The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 29.1885
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1885
• Sprache: Englisch
• Signatur: F 135
• Vorlage: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Rechtehinweis: Public Domain Mark 1.0
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-db-id1780948042-188500006
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18850000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18850000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
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• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

APRIL 17, 1885.] THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. 243 PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPOSITES. BY FRANCIS GALTON, F.R.S. Your request to send specimens of photographic compo sites as illustrations for the Photographic News happened to reach me at an aypropriate time. It had just been arranged by the Council of the Anthropological Institute to assign an evening to two memoirs on the race character istics of the Jews, and to the discussion that might arise upon them, and I had already sorted out for exhibition at that meeting a few composites of Jewish faces that I made some time ago. They are, I think, the best specimens of composites I have ever produced ; they were made at the suggestion of Mr. Jacobs, the author of the more important of the two valuable memoirs then about to be read at the Institute. I therefore had them in hand, and am now able to send them to you with pleasure, understanding that Mr. Jacobs will furnish you with his own views as to how far these composites succeed, in his opinion, in presenting the typical features of the modern Jewish face. On this point I will consequently abstain from saying anything, though I may mention that the individual photographs were taken with hardly any selec tion from among Jewish boys in the Jews’ Free School, Bell Lane, which, by tbe way, I am informed is the largest school of any, other than Board Schools, in the United Kingdom; and to the courtesy of whose Head Master, Mr. M. Angil, I am much indebted. They were children of poor parents, dirty little fellows individu ally, but wondeifully beautiful, as I think, in these composites. The feature that struck me the most, as I drove through the adjacent Jewish quarter, was the cold scanning gaze of man, woman, and child, and this was no less conspicuous among the schoolboys. There was no sign of diftidence in any of their looks, nor of surprise at the unwonted intrusion. I felt, rightly or wrongly, that every one of them was coolly appraising me at market value, without the slightest interest of any other kind. Plate I., that accompanies this article, contains full-face portraits and composites therefrom. Plate II. will follow next week, and will contain profiles. As regards Plate I., the four large ovals, A, B, C, D, are composites, and all the rest are individual portraits. A is the composite of the five individuals a to a^. It bears strong evidence of the very dark and sharply-defined curl on the forehead of a,, although the intensity of the original has been reduced five times by the process. B is the composite of the five individuals to b,,; C is the co-composite of A and B, with the addition of three other individual portraits to increase its sharpness. The black curl of is still trace able on the open forehead of the composite, though its original intensity has now been decreased thirteen times; but it would be probably overlooked, or mistaken for some chance shade or stain, if it were not for the abruptness of its outline. Lastly, D is a composite of five adult faces, which are not given individually for want of space. It is unnecessary to speak at length here on the princi ple of the process of making composites, or about the appa ratus I use, as all this has been published in full in many places, and re-published in my last work* It will probably be remembered by many of your readers that the principle consists in throwing faint images of a succession of accu rately adjusted prints (or negatives) on the same part of a single sensitized plate, so that the resultant image is an aggregate of all its components, and a pictorial average of them. Also, that the apparatus I employ (made for me by Meagher) consists of the front of a camera fixed firmly on a solid board, with its back screwing out or in for pur poses of focussing, and that in front of the lens there is a carriage which can be moved to and fro on a tramway along the beard, and which supports a stage provided • “Inquiries into Human Faculty.” F. Galton, F.R.S.—Maemillan and Co., 1883. See also Pnorogxariic News, 1881, pp. 316 and 332. with many adjustments, to which the print is fixed. The print can be raised or lowered, it can be moved from side to side, and it can be rotated. Consequently (within moderate limits), whatever sized print is mounted on the stage,, and in whatever position it may originally have been placed there, I can produce an image of it in the camera, of any required size, and can cause that image to fall in any required position on the sensitized plate. The icquired position is defined by fixed fiducial lines, to which I adapt the image by the requisite adjustments of scale and position. I cannot briefly describe the some what complicated and delicate anangement that I adopt for my fiducial lines, which is fully explained in the work above referred to. Suffice it to say, that when making full-face composites, I look through an eye-hole, down upon a piece of horizontal ground glass let into the roof of the camera, and there I see two images. The one is that of delicate and bright fiducial lines, similar in shape to those in fig. 1, and the other is the image of the portrait which has been thrown upwards by a hinged mirror that lies inside the body of the camera. While my eye is applied to the eye-hole, I have my hands free for making the adjustments. These are complete (1) when the pupils of the two eyes in the image of the print are exactly bisected by the upper of the two horizontal fiducial lines ; (2) when the pupils of the eyes are equidistant laterally from the vertical line, for determining which the little cross lines give great assistance ; and (3) when the parting of the lips in the image coincides with the lower of the hori zontal fiducial lines. I adjust each portrait in turn in this way, and then, after capping the lens and turning the hinged mirror out of the way, I raise the dark slide. Then I withdraw the cap, give a brief exposure, and re-cap. Immediately afterwards, I close the dark slide, turn back the mirror, and remove the cap ; then I am free to set to work with the next of the series of portraits, in the same way as that just described. In taking profile portraits, I use a sloping line with two horizontal ones, as in fig. 2, and adjust the image of A Fig. 2. the print, so that its forehead shall be touched by the upper end of the sloping line, and that what I estimate to be the position of the front of the gums of the middle teeth in the upper jaw of the image shall be touched by the lower end of the sloping line. The line through the centre of the pupil of the eye in the profile image, and that through the parting between the lips, are then made, as before, to correspond with the upper and tha lower of the two horizontal fiducial lines. I will take this opportunity of emphasizing the value of a very simple precaution that vastly facilitates the process of reduction to a given scale, not only in making these composites, but also in other cases where reductions to scale and to position have to be made. I have not seen the plan to which I refer spoken of by others, and as I made it out for myself, I suppose it to have been hitherto overlooked, notwithstanding its simplicity. Speaking in the most general way, in every case of reduction to scale and position there are some two points (A, B) in the image