The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 12.1868
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1868
• 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-id1780948042-186800009
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18680000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18680000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

198 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. [April 24, 1868. As I said before, it may be a matter of great importance how the result is obtained, and by virtue of going in a new, and I think almost a round-about, way to work, Mr. McLachlan may obtain a result which, though theoretically the same, or almost the same, with what has been done before in a much more simple way, may in some important respects be better. I may sum up by saying, that though it is difficult to see how Mr. McLachlan’s plan is better than any other for producing what seems to me a similar result, still, as there is no knowing when we may come to an end of the wonder of photography, it may be a new light has sprung up among us, and I shall have much pleasure in making the whole of the experiments carefully and reporting them when the time comes. PICTORIAL EFFECT IN PHOTOGRAPHY; Being Lessons in Composition and CIAROSCUEA for Photographers. BY II. P. ROBINSON. Chapter XIII. "Nature, everywhere, arranges her productions in clusters ; and to this end she employs a variety of means. The heavenly bodies are grouped by attraction, flowers and trees by the natural means by which they are propa gated, while the social instincts congregate man and most other animals into societies ; and the same instincts impel, in man as well as in many of the interior creatures, the grouping of their habitations. Grouping is, there fore, a universal law of nature; and though there are cases in which a scattered display of objects may, in parts of a composition, greatly aid, by contrast, the more compact portions, and cases in which scattered objects may help to tell the story, yet in the composition of a picture, taking the whole together, a scattered general effect is always a fault.”—0. IC. Leslie. “We are very sure that the beauty of form, the expression of the passions, the art of composition, even the power of giving a general air of grandeur to a work, is very much under the dominion of rules. These excellences were, heretofore, considered merely as the effects of genius ; and justly, if genius is not taken for inspiration, but as the effect of close observation and experience.”—Sir Joshua Reynolds. Any very obvious geometrical form, either in masses of light and shade, or bounded by lines, would necessarily be a defect of arrangement; but a certain degree of regularity, such as that arising from a proper appreciation of the rules of composition, and resulting from the concentration and grouping together of the parts, is undoubtedly greatly to be preferred to that kind of irregularity which would be made apparent by the promiscuous scattering of objects over the plane of the picture. It may be objected that few landscapes will fall into these convenient forms for the benefit of the photographer. This I am quite ready to admit; but when he is acquainted with those forms that are known to produce picturesqueness he will be ready to take advantage of accidents of posi tion and of the various effects produced by light and shade at different times of the day. Besides, forms of objects alter with the point from which they are observed. Twining, who has written a readable if not very practical treatise on the philosophy of painting, says:—“ Form itself depends, in a great measure, on the position selected by the observer, on the direction of the lights, and the trans- patency or mistiness of the atmosphere. From such causes as these the mountains may become more elevated, the plains more vast; depth, space, and distance may be increased; and the artist, who thus adds to the grandeur or beauty of a subject, by availing himself of means borrowed from nature herself, instead of tantalizing the mind, and engendering an admiration based, in a great measure, on ignorance in matters of art, instructs, at the same time he diverts, his admirers.” This is equally true for the photographer as for the painter. But if the landscape will not arrange itself at the photo grapher’s bidding, he has more power and command over his materials when his subject is a figure or a group. If he be not perfect master of the expression of his sitter—and some photographers show by their works that even that is possible—he has in his hands the possibility in a very great degree of governing the disposition of the lines and the light and shade. If he find several lines running in one direction he has the opportunity of altering the position of the body or the drapery so as to create opposing lines, and he has great scope in the artistic arrangement of the acces sories and background in preserving balance, either by lines, or light and shade; and yet how often are these advantages neglected, or, rather, how very seldom are they employed! For many years (and, indeed, to a great extent at the present time) a plain background without gradation was looked upon as very successful work, and nothing but insipid and monotonous smoothness was aimed at by photographers, with the exception of those who already had a feeling for the picturesque, or those who were not too proud to take a lesson from the works of others. It is encouraging to see that many photographers are alive to the necessity of doing something more creditable to the art; and the many imita tions that have lately been shown—although few of them have yet risen above the level of mere imitation, or at all approached the great originals—of the productions of that photographic Rembrandt, M. Adam-Salomon, give indica tion that some improvement may be expected. It is always well, when possible, to teach by example, and I append an outline of a well known portrait, of which large quantities have been distributed, chiefly because of the celebrity of the subject, and partly, no doubt, because of the excellence of the technical qualities. I do not indi cate this individual picture more distinctly, because I think that when I feel compelled to use any particular photograph as “ an awful example,” it is scarcely fair to the author to mention his name, although my remarks would be more easily understood if the original could be placed before the student instead ot an outline wood-cut. It will be seen that most of the lines, although not parallel, run in one direction. There is no balance what ever, no variety of lines, no relief, and the space behind the figure is “ to let.” There is no employment for so much space, except to make the picture the regulation size. The background in the original is perfectly plain—one unbroken tone from the top to the bottom. You see any part of the picture as soon as, or before, you see the head, and the figure appears to be inlaid, or sunk into the background. It would have taken no trouble to alter all this if the operator had possessed a sufficient knowledge of the requirements of art, and, what is quite as necessary when engaged with an eminent sitter, the presence of mind to use it. This, or a similar position, more full-faced, one hand on a table and the other on the knee, is to be seen in nine out of every ten photographs of the sitting figure ; in fact, it ap pears to be the traditional position of the photographic sitter handed down from the earliest times, and religiously followed by photographers who are not observers, or who do not know how to invent positions for themselves. But, sup posing it necessary to maintain the figure in nearly the same position as that in the sketch, what should have been done to produce a more agreeable composition ? A very slight change in one of the accessories would have done nearly all