Snapshot

“ Turning a handle on the outside of the camera operates it. So that when the scene is ready to be photographed the actors, whether men or animals, begin to move. The handle turns, and the unexposed film is wound from one reel to the other, inside the camera, passing behind the lens, so that the picture falls on it in a flash, just as you take one snapshot. But, as I have said, the moving picture camera takes snapshot after snapshot—sixteen a second—until many thousands are taken, so that when the pictures are shown afterward they give the effect of continuous motion. ”

“ One day while I was wondering how we could best catch the man who was getting at the books, that clock happened to strike, and somehow it reminded me that in our photographic society at college we had once suggested that it would be amusing to attach a detective camera to a timepiece and take snapshots every few minutes all through the day. I saw that this clock of ours faced the safe, and that it couldn't be better placed for the purpose. ”

“ Even though one does not care to become an expert photographer, by all means get a camera and make snapshots. It is quite a common idea for an amateur to attribute his failures to defects in his material or outfit. You may be sure when you fail it is your own fault. Dealers in photographic supplies constantly have complaints from customers about defective materials, and certainly nine out of every ten of these cases are simply due to the carelessness of the operator with perfectly good material.
It is well for a beginner in photography to start with a simple snapshot camera. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Good photographs may sometimes be secured from amateurs who happen to get snapshots of some interesting occurrence. Every reporter and every correspondent should have a camera and should learn how to take pictures to illustrate the stories that he writes, even though he may not have occasion to take such photographs frequently. ”

“ You can get a good picture of the trail with a snap-shot when it is in the open, but a forest trail must have time exposure. When your eyes have become accustomed to the dim light of the woods it will not seem dark, and you will be tempted to try a snap-shot because it is easier, but if you do you may certainly count that a lost film. It is not possible to hold your camera in your hands and succeed with a time exposure of over one second. The beating of your heart will jar it, a breath will make it move, so some kind of a rest must be found as when taking the animals with bulb exposure. ”

“ A camera has a light-tight compartment within which a fresh strip of film passes and stops intermittently back of a lens that is focussed on a subject, a rotating shutter with an open and an opaque section makes the exposure. (When the strip of film is developed it is known as the negative.) (2) A printer pulls the negative, together with a fresh strip of film in contact with it, into place by an intermittent mechanism before a strong light. A rotating shutter flashes the light on and off. (The new piece of film, when it is developed and the pictures are brought out, is known as the positive.) ”

“ Slender ribbon-like falls hang lightly from the brow of a sheer precipice or dash in foam down some rocky gulch, and the morning mists that linger on the wooded peaks veil in mystery the beauty beyond. One's desire to possess and perpetuate some scene of beauty becomes irresistible, when, out comes the camera — snap — and the thing is done! ”

“ The hunting man who is interested in photography will find endless opportunities when out with the fell packs of recording incidents of the chase. It is needless to say that a small light-weight camera should be selected, anything larger than quarter-plate being too much of a handicap on steep ground. ”

“ Invariably they said, “No!” Some appeared to regard the camera as a new species of machine-gun. Even those who knew what it was were reticent about posing. The more picturesque the native, and the more I wished his picture, the more resolutely he said, “NO!”
Strolling some distance from town, I finally discovered an aged squaw who looked as though she might die within a year even though her photograph were not taken. But her “NO!” was not merely in capital letters but in type larger than the largest in a Hearst newspaper. ”

“ A camera is a splendid thing to have along on one's trips abroad. No matter how vivid an impression a certain scene makes upon one's mind, it is bound to fade with the passing of a year or so. But a clear snap-shot taken of that scene will keep it fresh indefinitely, for one needs only to glance at the picture to have all associations with the scene recalled. ”

“ Suppose a man is being pursued, and runs as for dear life; if 100 feet of this episode are photographed, and the negative subsequently is reduced to twenty-five feet by manipulation, the man will not appear to be running when the picture is shown upon the screen, but will seem to be eluding capture by a series of long hops. In this instance two films and superprinting are requisite to give the most satisfactory result, the runaway being recorded upon one film and the pursuing crowd upon the second. ”

“ PRACTICAL PROBLEMS AND DATA
291 CHAPTER XXV
SPOTTING “Spotting,” as distinct from mapping or from the photography of continuous strips, is the photography of a definite individual objective. In military work spotting or “pin pointing” includes the photography of particular trenches or pivotal points in a trench system before an attack (Fig. 123) , of roads or bridges along which an advance must pass (Fig. 124) , of batteries or big guns which are the subject of artillery fire (Fig. 125) , both before and after their bombardment (Fig. 126) , of gun puffs or exploding bombs (Fig. 131) . ”

“ A trick slide may be employed, in which the shutter contains a positive transparency of the desired extra, held in such a manner that it can either be withdrawn with the shutter, or left in position in front of the plate when required; i.e., during the exposure, which will have to be somewhat longer than usual.
2. A similar transparency may be inserted in the camera, close to the plate, and between it and the lens, during the focussing operations. The black focussing-cloth makes an admirable screen for such manipulations, while the sitter is of necessity immobilised a few feet from the camera. ”

“ Now, while your photograph is being taken from the few rays of light which pass into a camera, you see that we might place hundreds of cameras one above another, and if they were all pointed at you they might each take a photograph of you at the same instant—the same as one thousand different persons in an audience with their two thousand eyes all look toward the speaker and see him at one and the same instant. ”

