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THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS EDITED B T- C- HEPWORTH, F-C.S. Vol. XXXV. No. 1708.—May 29, 1891. CONTENTS. PAGE Suggested by some Recent Exhibitions. By H. P. Robinson 393 Apparatus for Testing the Speed of Instantaneous Shutters and Magnesium Flash-Lights. By Hans H. Bayer 395 Dr. J. M. Eder’s Critical Examination of 0. Schiendl’s " History of Photography.” By 0. Schiendl 39G Camera Club Soiree 397 Eastman Photographic Company 397 Skies in Landscapes. By Xanthus Smith 397 Two Novelties / 398 Photography in Grottoesand Caves. By M. J. Vallot 399 PAGE Notes 400 Photographic Fraud. By James Mew 401 Automatic Photography 402 Photographic Methods of Obtaining Polychromatic Impressions. By Leon Vidal 403 Photographic Formul 404 Patent Intelligence 405 Correspondence 405 Proceedings of Societies 406 Answers to Correspondents 408 SUGGESTED BY SOME RECENT EXHIBITIONS. II. BY H. T. ROBINSON. The Gloucester, like the Liverpool Exhibition, had the aid of an energetic band of workers, headed by the president, Mr. W. B. Wood, and also the advantage of an excellent “ send-of ” in Mr. Lange, the president of the Liverpool Association, who is ever willing to help others, and who opened the show with his admir able lantern lecture on Iceland. The chief lesson of Gloucester was that amateurs should more carefully study the published conditions. In one case a silver medal was awarded to an amateur, subject to a condition which stated that all the work, from the negative to the printing, should be done by the exhibitor. The work, in this case, was so very remarkable and so like that produced by a well-known firm for the trade, that the judges took the liberty of doubting. The result was that the exhibitor claimed doing all the work with the exception of the negative ! It is time much more stringent conditions were made touching the exhibitor being the producer. It some times happens that medals are taken by men who could not develop a plate, which is an artistic, if not legal, fraud. If men won’t be honest for the love of honesty, they must be made so by Act of Parliament. Take an illustration from another art. Let anyone who is ambitious of artistic distinction buy a picture of a painter and send it to the Royal Academy as his own, and see what would happen. Until we can arrive at some sense of propriety in these matters, the respect ability of the art is hopeless. The necessity of studying the conditions carefully was also shown at Liverpool, where a very hard case occurred. It was in the portrait class. The condition was that a set of four portraits should be sent in com petition, and one set was so good as to leave no doubt as to who should have the first medal, but one or two of the judges thought they had seen one of the portraits at a previous exhibition. The exhibitor was telegraphed to, and replied that he had not carefully noted the conditions, and so lost the medal. But, let it be noted, the disqualified portrait was one of the gems of the exhibition, and yet the strict rule should have ex cluded it. The mention of portraiture reminds me that some exhibitors have a curiously wide idea of what constitutes a portrait, and send anything that they think will be near enough to beguile the judges. I have seen two classes hanging side by side, the one for genre, the other for portraiture, by one exhibitor, and have not been able to see the difference in class between the exhibits. The same difficulty of classification is found in other departments, especially the scientific. There was a famous example of this at Liverpool. The delightfully artistic pictures of the Countess Loredana da Porto Bonin, which so surprised us all, were classed as “ scientific,” as though they were the results of a process rather than of an artistic mind and skilful use of materials. It is time we separated the science from the art of photography. There was no more science in these exquisite pictures than in the average photograph, but there was a great deal more art. I spent some hours over them, returning to them time after time during several days, yet I forget how they were done. I don’t seem to remember the flash light ; I could not say whether they were printed on albumenised or matt surface ; I only remember the art, the invention, the direct way in which the stories were told, the composition, and expression. If all this was the result of science, then everybody could do it, for the results of science are facts, and can be stated. Flash-light pictures are common now, but there are none like these Italian pictures. History repeats itself, or very nearly, and attributing these pictures to science runs parallel with the endeavour to find out years ago the secret of Adam Salomon’s success by analysing the composition of the encaustic paste with which he polished his prints. In the instantaneous classes similar mistakes are made, and inj ustice is often done. There should be a very distinct difference made between objects in motion and snap-shot pictures of objects that, although they