Photo album

“ For example: if, in the photograph of a group, one figure appear indistinct or blurred, that is thought to be an omen of sickness or death. But this superstition has its industrial value: it has compelled photographers to be careful about their work,—especially in these days of war, [pg 187] when everybody wants to have a good clear portrait, because the portrait might be needed for another purpose than preservation in an album. ”

“ In fact, one rarely sees a relic of the kind, more perfect in color, more expressive in its general aspect, or more becoming to an album, from the fine contrast between its poverty-stricken air, torn, worn, and soiled, and the rich, embossed, unsullied leaf on which it reposed, like some dark Rembrandt within its gilded frame. ”

“ Many pictures, particularly portraits, by bringing up reminiscences, are a great source of consolation. In millions of houses the most-loved and treasured possession is the photographic album containing the likenesses of dear absent or departed friends. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ In desiring the autograph of a literary lady, do not expect her to write in your album “a piece of poetry.” Be satisfied with her signature only. There is a spice of meanness in requesting from her, as a gift, any portion of her stock in trade. As well might you ask Mr. Stewart, or Mr. Levy, to present you with an embroidered collar, or a pair of gloves. For the same reason, never request an artist to “draw something” in your album. It is only amateur poets, and amateur artists, that can afford to write and draw in albums. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A small portfolio of his charcoal reproductions or a few photographs of his pictures should be a part of the print collection of every artist. No better designer of small groups ever lived.
With the amount of good art now coming from the camera it is strange that no groups of note have been produced.12 In the field of pure portraiture the attempt may as well be abandoned. The photographer can at best but mitigate conditions. The picture group can only apply when sacrifice and subordination are possible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we want reproductions from photographs we have a photo-engraving department where by means of a very powerful electric light we can reproduce pictures of all sorts; pen-drawings, facsimiles of old prints, photographs, and every variety of picture imaginable. These are developed on a sheet of metal instead of on a glass plate and then reproduced."
"That is the way you get the fine picture [174] sheets that you enjoy so much, Paul," put in Mr. Wright.
"The photo-engraving took the place of the woodcut," Mr. Hawley explained. ”

“ For if we can not see a picture in a fine piece of music or hear the strains of a distant song in a picture,—if we can not drink of the beauty of both with the eye as well as the ear,—we had better seek entertainment in a picture gallery, where hang many a visible palpable specimen of colors rioting in quadrangles of gilded mouldings, of colors clamoring for recognition in the little square horizons of the artist's soul. ”

“ Still another application of photography, becoming every day more and more familiar to the public, is that which produces enlarged portraits, even life-size ones, from the old daguerreotype or more recent photographic miniature. As we have seen this process, a closet is arranged as a camera-obscura, and the enlarged image is thrown down through a lens above on a sheet of sensitive paper placed on a table capable of being easily elevated or depressed. ”

“ The increasing number of these reproductive prints made it ever easier for an artist to acquaint himself, in a way, with the great achievements of the past. Finally photography, and in its wake the photo-mechanical processes, brought a flood of exact documents invaluable for study, a lure to imitation for the unimaginative or indolent, a spur to the real artist, helpful in forming his own powers.
PLATE FROM THE BOOK OF JOB
William Blake
Individuality seems the keynote of the nineteenth century ”

“ 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. ”

“ For special objects, also, photographs can be sent by telegraph through the use of the photo-relief in plaster of Paris, or other suitable material, which travels backwards and forwards underneath a pointer, the rising and falling of which is accurately represented by thick and thin lines—or by the darker and lighter photographic printing of a beam of light of varying intensity—at the other end, so that a shaded reproduction of the photograph is produced. ”

“ The transmission of a photograph electrically, a portrait, for example, is not so much a matter of mechanism, once the tools are perfected and their operation understood; it is more a matter of blending of line and tone, just exactly as it is with the artist. The great portrait photographer uses the same tools the amateur uses, but an acquired technique of high order enables him to produce a superior portrait, 6free of chalky contrasts, and soft in tone and blending. Just so in radio photography, it is a matter of simple mechanism, and an acquired skill in its use. ”