“ In all essential points motion-picture photography is really continuous snap-shot photography. Celluloid film is used, that for motion-picture purposes being one and three-eighth inches wide, and supplied in long strips, the average length being two hundred feet. By turning the crank at the side the motion photographer is able to get continuous photographs of a person or object in motion, instead of the single picture that the snap-shot photographer gets. ”

“ Experience has shown, however, that a picture projected at the normal speed of sixteen per second is too rapid for the average man unless the object was moving slowly when photographed. It has been proved that practice with this target improves quick-sighting and so teaches the art of snap-shooting which is said to be the essence of modern marksmanship. After a little experience the marksman develops the tendency to sight instantaneously as he lifts his weapon. ”

“ The camera is not a brain in which the picture can create itself, in which an hallucination is formed out of internal data. It is a witness that does not lie and is not mistaken. Well, this witness has spoken. The sensitive plate certifies the phenomena to be real. I hold at the disposal of the Academy seven negatives of the screen thus obtained by instantaneous exposures. ”

“ Float the paper upon the following solution for three minutes and hang it up to dry:
39 The sensitiveness increases in proportion to the quantity of uranium nitrate. With the above formula the paper can be exposed in the camera, or, for printing, under a negative cliché.
In printing an exposure of five seconds in diffused light gives an image perfectly visible, and a grayish black tone; ten seconds gives a vigorous image almost of a black color; in from fifteen to twenty seconds the image is very strong, with the color of an engraving. In sunshine the action is neces­sarily much more rapid. ”

“ The eye imagines that it sees movement. Each picture is an isolated snap-shot taken in the fraction of a second. In projection upon the screen, however, the images follow so rapidly one after the other and each remains in sight for so brief a period that the successive views dissolve into one another. The missing parts of the motion—the parts lost while the lens is closed between the taking of each two pictures—are not detected by the eye. The latter imagines that it sees the whole of the process of displacement in the moving objects. ”

“ If with an enlarging lantern the image of this faked picture is thrown on the paper like a lantern slide, and if the right hand side is a little further away than the left, the top further away than the bottom, you can print a fraudulent high speed ahead picture. True, everything else in the picture, even if motionless, is distorted, and the difference between this faking and the distortion of the shutter can be seen by an expert. ”

“ Accommodation.—The focussing or sharpening of the image is performed by a special apparatus. In every camera, the farther the object is from the eye the farther forward, and the nearer the object is to the eye the farther backward, is its image thrown. In photographers' cameras the back is made to slide, and can be drawn away from the lens when the object that casts the picture is near, and pushed forward when it is far. ”

“ Footage: The amount of film consumed in the making of an individual scene, insert, or the entire picture.
Frame: See Film.
Idea: An incident, or a situation, that suggests a plot; in other words, the plot "germ."
Insert: Anything introduced into the film to aid in telling the story or to explain a point of the plot. "Leaders" are also inserts; but, as generally used, inserts refers to letters, telegrams, newspaper paragraphs or personals, or any matter other than cut-ins, or dialogue, inserted into the film during the progress of a scene, thus becoming practically a part of that scene. ”

“ It is easy to imagine how a transparency on a spring mount could be slipped into the camera under cover of the cloth in such a way as to press up against the plate when the shutter of the slide is drawn. ”

“ Now I will answer this question before going any further, because it has a bearing on the subject before us—the making of a handy and cheap camera obscura, which cannot fail to be a source of amusement and pleasure, especially when the sun shines.
The reason why the object on the photographer’s ground-glass plate is seen upside down is easily explained. Light, as I need hardly remind older boys, proceeds in straight lines from any illuminated object. It is thus thrown upon the photographer’s plate. A glance at the accompanying diagram (Fig. 1) will suffice to show what I mean. ”

“ You can see as the crank turns that the sprockets pull the film out and guide it along its course, and the little fingers jerk it down the space of one picture, or three quarters of an inch, at each jump. When the fingers are jerking the negative down, the shutter must be closed, and when the fingers are making their back trip to take a new hold on another length of film the strip must be as still as the Washington Monument, for the shutter to open, let in the light and transfer the image before the lens to the negative. ”

“ As the fixing on chemically prepared surfaces of the images formed by the camera requires a previous arrangement within the focus of the object to be represented, for otherwise — as often found in bad photographs — the legs of the sitter might appear out of all proportion with the head, and so on — so we have to first arrange our sentences and impress every letter to appear on paper in our minds before it becomes fit to be read. ”

“ When the photographer wishes to develop the picture that is hidden in the film of the sensitive plate he carries it to a darkened room, and bathed in the developing solution the latent image gradually appears, even to the minutest details. ”

“ It is necessary, however, always to be prepared for a snap-shot, as after going some twenty to thirty yards they will bound up into the air, offering a capital chance, which may be the only one, as they will be out of range before they again appear in like manner. ”

“ Correctly applied only to that part of the photoplay manuscript which describes the development of the plot, scene by scene and situation by situation; the complete story is swiftly outlined in the synopsis, but in the scenario it is told—that is, worked out—in action. The continuity of action; often called "the continuity."
Scene: A scene is so much of the action of a photoplay as is taken in one place at one time without stopping the camera. ”

“ I said; for by that time I had seen a bruise on one corner of the camera where I dropped it once.
“All right,” said he. “Come along. You go after the man, and don’t lose sight of him, and I’ll go around this little building and meet him.”
So we did. And it worked first-rate. The guard was a fly sort of a fellow, and instead of asking the man whether that was his camera, he asked him whether he had a permit for it. ”