY. By W. T. Wilkinson. Revised and enlarged by Edward L. Wilson, Ph.D. Illustrated. 180 pages. Cloth bound 3 oo PRACTICAL GUIDE TO PHOTOGRAPHIC AND PHOTO-MECHANICAL PRINTING. By Prof. W. K. Burton. Amply illustrated. 348 pages Cloth bound I CO THE PHILADELPHIA PHOTOGRAPHER.— Edited by Ei.ward L. Wil.son, Ph.D. A semi-monthly magazine, illustrated by photographs. $5.00 a year ; club rate with Weekly Photographic Times 6 5c THE PHOTOGRAPHIC COLORISTS' GUIDE.— By John L. Gihon. The newest and best work on painting photographs i 5° WILSON'S LANTERN JOURNEYS.— By Edw.\rd L. Wilson, Ph.D. In three volumes. For the Lantern Exhibitor. Give incidents and facts in entertain- ing style of about 3.000 places and things, and travels all over the world Per volume • • • 2 ^ PHOTOGRAPHIC MOSAICS, 1888. Cloth bound, $1.00 ; Paper cover so ix THE AMERICAN OPTICAL COMPANY'S APPARATUS, INCLUDING ALL STYLES OF Cameras ; Enlarging, Reducing, Copying and Multiply- ing Boxes; Tripods; Plate-Holders, for Wet or Dry Plates ; Printing Frames ; Annateur Outfits, etc., etc., has long been UNRIVALED FOR BEAUTY OF DESIGN, UNEQUALED FOR DURABILITY OF CONSTRUCTION, — AND — UlTAPPROACHED FOR FINENESS OF FINISH. THEY ALWAYS GIVE UNOUALIFIED SATISFACTION. For Sale by all Reputable Photographic Dealers, AND RY THE MANUFACTURERS, The ScoviLLMiiNUFACTURiNG Company, DEALERS IN, MANUFACTURERS AND IMPORTERS OF ALL Photographic Materials and Requisites, 423 BROOME STREET, - - NEW YORK OITY. W. IRVING ADAMS, Agent. Send lor Latest Catalogue. X GETTY ^^llll^^^^^ 3 3125 01409 2718