Exposure (photography)

“ It is recommended that the beginner confine himself at first to the preliminary of selecting his views and making the exposures, taking his plates to some photographic establishment to be developed, where he p144 may learn as to the correctness of exposure, and receive such information in connection therewith as may be of benefit afterwards. ”

“ Every side of Amateur Photography is treated in this little book. The Lens, the Camera, Composition, Exposure, Developing and Printing are all handled in a most helpful and simple manner. Flash Light and High Speed work are described in detail. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Any one who has ever dabbled in photography to the extent of shutting himself up in a tight little closet, its pitch darkness tempered slightly by a dim red glow, and dipped dark, smoky-looking pieces of glass and paper into various solutions, knows with what eagerness he waits for the blank black squares and strips to come to life, break out into spots of light, which gradually assume familiar shapes and contours. ”

“ We know from the camera how a lightning-flash really looks, what a horse is like when at full speed, the different actions of a bird’s wing when flying, the true shape of each wave in a storm, also the swing of drapery in a high wind, and how men and women really appear when excited; for before the days of instantaneous photography the painter was apt to be deceived, and take as one several motions and effects. ”

“ Art, in the present age, stands conspicuous for its great achievements in Truthfulness, which has been guided and assisted by the aid of the Camera. Perspective, the great key to Art, was fabulous before Photography was introduced; and by its aid what perfection has it not obtained, not only is distance42 mathematically exact, but the round, soft, accuracy of light and shade in nature, is most beautifully defined! ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is interesting to imagine the sensations of the sceptic of one hundred years ago, to whom instantaneous photography appeared a chimerical idea, should he be recalled to life to-day and be shown first a procession passing down the street, and a few hours afterward the same procession repeating itself before his eyes upon a screen in a darkened room, with all the semblance of reality in colour and animation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Actinism may then be considered as the fundamental principle, on which photography is based, and its power is exerted in forming the image on the sensitized plate in the Camera, as well as subsequently in forming or causing the impression on the sensitized paper exposed to the light beneath the negative. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One of the most recent and beautiful is the art of photography, where, by means of applied chemistry, aided by the rays of the sun, there can be produced the most pleasing and lifelike representations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Photography is shown to be the one radical advance in depiction since art began. In days of old an object had to be seen before it could be pictured; to-day new heavens and a new earth impress their images first in the camera, to declare themselves only afterward to the eye. ”

“ But how much more popular and useful does photography become, when it can be used as a means of securing plates from which to print photographs in a regular printing press, and, what is more astonishing and delightful, to produce the real colors of nature as shown in the subject, no matter how brilliant or varied. ”

“ On our minds, too, we have, or should have, a vivid impression of the picture translated into black and white; we remember what we wish to emphasize, and what to subdue, so that the resulting picture shall be true in tone and impression. We proceed then to mix our developer accordingly, remembering first that the temperature of the developing-room makes a difference, and remembering that the photographic image exists on the film to a degree proportionate to the actinic value of the light which fell upon it. ”

“ 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 again have spiritual labour and artistic intuition. Finally, if photography have anything in it of artistic, it will be to the extent that it transmits the intuition of the photographer, his point of view, the pose and the grouping which he has striven to attain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In photography one man delights in the etching point and cannot stop until he has made a net work all over his plate and led us to look at this instead of his picture, which, if good, would have been let alone—a clever device of throwing dust into our eyes. ”

“ The development of the discovery announced by Daguerre in 1839, and first applied to portraits by one Draper,—this is the great historian. The photograph business, sir, alone sees life steadily and sees it whole. Photography is the supreme sociologist, master psychologist. In the sidewalk display of the cheap photographer is the poor, naked, human story,—poignantly touching, chastening of pride, opening the heart of the responsive beholder to deeper knowledge of the inherent kinship of all humankind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The light passes through no glass—a great advantage, especially for photography, as the absorption in lenses cuts out much of the blue and violet light, to which photographic plates are most sensitive. ”

“ Travel is no longer necessary for the masses in order to behold the marvels of American scenery, for the camera has gathered them all and lays every inspiring scene upon even the poor man’s table, to minister to the delight of his family circle. But photography likewise blesses the traveler, for study of the picture establishes acquaintanceship with that which is represented, while accompanying description quickens his understanding and gives a more intelligent conception of the pictorial subject. ”

“ Though painting renders the chemical result subordinate, and likewise subservient to the skill of the artist, when24 removed from the pressure frame to the easel, yet in no way does it depreciate Photography as an art which is necessary to assist in securing with unerring accuracy of outline momentary indications of character, expression of face, and costume, consisting of numberless and minute details ”

“ It will be seen, therefore, that it is of paramount importance that the shadows shall not be too black, that in them shall be light as there always is in nature—more of course in bright pictures, less in low-toned pictures—that therefore the rule of “detail in the shadows” is in a way a good rough-and-ready photographic rule. Yet photographers often stop down their lens and cut off the light, at the same time sharpening the shadows and darkening them, and throwing the picture out of tone. ”

“ Any Photographer who wants Lenses, Cameras, Camera Stands, Backgrounds, Chemicals, Glass, Albumen Paper or in fact any Photographic Goods, should send for our price-list and be convinced that it is to their interest to send their orders to us direct. A trial order will convince the most skeptical.
Photography in all its Branches for the Trade. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the pictures grow fainter on one film they become correspondingly stronger on the other film, with the result that when the two are overlapped and printed the sum of the two exposures produces a complete and fully-detailed picture, the second film supplying to the first precisely the complement of its incomplete exposure, in the case of each image. ”

“ CHAPTER XI - THE PLACE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN FINE ART Since the time that photography laid its claim to be reckoned among the fine arts the attention of artists has been attracted first by the claim and thereafter, with acknowledgments, to the performance. ”

“ When they are required, the above solution of silver is to be plentifully applied, and the paper placed wet in the camera, the greatest care being taken that no day light--not even the faintest gleam--falls upon it until the moment when you are prepared, by removing the dark slide, to permit the light, radiating from the object you wish to copy, to act in producing the picture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For one reason or another the men whose names were known ten or fifteen years ago seem to have dropped out and their places are being filled by new blood, men with high ideals and aspirations, who are not content merely with reproducing, by means of their cameras, pretty scenes and places, but who believe that photography is capable of much more—of showing not only the physical facts, but the very spirit of nature herself—a true impressionism ”

“ One who has experienced the wonderful sensation of working in a faint yellow-ruby light and by the application of certain mysterious chemicals of seeing a picture gradually come into view on the creamy surface of a dry plate will never again be satisfied to push the button and allow some one else “to do the rest.” However, if you do not wish to go into photography extensively you may at least learn just what limits your hand camera has, and at the end of the season in place of a lot of ill-timed pictures you can have an album full of creditable prints for which no apology will be necessary. ”

“ 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. ”