The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 35.1891
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1891
• 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-id1780948042-189100009
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18910000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18910000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

doubt about it, it is being proved every day. The worst and the best of photography, after all, lies in the man and not in the tools. Then what shall the photographer do ? Is he to worship stocks and stones, taking the dross of nature for art, disbelieving that there is a subtle spirit anywhere, that she keeps back, except to the favoured few who know her face to face, and look her through and through, or to those seemingly almost as few who, with no divine afflatus, yet with simple faith and the intellect, such as they have, rubbed bright as God gave it them, will wrestle on any terms with nature for this treasure, and not too proud to profit by some of the counsel and experience of their race, wrest this spirit of art from the bosom of nature, delighting themselves and benefiting mankind ? “ The man and not the tools,” of course. For instance, look at Jones. “ What in the world is Jones doing ? He has been fidgetting about amongst those boulders for the last half hour at the risk of his neck and his sticks ; he has only taken one shot this morning. I have taken a dozen. Why don’t he fire away ?” Listen to the hare and the tortoise. The hare’s negatives are exuding hypo amongst the “ spoilers ” on a damp shelf now, but the tortoise has won a medal ; for, not having either broken his neck or his sticks, he has, with infinite pains, found the very spot where the church tower comes in just right with the trees, so hence the straggling village creeps down to “ the haven under the hill.” Ah ! and how he waited for the light, too I And it came, as everything comes to those who can wait, just in time to catch the fishing boat with the big white sail before she put to sea. Look how she comes out against the deep shadow, bringing the light down into that corner exactly where it is wanted. See, too, how the hill greyly softens off in the modified light of the lovely afternoon. “Yes, Jones has got a picture ; I can’t show it you, I regret to say. Why can’t I get a picture ? I am a better photographer, you know, than Jones,” and so on. Well, let us see what Jones is made of, what manner of man he is, now we know what work he can do. And it turns out that Jones perhaps did not take lessons, even in a school of art; self- taught, and that sort of thing. But he was always fond of pictures, and it is said he can tell a Hobbema from a Cuyp when he sees them together, and he has said that he used, when a boy, to copy engravings, old steel-plate engravings — the kind of illustrations, you know, you don’t find in books now, photography having improved them out of existence. Jones takes his sister to the Academy for their annual head ache, and visits the National Gallery as a religious obligation twice a year. I am told he once borrowed Burnet, and actually possesses a copy of Harding. A curious fellow, Jones. Know ing something of Jones and a little of Harding, I thought I might do worse, perhaps, than bring some of Harding’s ideas on pictorial composition this evening, that we might look over them together, for I think that many of the things he points out for the consideration of the painter may be made ex ceedingly useful to the photographer. Before, however, we try to assimilate and profit by any of Harding’s teachings, let us see, as nearly as may be, where we are. I think most of us will admit that, however simple may be the means of reproducing a scene by the camera, successful composition—in landscape especially—is unquestionably a far more difficult thing to accomplish in photography by an artist, than it is with the brush or the pencil. The most naturalistic photographer, though dangerously near it, has not gone quite so far as to say nature is art; and we are most of us pretty well agreed now that nature supplies the elements of art at our discretion, and in slightly modifying some of nature’s arrange ments in lanpscape, simple enough with the pencil, the photo grapher, if he has any art feeling at all, is often very hard pressed indeed to obtain an artistic result with the camera. It is all very well to say, “ If the mountain won’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet must come to the mountain,” but, unfortu nately, it is not always easy, but often most difficult for him to get to the mountain ; and it is only by long study of composi tion in art, and considerable tact and practice in the field, that he is enabled to find the right spot to get a tolerable arrange ment of nature’s elements of beauty, even in very beautiful places. The scene looks so different in the natural vignette of our binocular vision to what it does when you cut a square or oblong out of the picture, and bind it by a hard and fast line with any lens of any angle. But this is what the photograper has to do, and he stands all the better chance of doing it successfully if he is warned where he is likely to fail, and shown mistakes which the cleverest among us may fall into. Let us turn now to J. D. Harding, who in his “ Principles and Practice of Art,” may do something for us with pen and pencil. Harding says : — “ In the composition, the painter makes his first effort to convey the idea of the separation of the various objects, and to overcome those difficulties which have been pointed out as connected with the flat surface on which he paints. To effect this, none of the principal or leading features of his pictureshould be perpendicularly over, or horizontally level with, each other, because, if they be so placed, they either repeat actually or by suggestion the horizontal and perpendicu lar lines which artificially limit his picture, and which require to be concealed as much as possible from observation. The consequent advantages may be seen by comparing the Exam ples 1 and 3, 2 and 4, in Plate X. with each other. In Examples 1 and 3 the leading objects and features are so placed that they are neither level with nor over each other, and the expression of space is the result. Here, forgetting the surface and its boundaries, we feel able to penetrate into the pictures and move among the figures, trees, and buildings, to float in the sky, or walk along the ground. In Examples 2 and 4, however, no such feelings are suggested—at least, not by the composition. In Examples 2 and 4, a line drawn across the picture from C to D, and also from E to F, would show that several of the objects are on the same level, and, again, they are perpendicularly over each other. For instance, in Example 2, the church in the distance is over the man in the foreground, who thus appears to be supporting it on his head ; the apex of the mountain is just above the spire of the church ; and the castle on the hill is immediately over the bridge; each important feature of the distance surmounting another important feature of the foreground ; all idea of space between the foreground and the background is, in consequence, negatived. As the artificial boundaries of the picture are thus emphasised and repeated, the flat surface is so continually suggested that the mind cannot free itself from it. If light and shade only were expressive of space, each of the four examples would express the idea of it equally. We, however, fail to obtain in Exam ples 2 and 4 the same idea of space as in Examples 1 and 3, although all have like advantages in other respects. The most untutored eye may perceive that their effect is very different, though there has been no change in the features of the scenes, excepting such as was necessary to show the force of what I have brought before the student. Examples 1 and 3 are pleasing, varied, and spacious ; 2 and 4 are bad because monotonous and flat ; their comparative merits or defects are entirely owing to the composition. We may take another illustration from Example 2 and 3, Plate XI. In Example 2, the castle is placed so as to come immediately over the basket which the woman carries; and, notwithstanding that the castle is faintly drawn, and small in size, in order to suggest the idea of distance, yet the con tradiction given to it by faulty composition prevents it being entertained by the mind. The castle being immediately over the figure, is suggestive rather of the flat surface of a picture than of the permeable space of reality; but if we hide the castle, we then lose the impression of flatness, and, in its stead, receive the idea that we could walk round the figure. Compare this with Example 3, where the castle is removed to the right. Here we have the full expression of space, and, if we hide the castle, far from receiving in this instance, as in the other, any additional idea of space, we lose it greatly by so doing. It must be observed that the principle of placing the objects on different lines is not gained from a study or imitation of nature, but from an investi gation of impressions made by art. Both the examples are equally true imitations of nature, as well in the objects them selves as in their juxtaposition. (To be continued.')