Photographic negative

“ Let us imagine that the exposure has been made with an ordinary lens and camera, and that it is a landscape seeming to grow beneath the experimenter's eyes. At first only the most conspicuous objects make their appearance. But gradually the process extends, until finally every tiny detail is reproduced with marvellous fidelity to the original. The photographic plate, when developed in this way, is called a "negative." For in Nature luminous points, or sources of light, are bright, while the developing negative turns dark wherever light has acted. ”

“ Most of the color photographs taken so far end in the glass negative, and even that has its weak points. The ideal is a negative that will give a print in the actual colors of nature. In most of the so-called photographic color prints there is more or less failure in the blending of tones. ”

“ It is needless to say that in all mechanical processes the very best negative is required to work from, for although a great deal may be done in the biting to counteract any defects in the negative, yet, if the negative is wanting in any particular, the after-result is sure to suffer. And here I wish to say that by the ‘very best negative’ I do not mean the ordinary photographer’s beau-ideal, but a negative which gives a true impression of the object photographed, and is full of the ‘quality’ and subtlety of nature. ”

“ The function of the negative is, it will be remembered, to protect certain portions of the film from light, and to freely admit light where the image is, hence the denser portions of the negative must be very nearly, if not absolutely, opaque, and the image as nearly transparent as possible; thus giving what photography proper has taught us to abhor—a black and white print. ”

“ Thus the negative, while true to Nature, reproduces everything in a reversed way; bright things are dark, and shadows appear light. For ordinary purposes, therefore, the negative has to be replaced by a new photograph made by copying it again photographically. ”

“ A picture intended to be printed from is no more a negative than another, its positive character being merely obscured by longer exposure in the camera. When first removed from the developing solution, glass pictures are negative, because they are seen upon the iodide of silver, which is a light ground. ”

“ It is to be feared that the hopes which are at present being built upon color-photography are doomed to like disappointment—for the simple reason that the photographic lens in no way resembles the lens of the human eye. The very fact that it is a more perfect instrument is against it. It gives us scientific facts; and scientific facts are generally artistic lies. Art has nothing to do with things as they are, but only with things as they appear to be, with the visual not the actual, with impressions, not with realities. ”

“ 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 amount of a landscape to be included in a picture is far more difficult to determine than the amount of oxidizer or alkali to be used in the developer.
“Flat” and “weak” negatives. Pay no heed to the average photographer’s remarks upon “flat” and “weak” negatives. Probably he is flat, weak, stale and unprofitable; your negative may be first-rate, and probably is if he does not approve of it.
Bad wood-cutters. Do not allow bad wood-cutters and second-rate process-mongers to produce libels of your work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence photographers are often driven to subterfuges if they wish to obtain a correct picture; they are obliged to mitigate the contrasts—to make the light more toned down, and the shades lighter than painters are wont to make them. The latter often exclaim when they see the photographic exposure of a model, and wonder if the picture will be correct. ”

“ And photography may be described as the art which enables commonplace mediocrity to look like genius. The heavy-jowled man with shallow cerebrum has only to incline his head so that the lying instrument can select a favorable focus, to appear in the picture with the brow of a sage and the chin of a poet. Of all the arts for ministering to human vanity the photographic is the most useful, but it is a poor aid in the revelation of character. ”

“ It would be perfectly natural, then, for a body composed of such molecules to come into the region of possible photography in the camera through the ultra-violet rays before it came into the region of visibility to the human eye by means of ordinary light. And thus the seeming paradox may be accounted for—of the appearance of spirit-forms, or even thought-forms, on the photographic plate which are not yet discernible by the eye. At a later stage of materialization the form may of course yield an image both to the eye and to the camera. ”

“ You go into a photographic gallery to have your likeness taken; you sit down opposite the camera, and the effect of the light upon the instrument is to make it reflect an exact likeness of yourself. It is precisely similar with every evil action—they exemplify the truth of the well-known maxim that, "curses come home to roost." ”

“ Not till long later, when released from the tension of danger and abnormal endeavour, is one's mind free to develop the negative and produce a clear photograph. The sensitive freshness of the print then obtained is likely to last a lifetime. ”

“ But here is the point: not one of these figures which came out so strongly in the negative was visible in any form or shape to me during the time of exposure in the camera, and I vouch in the strongest manner for the fact that no one whatever had an opportunity of tampering with any plate anterior to its being placed in the dark slide or immediately preceding development. ”

“ Still, if we photograph the moon or other object, we do not wish to limit ourselves to the size of the original negative obtained at the focus. If the negative is well defined—that is, if it possesses the quality of enlargeableness—there is no difficulty in getting enlarged prints. ”

“ In a photograph there are always details that have no meaning, variations of light and shade that are harmonically false, textures that create false notes, lines that are discords, masses that are out of place. ”

“ Therefore he fears the camera’s facsimile of Nature. If he allows himself to be photographed, he believes that something of himself passes into the black box, and thereafter his soul is halved of its power. ”

