Amateur photography

“ We had a small steamer, a choppy sea, and there was a young man with a Kodak on board. I abominate amateur photographers. They are offensive. It is the fact that they insist on photography being an art that makes them so objectionable. Photography is not an art. One merely requires a good apparatus and a knowledge of how to work it, and there you are—a good photographer. ”

“ It made amateur photography possible by the substitution of sensitized celluloid films for the breakable and heavy glass plates, and it provided humanity with its greatest agent of amusement and instruction—the moving picture show. ”

“ Though the ordinary knowledge of photography must be taken for granted here, there are many details and preferences which are special to this kind of work. The bane of practical photography is the rich amateur, who insists on useless luxury of apparatus, and has set a fashion in fittings which is absurdly complex. ”

“ Popular Pastimes are numerous, but to many there is nothing more fascinating than photography. The magic of sunshine, the wonders of nature, and the beauties of art are tools in the hands of the amateur photographer. If you want to get a start in this up-to-date hobby, this outfit will help you. You will enjoy the work and be delighted with the beautiful pictures you can make. ”

“ The problem must be left to each individual. The beauty of a bromoil print, for instance, is supreme to its devotee: is its superiority to other processes worth the time and the toil necessary to make it, which might be devoted to the study of composition, of a wider range of subject, or to the mastery of simpler processes? Picture construction and print quality are after all the main things in photography, not the medium we use.
There is no royal road to distinction in photography, but each year sees some helps devised for the earnest worker, whether amateur or professional. ”

“ The most unartistic productions of amateur photography do quite as well for making composites as those of the best professional workers, because their blemishes vanish in the blended result. All that amateurs have to do is to take negatives of the various members of their families in precisely the same aspect (I recommend either perfect full-face or perfect profile) , and under precisely the same conditions of light and shade, and to send them to a firm provided with proper instrumental appliances to make composites from them. ”

“ The amateur who has secured a fine negative of some choice bit of scenery, or has made a "hit" on any subject interesting or beautiful, will naturally desire to secure prints or impressions from it, that he may gratify his friends with a copy or supply the demand for exchanges with the members of his camera club.
The accomplishment of this desire is neither difficult nor expensive, as there are several processes by which the amateur may print for himself as many impressions as will suit his purpose. If silver prints are preferred, any photographer will produce them at small expense ”

“ Amateur photographers, male and female, may be found during the season at the summer resorts by the sea or at the breezy mountain house; wherever the well-to-do citizen takes his family for rest and recreation during the "dog days," there will the tripod be set up and the Camera will record the topography of the vicinity.
For every one of these thousands of amateurs there p142 is something to learn before he or she can succeed in producing a picture; to know how to make a photograph never comes by intuition, but must be acquired by study and practical experiment. ”

“ By no other method or process can the amateur succeed in producing pictures of p213 equal excellence, with the same outlay of time and skill, which is a peculiarly fortunate circumstance, as the tendency among amateurs at this time is to form themselves into clubs and societies for the exchange of their most beautiful and successful efforts as picture makers. And an exchange in the form of a transparency enables the receiver to command all other styles of pictures, through the negative that may be produced from it. ”

“ Profit and pleasure combine to win recruits for the art of animated photography. As an entertainment offered to the public, the moving-pictures have had no rival. Their popularity has been remarkable and universal. It increases daily, and, since we are only now beginning to see the magnitude of what the cinematograph can effect, it is not likely to diminish. This development has stirred the ambition of the amateur or independent photographer because the field is so vast, fertile, and promising. ”

“ By this process, also, the amateur is enabled to provide himself with slides for his magic lantern and to have the satisfaction of exhibiting to his friends the trophies of his own skill in the use of the camera and the developing solution. ”

“ One roller holds the long strip of film which is slowly wound over the second, the device familiar to every amateur photographer today. With film photography was gained the possibility not only of securing a much larger number of pictures than Marey or Anschütz made with their circular arrangements, but of having these pictures pass before the eye illumined by quickly succeeding flashlights for any length of time. ”

“ At this juncture, photography, particularly in its form of photo-zincography, steps in, and offers the means of doing for the amateur of ancient and curious literature, for maps and MSS., precisely what the printing-press does for the great body of readers. All we need is that the obstacles which still render this process expensive, except when applied to objects in great demand, should be removed, that the scholar should be enabled to procure a cheap photographic reproduction as easily as the general reader can obtain a cheap book. ”

“ Its closing chapter on motion picture photography is a sane criticism of the admirable features and the faults of that important department of modern work with the camera.”—Boston Transcript
“The illustrations in this book are revelations. They are free from the sharp decisiveness of the photograph we have known as a type, are rich in shadow and an occasional blur of mystery that lifts the product to a plane that is in essentials artistic.”
“A helpful manual, broad in scope but not too technical for the comprehension of the amateur.” ”

“ In the former case, however, the photographer cannot be regarded as more than an exceptionally sensitive and perceptive craftsman, and in the latter instance the camera user, of course, ceases to be a photographer and becomes a creative artist, using photography merely as a basis on which to construct an imaginative result. ”

