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APRIT 24, 1885.] THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. 259 pared with any other printing process that we know of— except, perhaps, the “ blue process ” for copying drawings —is very considerable. After very little practice it is quite as easy to judge whether a print has had sufficient exposure in the frame as it is in the case of albumenized paper ; whilst the time taken for printing is considerably less. This latter quality is, of course, specially advan tageous in dull weather. The manipulations of the print after exposure in the frame are of the simplest nature. We have more than once taken several prints from one negative, and have had them finished and mounted within an hour of the time when the first piece of prepared paper was placed in the frame. When the platinotype process was first laid before the public it was undoubtedly the case that the contrast ob tainable in prints by it was very considerably less than that obtainable in those on albumenized paper. In fact, if the best results were to be obtained it was necessary to have specially prepared negatives which would have given hard silver prints. This drawback has been to a groat extent removed of late. With batches of paper which we have recently had we have got prints giving very nearly as much contrast as could be got on albumenized paper. The contrast has certainly not been quite as great; but, on the other hand, the gradation appears to be truer. The most troublesome part of the working of the process is to be found in the necessity which exists in keeping the paper absolutely dry up till the moment of development. This difficulty does not by any means counterbalance the saving of labour in other parts of the process, but it is one which must not be entirely lost sight of. The paper must be kept in a “ chloride of calcium tube " both before and after printing, and during printiug must have a sheet of rubber placed on the back of it. The rubber must be of very good quality, or it will soon become hard. It is therefore somewhat expensive. We may mention that in our own practico we use a very cheap substitute for the rubber sheets, and that it appears to answer admirably. We make use of the waterproof sheets intended to be placed between the leaves of the copying book in press copying of letters. The expense of working a process ought within limits to be entirely disregarded by the photographer; that is to say, it should be considered a matter of no importance as com pared with final results. It is, however, to be feared that it is considered a matter of very great importance indeed. It cannot of course be expected that prints in platinum should be obtained as cheaply as those in silver. The difference is, however, not very great, and it has lately been made somewhat less than it was by the fact that the sheets of platinotype paper are now turned out of dimen sions which allow them to be cut up into the regular photo graphic sizes with much less waste than can the usual albumenized sheet. THUMB-NAIL NOTES. (Society of British Artists, Suffolk Street.) Being a photographer, I naturally regard pictures through a photographic eye, and strolling the other day through the Suffolk Street Galleries, the first to open of the Annual Spring Exhibitions, I made a few notes from my own photographic point of view. Suffolk Street is the home of the “ Impressionist.” The artist who endeavours to seize with his brush the scene as it strikes him, who is content with all the crudities which he may perpetrate, and who refuses to elaborate or em bellish, is an “ Impressionist,” and to some extent he cor responds to the photographer who revels in instantaneous snap-shots. Of the two 1 prefer the photographer. Take Mr. Whistler’s “bits” in Suffolk Street. There are some half a dozen of them, “ a note in grey,” “ grey and brown,” “ green and silver,” and so on. They are all vague, in distinct, and like nothing in nature, Perhaps, considered as “arrangements ” in colour, they may have merit, but as “ drawings ” they are beneath notice. What can a photographer learn from them ? Absolutely nothing. The contrary may be said of the same artist’s portrait of Signor Sarasate. This is masterly in pose and drawing, and the violin is a wonderful bit of colour. But why does a kind of smoke tinge the whole picture ? It is called an “ arrangement in black,” but it is such an arrangement as every photographer is familiar with. In plain words, it is under-exposed, the develop ment is forced, and fog has made its appearance. Mr. Whistler’s followers are very particular in copying his favourite fog. Mr. Sidney Starr’s “ In the Lobby of a Theatre ” is a capital example of this. An ugly young lady is sitting all alone, possibly waiting for some one, though there is nothing in the treatment, pose, or expres sion to show this. She wears a dingy dress, she is stuck against a sombre background, and this is all, Iler face is seen through a veil of smoke, and, were the picture a negative, it would be put aside as a failure. Mr. Harper Penington gives us smoke of a different kind. It is cold and slaty in tone, and altogether cleaner than Mr. Whistler’s variety, but it is still smoke. It is especially marked in a picture of what he calls “A Little White Girl.” This picture is notable, by the way, for the extraordinary chair on which the child is seated. The back leg, though farther away from the eye than the front one, is much longer, and if really drawn from nature would tilt the seat downward three or four inches. Photography has an awkward habit of finding out faulty perspective, and had Mr. Penington photographed the chair he would have discovered this. The same sad tone which appears as smoke in so many figure-subjects takes the aspect of sunlessness in land scapes. Walberswick, in Suffolk, has lately become the artist’s happy hunting ground, and there are no less than seven views in the Suffolk Street Rooms, but nearly all show a grey, sad sky, and an absence of shadow. Is there less sun at Walberswick than any where else, and does this endear it to the “ Impressionist ” school?” I should have thought so had I not by a lucky accident seen, after my visit to Suffolk Street, a number of photographs of Walbers wick taken by Mr. Valentine Blanchard. Here there was no lack of sun nor of picturesqueness. To the painter’s eye, Walberswick consists of level, monotonous dykes, long stretches of muddy water, desolate patches of grass, and dreary skies. To the photographer, Walberswick abounds in sunlight effects, in quaint pictures of weather beaten fishing boats full of suggestivenesss, and in odd bits of river scenery, not flat and tame, but vivid with human interest. The pictures of the painter are fragments ; the photographs are complete, and the eye is satisfied. In Mr. T. II. Potter’s “ A Blue Jar,” we get a very patent example of the modern school. The subject is a young lady with a muddy face and dark maroon dress, holding a piece of blue china. I have no doubt the sample of pottery is rare and valuable, but why should everything else in the picture be subservient to it ? Why should the young lady’s face be dirty—shadow does not express the peculiar tone—in order that the blue jar may be brilliant ? Modern art is certainly eccentric, if nothing else. There were many other pictures which present a mark for the foeman, but i pass them on. The predilection for smoke tints seems to be the most salient feature from my point of view, and I have confined myself to that alone. Wide Angle. GALTON’S COMPOSITE PORTRAITS. BY W. E. DEBENHAN. Mr. Galton’s paper on “ Composite Portraits,” and the ex ceedingly interesting illustrations which accompany it, recall an experiment which I occasionally made many years since. At the time of which I speak, about five and-twenty years ago, stereoscopic pictures were much ip