“ Make the exposure when the sun is hidden behind a cloud, but shows light through the breaks in them. There is nothing much prettier in the way of out-door photographs than sunset views. Pictures made from different negatives take different tones, according to the density of the negative. A thin plate will take a tone a sort of slaty gray, while with a good negative showing sharp contrasts almost any color or tone wished may be obtained.
Sir Knight Emile Low sends blue prints of two pictures showing a dark circle in the centre, and asks what is the trouble with his camera. ”

“ The human watcher sees merely the collapse of the human envelope; but many a phenomenon invisible to the human eye has been detected and depicted by that of the camera, as everybody knows who has the slightest acquaintance with the branch of physics known as ‘fluorescence.’ The invisible spirit of man surely falls within this category. To the crystal eye of science it is not so much invisible as elusive and intractable. Once it has fled this earth, the sovereign opportunity is gone; but photography may often intercept the actual flight of the soul. ”

“ This does not in the slightest degree impair the genuineness and honesty of the medium, but it inspires me, a disbeliever in the wing notion, with the belief that spirit-photographs are not necessarily photographs of spirits.
"A concluding word: A medium may, on passing through a picture gallery, become impressed by some picture which, although forgotten soon after, may yet make a persistent appearance on his negative on subsequent occasions. ”

“ What is called "local color"—the very look and tone of a definite locality—is produced not by photographic multiplicity of details, but by a marshaling of materials carefully selected to suggest the central spirit of the place to be depicted. The camera frequently defeats itself by flinging into emphasis details that are dissonant with the informing spirit of the scene it seeks to reproduce: so also does the author who overcrowds his picture with multifarious details, however faithful they may be to fact. ”

“ This accounts for the failure of so many photographs to look like the people they're taken of,—a stupid photographer makes people hold up their faces, to get a stronger light, who are accustomed ordinarily to carry their faces slightly averted. ”

“ Do not call yourself an “artist-photographer” and 255make “artist-painters” and “artist-sculptors” laugh; call yourself a photographer and wait for artists to call you brother.
Falsity of photographic portraits. Remember why nearly all portrait photographs are so unlike the people they represent—because the portrait lens as often used gives false drawing of the planes and false tonality, and then, comes along the retoucher to put on the first part of the uniform, and he is followed by the vignetter and burnisher who complete the disguise.
Amount of landscape to be included in a picture. ”

“ It was possible to produce certain modifications of the negative image as a whole, by printing it darker or lighter, or by using a harder or softer working process. Changes on the negative itself for the purpose of giving a more artistic rendering must, however, always be very carefully thought out in advance and effected by retouching, often difficult and not within the power of every photographer, or by other methods which change the negative itself. ”

“ We often have food 7for reflection on the gullibility of man, when we see poor paintings and etchings exhibited at “one man” exhibitions and elsewhere, which are nothing but ruined photographs; the very drawing shows that, and the time in which such a collection of paintings is painted also hints at the method. All the drawing has been done by the photographic lens, and transferred to the panel or canvas. These are the very men who decry photography. ”

“ Now when pictures are taken by means of the camera, the negative can not be exposed to the light, but must be taken into a dark room, and be carefully developed by the use of necessary chemicals or liquids. ”

“ That day was a red-letter one for our photographers. They paid the price in the risks which constantly strained their nerves. But in it they garnered vastly more than in the fortnight they had hugged safety.
But, despite all our efforts, there was one object that we were after that we never did attain. That was a first-class atrocity picture. There were atrocity stories in endless variety, but not one that the camera could authenticate. People were growing chary of verbal assurances of these horrors ”

“ Since spiritualists claim that the presence of invisible spirits may be detected by photography, it seems reasonable to inquire how far this is compatible with established physical facts. If a plate is wrapped in paper and submitted to “spirit influences”—whatever these may be—never being exposed in a camera at all, and on development shows faces or writing, I personally can only find one explanation—trickery. ”

“ Issuing a photograph is like marriage: you can only undo the mischief with infinite woe. I know of one man who has an error of youth of this kind on his mind—a fancy-dress costume affair, Crusader or Templar—of which he is more ashamed than many men would be of the meanest sins. For sometimes the camera has its mordant moods, and amazes you by its saturnine estimate of your merits. ”

“ Nor could he by any means be persuaded to prepare himself once more to face the unknown terrors of the camera. A very common thing to happen, and to foil the efforts of the photographer at the very moment when he has but to withdraw and to replace the cap, is for the timid subject suddenly to put up his hand to conceal his face, a proceeding most annoying to the photographer, but interesting to the anthropologist, as illustrating the very widespread dread of primitive folk of having their features put on paper, and thus being submitted spiritually to the power of any possessing the picture. ”

“ And while the great majority of the attempts to get them prove failures, the photographer—usually an amateur-needs only to provide an avenue in front of his lens a short distance, that is free from falling flakes by the use of a shelter such as a tree or porch. The slow snapshot necessary in cloudy weather will not stop the motion of the flakes nearest the camera and these passing through greater angles of space in equal length of time than those farther away, will blur on the negative. ”