Development (photography)

“ Apparently the latter was chiefly responsible for the development of this first commercial process, the products of which are still to be found in the family album. A century has elapsed since this earliest period of commercial photography, and during each year progress has been made, until at the present time photography is thoroughly woven into the activities of civilized mankind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then the steps are followed by which the art became real, and its development, with accounts of modern processes and inventions—printing presses, color photography, the Telegraph and Photography, and Photography and Art, of which the author says in conclusion that the one who takes up the combined science and art with the motto "All that there is in it or nothing," "will find but little cause to complain of the limitations, in view of the almost boundless possibilities of photography." ”

“ Photography has undoubtedly played an important part in the development of modern art, both in figure and landscape. In landscapes we are inclined to think that the influence of photography was for a time hurtful, for this reason, painters were apt to emulate the detail of the photograph, and lose the breadth of man’s view of Nature in consequence. ”

“ The extraordinary mechanical perfection of photography, its extension into the fields of panoramic, telescopic and micro-photography, and above all the development of motion pictures, have accelerated this adoption of a new attitude and the creation of a novel demand on the part of the audience. For one does not merely introduce a new medium in substituting pictures for discourse; the appeal is to a different side of human nature and satisfies an independent craving. Confronting facts is different from understanding them. ”

“ There is no special type of structure for supporting the camera above the board upon which the drawings are placed for photography. An artist contemplating embarking upon this line of work, and intending to carry on the whole process from the beginning to the time when he hands the exposed film to the laboratory for development, will have a chance to put any inventive ability that he may have into practice in designing a framework for the purpose. ”

“ Photography has revolutionised many things, it has destroyed some of the minor arts, but in book production it has had far-reaching effect, much of which is good.
It has also opened up several new industries, and now photo-lithographs, collotypes, half-tone blocks, and prints from line blocks made by the swelled gelatine or other processes, can be so wonderfully like the original, that a page of old printing made by one or other of these methods will often deceive an ordinary purchaser. ”

“ At exhibitions, too, the three great divisions into which photography falls should be kept rigidly separated. The writer sees in all these branches equal good and equal use, but he sees also the necessity of keeping their aims and methods separate. That this differentiation is now possible and necessary is, from the evolutionary standpoint, the greatest sign of development. The author feels convinced that if any student is going to succeed in any one branch he must not scatter his energies, but devote himself with singlemindedness to that particular branch. ”

“ It was not till 1839, however, that practical success was obtained; but the 'daguerreotypes' were both cumbrous and costly, and photography would never have attained its present important development had not the progress of invention substituted paper and glass for the silvered plates then in use. It is not my affair to dwell upon the practical application of the photography of the present day, but it is germane to my purpose to remark that it has furnished a most valuable accessory to the methods of recording motions and lapse of time already in existence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No one will deny the interest there is in a sensitive, flexible line and in the rendition of [pg 200] mass by line. But photography is an art dealing with finished surfaces of perfect modelling, and workers in this art should preserve the “nature” of their subject. The man who feels line had better etch or use a pencil. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now the photographer, who studies and hopes to excel at decorative photography, must remember that he must work on the same general principles as he does in producing pictures, that is, he must pay attention, in a broad way, to the tone of the room, to effects of contrast, to harmonies, to the effect of artificial lights and of complementary colours, and above all to naturalism. Thus a delicate landscape must not be enamelled on a tea-cup, for it is obviously false in principle to place a picture on a curved surface. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Forty years ago no expedition of importance set out without some member who possessed artistic ability, that pictorial records of the life and character of the new country might be brought back to civilisation. As photography developed, the artist of palette and brush was superseded by a man armed with a camera. ”

“ But I feel sure that it exists largely in the ever-increasing body of persons who practise photography. The majority of them have not thoroughly, nay, not even adequately, thought the matter out. It is obvious then, according to the teachings of evolution, that, if we are to make progress, this differentiation must be made, thoroughly understood, and rigidly adhered to by every practitioner of photography. Each one must have his aim clearly stamped upon his mind, whether it be the advancement of Science or the creation of works whose aim and end is to give æsthetic pleasure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The sun and the camera between them certainly do your picture for you, and as you urge, there is more of artifice in the merest Sunday-school tale than in the best of photographs. Still, you must remember that photography too has its artifice, its choice of the right and the wrong way, and its exercise of judgment; there is a great deal in it that is not mechanical; and in its essence it is of the same class as the books I have been alluding to. ”

“ The beauty of the images which are formed in the camera obscura long ago gave rise to the desire of fixing them permanently. We know how perfectly photography has already satisfied that desire, so far as the forms are concerned. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One of the greatest hindrances to the progress of the art of Photography, is the doubtful permanency of its productions. It will become an immense power if we can overcome this objection. Its votaries have learned how to secure beautiful lights and shades ”

“ When every practical device has been tried, as a last resource the centre may be strengthened.
In order to settle this point to the student's satisfaction no better proof could be suggested than that he paint in black and white a simple landscape motif, with no attempt to create a focus, with no suppression of the corners and no circuit of objects—a landscape in which ground and sky shall equally divide the interest. He may produce a counterfeit of nature, but the result will rise no higher in the scale of art than a raw print from the unqualified negative in photography. ”

“ One may scarcely call an estimate in art matters complete without an opinion from Mr. Ruskin. “In art we look for a record of man's thought and power, but photography gives that only in quite a secondary degree. Every touch of a great painting is instinct with feeling, but howsoever carefully the objects of a picture be chosen and grouped by the photographer, there his interference ends. It is not a mere matter of color or no color, but of Invention and Design, of Feeling and Imagination. Photography is a matter of ingenuity: Art of genius.” ”

“ But instead of superseding the arts of design, photography will but supply them with new materials,—with collections of costume,—with studies of drapery and of forms, and with scenes in life, and facts in nature, which, if they possess at all, they possess imperfectly, and without which art must be stationary, if she does not languish and decline. ”

“ But on the other hand if an artist paint the interior of a wax-work museum, or if an actor give a burlesque portrait of a man-statue on the stage, we have work of the spirit and artistic intuition. Finally, if photography have in it anything artistic, it will be to the extent that it transmits the intuition of the photographer, his point of view, the pose and grouping which he has striven to attain. And if photography be not quite an art, that is precisely because the element of nature in it remains more or less unconquered and ineradicable. ”

“ As already remarked elsewhere, the practical side of photography has outstripped the theoretical one, for so far its progress has been much less indebted for processes and technic to the direct guidance of science than almost any other of our Nineteenth Century acquisitions, such as telegraphy, electric lighting, etc. ”

“ Nature does not jump into the camera, focus itself, expose itself, develop itself, and print itself. On the contrary, the artist, using photography as a medium, chooses his subject, selects his details, generalizes the whole in the way we have shown, and thus gives his view of nature. This is not copying or imitating nature, but interpreting her, and this is all any artist can do, and how perfectly he does it, depends on his technique, and his knowledge of this technique ”