“ On rare occasions only, and in the hands of a few artistic workers alone, does photography rise above a certain mechanical and laboured impression, and the rare exceptions are of a character ill-suited for "half-tone" reproduction.
For complete whole-page illustrations a photogram has few drawbacks; but when inserted with letterpress, and required for chapter headings and odd corners, the fact that the picture occupies the whole space enclosed within the boundary lines, and includes a great deal of detail which is not required, makes them less attractive. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed, the photograph, with all its allied discoveries and its application to the service of the printing press, may be said to be as important a discovery in its effects on art and books as was the discovery of printing itself. It has already largely transformed the system of the production of illustrations and designs for books, magazines, and newspapers, and has certainly been the means of securing to the artist the advantage of possession of his original, while its fidelity, in the best processes, is, of course, very valuable. ”

“ They have seen photographs of the interior of rooms taken with an ordinary camera—probably with from five minutes to half an hour's exposure. Ah, but this is an instantaneous camera, they argue, and, with an airy snap of the shutter, walk off, confident that the professional to whom they usually leave the development and printing—all the real photographic work, in fact—will be able to find somewhere in that mystic little box a picture of all that room and everything and everybody in it. ”

“ The daily use made of photography by artists is another proof of the good opinion in which it is held by them. You could not get these men to say a word in favour of chromo-lithography, because that is a hybrid craft with few possibilities. These questions being disposed of, we will proceed to discuss an assertion of Mr. Hamerton’s, that photography is like a reflection in a mirror. Now from what we have shown in this book, means are at the artist’s command to influence the final picture in every stage of its development. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The music artist peoples the imagination of his audience with a glorious phantasmagoria. There is a music of vision that delights the beholder of motion and action, typifying life, health and sanity. We have only to give photoplay art its premise and we may find it ranked among the muses. In artistic photodrama we perceive with the ears of the heart and the soul, gifted, it would seem, with a new soul organ. The day of the skilled spectator must follow the dawn of the art of the ideal interpreter. ”

“ Select a well-defined Photograph, one of light color is preferable, and the background free from spots; it is also well to have a duplicate copy to refer to in case of necessity—a copy of two different sittings. Always select a good subject, as a good portrait depends much on a good model. ”

“ In the centre of the mantelpiece was a photograph, the photograph of a man a little older, perhaps, than this newly-arrived visitor, with rounder face, dressed in country tweeds, a flower in his buttonhole, the picture of a prosperous man, yet with a curious, almost disturbing likeness to the pale, over-nervous, loose-framed youth whose eye had been attracted by its presence, and who was gazing at it, spellbound. ”

“ Correct exposure and sufficient illumination of the copy are important factors in photographic reproductions of any kind, but they are of infinitely greater importance when applied to photo-process reproduction. One is, to a certain extent, dependent upon the other. ”

“ 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 basis for the preparation of a photo-litho is as a rule a photographic negative on glass or gelatine, which, as the word negative implies, when examined by transmitted light, must have all its tones reversed, that is to say, the drawing or the lines, strokes or points which must in the print be black, must look transparent, whilst the other part of the negative which forms the groundwork must be covered or opaque. ”

“ Exhibitions in many museums which have hitherto been indifferent to pictures made with the lens have opened the eyes of the public to the possibilities of the camera. Clubs of photographic workers in various cities have maintained or fostered the movement. The lure of the moving picture has stimulated the interest of countless multitudes in photography, and the occasional presentation of fine pictorial work in this direction has given a prophecy of better things to come. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So-and-So paints from photos—why can't you?' No doubt these artists do a very charming lightly-stippled coloured photo for them, but there can never be any life in these things, nor can they be anything else than coloured photographs, however pleasant to the eye of their owners. ”

“ When all the partners have been taken and all the portraits drawn, each portrait being marked with the artist's initials and a number corresponding to the number the model occupies on each card, the collection is pinned to a sheet or portière, and the guests are invited to guess whose likeness each drawing is meant to represent.
The one guessing the largest number of portraits correctly is given a prize of a photograph, and the one who has made the best portrait also receives one. ”