Volltext Seite (XML)
696 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. [NovEMIBIZ 2, 188 Notes. We regret we are unable to bring our notice of the Exhibition to a close this week, but we promise those exhibitors whose work has yet to be considered, that they shall not have to wait longer than our next issue. The Exhibition remains open nearly a fortnight longer, so there will still remain some days to view the pictures, after our final notice has appeared. Manchester is making arrangements to hold an exhibi tion this season, probably in January. Last time, if we remember aright, the Manchester Society paid all the carriage expenses of exhibitors; but on the present occa sion such generous treatment is hardly likely to be repeated. We will give our readers further particulars as soon as they have been decided upon. Exhibitions will be rife during the winter, for other collections are spoken of besides those in Bristol, Glasgow, and Manchester. Coming after the London Exhibition, these are usually successful, for photographers who have framed pictures for the Annual Show in Pall Mall are not unwilling to send them elsewhere afterwards. In vaunting the excellence of their exhibitions, the authorities, however, sometimes overlook this little fact, and think it is the attractions of their town that has alone secured the success. Like the boy on the ladder, who cries out “ Look, I am taller than the ladder! ” they forget it is the ladder that has made them so tall. Mr. H. P. Robinson’s " Pictorial Effect in Photography ” is to be translated into French by M. Hector Colard, a clever Belgian litterateur. We can only wonder, by the way, why the translation has not been undertaken before, as it is not only the best book, but the only one that has been published on the subject. One of the most important points connected with Mr. Common’s beautiful photograph of the Nebula of Orion and the map of the heavens around it, is that years hence astronomers may regard it as an infallible record, and so note any changes that occur in this group of heavenly bodies. Says Nature, very truly, an astronomer hereafter will “prefer the single photograph taken by Mr. Common in thirty-seven minutes to all the literature on the subject so admirably brought together by Professor Holden ; and if the world must in the meantime lose either the memoir (Prof. Holden’s) and the records of human effort of two and a-half centuries on which it is based, or the photograph, then it is to be hoped the photograph will be spared.” This element of truth in photography—the reflection of a fact permanently fixed in the camera—is, as we have pointed out many a time, the mainstay of our art. Not only in photo-astronomy, but in almost every other phase of photography, is this circumstance to the fore. Thus, not only a century hence will the photograph of Orion’s nebula be of the highest value, but every other photo graph of importance, personal or material, will increase in worth. As we at the present day should value a little brown print of Shakespeare or of Daniel Defoe, to take as instances the two widest-read of English authors, above all the fine paintings in Christendom, so hereafter, pos terity is likely to set a far higher worth upon a carbon portrait of Darwin, or a platinotype of Thackeray, than upon any likenesses of these worthies on canvas or in marble. Montgolfier’s first balloon was made of paper from the Annonay-Rives Mill, the establishment which now supplies the well-known Rive photographic paper; and it is interesting to observe that the establishment is still in the hands of the Montgolfier family. The monument recently erected at Annonay to commemorate the ascent of the Montgolfier Brothers’ first balloon is spoken of as a much more pleasing memorial than the bare statue of Daguerre at Cormeilles. Great Britain, though one of the last to join the Geo detic Congress which has been sitting at Rome, seems likely to absorb all the glory thereof, for the npshot of the international meeting is that the meridian of Greenwich will probably be adopted universally by European nations and by the United States. This is a real tribute to Great Britain, though perhaps it is only as it should be, since the Secretary, Professor Hirsch, in his official report, says that we employ 40,000 ships and 370,000 sailors, numbers surpassing the sum total of all other nations. If, there fore, the report of the Congress be adopted, every navi gator throughout the world will calculate his longitude by the meridian of Greenwich. But the Conference is not going to make the concession without some return. We in this country have not yet adopted the metrical system, and metres and centimetres, grammes and kilogrammes, still sound foreign to our ears; albeit, chemists and photographers have some knowledge of them. A resolution passed by our neighbours runs “ The Conference hopes that if the whole world is agreed upon the unification of longitude and hours in accepting the Greenwich meridian as the point of departure, Great Britain will find in this fact an additional motive to take on her side new steps in favour of the unification of weights and measures, by joining the Metrical Conven tion.” Artists who do “ coloured work ” for photographers are often hardly dealt with. All they have to go by are a few instructions more or less definite as to colour of eyes, hair, and complexion, and they are expected—at least, by the sitter—to turn out a faithful portrait. This appears to have been the case in an action heard last week in the City of London Court, where a photographer sought to recover £1 10e. for copying a carte-de-visite. Fortunately, the judge was able to decide by ocular demonstration whether the portrait was like the defendant, and he gave a verdict in favour of the plaintiff, despite the statement of defend-