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
• Bemerkung: Seite I-II fehlen in der Vorlage. Paginierfehler: Seite 160 als Seite 144 gezählt.
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

OcTOBER 9, 1885.J THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. posure from a particular point that affords a view of nearly the whole town. I have avoided doing so, and no doubt wisely. By following such suggestions the amateur “ strains his lens ” and produces a picture in which even the middle distance is weak and muddy. He has yet to learn the limitations of his lens, and the fact that no lens now in existence approaches the human eye in power and perfection. Quality, and not quantity, is the chief desideratum in picture making. An exceptional atmospheric condition warrants an occasional attempt at what I may call an epic view ; but humbler subjects are generally more satisfactory, and hence more artistic. A hill side, a shaded street, a rocky glen, a woodland path, a pond with mirrored trees—these and other choice bits of natural scenery are altogether suitable subjects for the camera. Again, in choosing a subject, the amateur must choose for himself. He is alone most competent, for he soon learns to see things as they will appear upon his ground glass; that is, as when cut off from circumjacent objects. We are often surprised at the beauty of a photograph that discovers to us a scene that we have looked upon a thousand times. The reason is clear: the eye is no longer distracted by objects that lie outside the field of view. A most valuable function of the lens is that of selection and exclusion. Again, many scenes that interest the eye do not readily lend themselves to the camera. At the suggestion of some ladies, whose artistic judgment would be in general accounted good, ‘I recently walked a considerable distance to take a view from a certain bridge. I did not make the intended exposure. To the eye the view possessed some interest, but in a photograph it would have been flat and dreary enough. A river coursing through a level marsh with little background, and a rather vacant foreground, would never make a picture. Objects that to the eye served to vary the scene, and lend it a certain degree of interest, lay wholly outside the field of view. It was plain to me, however, that the interest in this view lay chiefly in its power to stimulate the imagination. We sometimes forget how much this faculty has to do with our enjoyment of natural scenery. But the imagination finds far less excitement in a photograph than in the presence of nature herself. To this fact, perhaps, are due many of the amateur’s mistakes in choosing a subject. I will add, in closing, a single suggestion. A picture should possess human interest; that is, possess some phase of human life. These suggestions, however, in the depicting of natural scenery, should never be obtrusive. What is more suggestive and more charming in many a scene than a felled tree, a broken fence, or a well-worn foot-path ? In short, the “ choice of a subject ” involves the training and development of artistic feeling. In this development, indeed, the amateur finds his chief reward.— Photographic Times. COSTUMES AT AUCTION. A WILY PHOTOGRAPHEE. The sale of a costumer’s effects at auction a few days since, at a big Mercer Street salesroom, called out an extraordinary crowd of people. The demand for masquerade costumes seemed to have been very light to the costumer himself, but it was cer tainly strong at the auction. There was one little man on a camp stool in the front row who bought extensively of costumes of every conceivable kind. He was small, dapper, bow-legged, and rather neat, with the exception of the lavish use of oil on his dark locks. On the very crown of his head was a small bald spot, which looked like the surface of an egg floating in ink. “ Down my way,” he said, cheerfully, “the factory girls con sider life hollow and insincere if they don’t have their pictures taken once a year at least in costume. For three years I have been photographing them, with the aid of a pair of blue spangled tights, flushings, and a Turkish fez with little bells around the crown, but I haven’t any theatrical footgear, and so the girls have to be taken in their own shoes. The factory and shop girls are not very far up in the matter of shoes, you know, and my show windows attracted a good deal of attention from scoffers and rivals. It does sorter spoil the illusion of a picture to see a plump and pretty girl, with a billowy bust and snowy arms, standing up in a queen-of-the-ballet suit of clothes on a founda tion composed of a pair of Grand Street button gaiters busted out at the little toe and run down by the heels. It sorter spoils the illusion, you know’. That sort of thing will be all settled now, though. And I’ve got the trade of the whole Bowery as soon as my stock becomes known.” He picked up a pair of pink silk slippers of a decidedly dimi nutive pattern as he spoke, and weighed them carefully in his hands. “ They look a bit small, don’t they ?” he said. “ Rather.” “Well, I’ll bet you every woman that comes in my shop will be able to wear them long enough to stand in front of the camera and be photographed. The only trouble is,” he added, thrust ing his fingers inside of the slippers and against the silk, “ they won’t last long.”—Photographic Times. Ooxxespondence. MR. BOTTONES PHOTO-MICROGRAPHS. Dear Sir,—Will you permit me to rectify an error which, though trifling in itself, might lead to useless corres pondence if left uncorrected 1 Either I, or your printer, inadvertently, after having specified that the micrometer used by me was ruled to thousandths of an inch, have given the dimensions of this famous dung fly’s foot, from claw-tip to claw-tip, as being r1,g. It should have been 1186. Stanley Road, Carshalton. S. BOTTONE. AN ATTEMPT TO PHOTOGRAPH THE SOLAR CORONA WITHOUT AN ECLIPSE. [dopy of letter to the Editor of Science.] Sir,—Mr. W. H. Pickering, having courteously sent me a copy of Science (August) containing a letter entitled “ An Attempt to Photograph the Solar Corona without an Eclipse,” may I ask you to insert the few lines which follow in the next number of your journal? Passing by all those points which are covered directly or indirectly by my reply to Mr. Pickering’s first letter [Science, April 3), I find only two matters which I consider it necessary to notice. 1. Mr. Pickering says :—“ The inferiority of the best gelatine plates to the human eye in this respect (small differences of light) is very readily shown by an attempt to photograph distant mountains.” He then goes on to say, “ Another illustration of the same thing is the impossi bility of photographing the moon in the daytime when the sun is high above the horizon. Although the moon may be perfectly distinct to the eye, the negative shows no trace of it.” To your scientific readers the reasons will readily suggest themselves why, in the case of the moon in the daytime at some angular distance from the sun, the eye has an advan tage over the plate, while in the case of the corona the plate has a great advantage over the eye. Apart from any such considerations, as a matter of fact, there is no diffi culty in photographing the moon at noonday. Yesterday I took, with the apparatus used on the corona, lour negatives on bromide plates (Edwards’s) between 11.30 a.m. and noon in full sunshine. On all the plates the moon is very distinct and well defined. The moon at noonday, unless too near the sun, is an easier object to photograph than the corona. It is obvious, therefore, that photographic methods which are not delicate enough for the moon must utterly fail if applied to an object still more difficult, as the corona undoubtedly is at ordinary elevations. If Mr. Pickering’s statement of the ‘‘impossibility” of photo graphing the moon under the conditions already named rests upon his own experiments, some light may come upon a point which has occasioned me surprise, namely, that Mr. Pickering does not appear to get upon his plates the defects of his own apparatus ; for example, those of the position of his shutter and those of his spectacle lens,