“ The day may come when our exhibitions will show masses of color on their walls which will make the water-colorists and the miniaturists green with envy, but that day is not yet. And I for one would be sorry to see it come. There is to me a charm about good monotone photography that is all its own and that puts it on a plane with etching, engraving, lithography, and other monotone processes. Of course some artists, strictly so called, object to regarding photography as anything but a mechanical process, but the number of those who would make art a close corporation is happily diminishing. ”

“ You can hardly imagine how cumbrous and well-nigh hopeless a business it was in those days, not so long past, to pursue after wild life with a camera; but a thousand disheartening failures left him still grasping the inviolable shade, still confident that in photography, if it could only be given with rapidity and precision, lay the naturalist's hope. ”

“ A photographic artist strives for the same end and in two points only does he fall short of the painter—in color and in the ability to render so accurately the relative values, although this is to a great extent compensated by the tone of the picture. How then is photography superior to etching, wood-cutting, charcoal drawing? The [pg 178] drawing of the lens is not to be equalled by any man. There is ample room for selection, judgment and posing, and, in a word, in capable hands a finished photograph is a work of art. ”

“ But do not ask him to waste his time or the company's money in producing a scene the expense and bother of obtaining which is out of all proportion to the importance of the rest of the picture. And do not forget that the camera, wonderful as it is, cannot and does not do everything that it seems to do. In other words, do not mistake an effect produced by trick photography for one that is merely the result of exceptional care and work on the part of both cameraman and director. ”

“ It does not, however, seem probable that photography will ever entirely replace draughtsmanship for the illustration of fiction, since the very strength of the camera,—that is, its surpassing power of rendering accurately the outlines and gradations of natural objects,—operates as a severe limitation in the case of original, imaginative work. ”

“ The literalness of photography, which prevents its ever competing with etching or painting in imaginative art, makes it of inestimable value in certain realms, and scientists of all sorts, astronomers, physicists, physicians, pathologists, as well as architects, building contractors, business men, who wish a precise and accurate record of any object, recognize the value of the camera. ”

“ First as to the selection of the artist. It is a great mistake to imagine that photography is a mere mechanical trade. There is as much difference between two photographers as between two engravers. Nor will a fine lens alone produce a good picture. The pose of the sitter, the disposition of lights and shadows, the arrangement of drapery, are of the greatest consequence. A good artist has almost unlimited power in this direction. ”

“ Hitherto the chief aim of the photographer seems to have been a biting sharpness of detail in the negative, which is generally quite fatal to the result from an artistic point of view, for in breadth lies the beauty and sentiment of landscape. To produce a picture the photographer must select his lens and adjust his focus, so as to get an expression as nearly identical with the visual one as possible, and he must print in such good tone as will give the closest approximation to the values in nature. ”

“ Invention and design, feeling and imagination, are all a part of the photographer's suite. He employs them all. And these too are qualities the most artistic. Technique, which is manual and not spiritual, is the one point at which art and photography cannot coalesce. ”

“ While all these wonders have come to pass in practical service, photography has likewise grown and expanded in the field of fine art. There are photographic art schools, and clubs and exhibitions—all for the purpose of cultivating and developing the camera to the finest forms of expression. We have highly cultivated and skilled photographers who are true artists, and who are engaged in employing photography as a means to fine art achievement. ”

“ When objects and situations in life that do not exist are wanted, the camera can, by some trick or device, create them for us. There seems to be no limit to the possibilities. Each wonder displayed in photographic reproduction gives way to some new effect more wonderful still.
Consider briefly a few of the wonders of modern photography. First and foremost, and most spectacular of all, is the moving-picture film. Then, in the world of practical things, we have the telephoto-lens—a combination of the telescope and camera—that takes pictures of objects far beyond the reach of the naked eye. ”

“ This pleasing development may primarily be ascribed to the fact that the practice of photography, which was originally confined almost exclusively to professional workers, has gradually spread and has become a means of recreation to the multitude in their leisure hours. ”

“ In spite of all these advances, photography was almost exclusively a studio proposition, when, in 1880, experiments were begun which were to result in photography that could be universally enjoyed—photography as we know it today. ”

“ Photography is a reproduction; it becomes a betrayal. What is the copy interpreted by this betrayal? How can one extract the character of anything if the true model is not there?
“Here, then, is our engraver obliged to copy with his precise art from something quite vague. Photography sees the globs of color, the accidents of a picture, with as much interest as the most beautiful design. ”

“ But not only in portraiture is photography a great art, for it catches the stately pose of the mountain, the grandeur of the sea, the beauty of the forest, or the majesty of Niagara Falls, and brings them all home to us, even to the vision of the bed-ridden invalid. The camera alike records the secrets of the starry heavens and the bacteria of the microscopic world. ”

“ I pass on to consider rapidly a matter less abstruse and of more practical interest, a growing habit among artists to avail themselves of the assistance of photographs in their work. It will not be questioned that many artists of repute do use photographs to—well, to put it briefly, to save themselves trouble, expense, and, in some cases, to supplant defective education. But the influence of photography on art is so vast a subject, so multiple, so intricate, that I may do no more here than lift the very outer fringe. ”

“ For many years photography was largely confined to portraiture and the faithful reproduction of objects and scenes. All that was expected of a camera was to “make a picture” of a thing. Within the last forty years, however, as reproductive processes have been invented, photography has come to be one of the most useful of arts. ”