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THE

Photographic Journal

America

THOMAS COKE WATKINS, Editor

VOLUME LII

z.+\***

NEW VTORK

EDWARD L.WILSON COMPANY, Inc., Publishers

122 EAST 25th STREET 1915

INDEX

ABSTRACTS and Translations, 61, 104, 157, . 201, 255, 305, 358, 405, 449, 491, 544, 590

Advertising and Pictorial Photography the Key- to Higher Prices, 425

Advice, 346

Aesthetic Side of Modern Photography, The, 321

Allan, Sidney (Sadakichi Hartmann), 33, 415

Allbee, Burton H., 288

Among the Societies, 205, 316

Animal Portraiture, 84

Animated Illustrations for Periodicals. By A Screen-Plate Process, 77

Anderson, Paul L., 461

Armstrong, Vance, 135, 440

Arrangement of a Group, The, 176

Artistic Lighting, 80

Artistic Mounting, 582

BACKING Transparencies with Magnesium Oxide,435 Beardsley, A. H., 190 Bennett, Henry W., F.R.P.S., 237, 534 Bishop, L. C, '323 Blumann, Sigismund, 69, 194 Bromide Enlarging Difficulties, 418 Bronzograph, A Valuable Photographic Novelty, The, 484

G

LYCERIN for Platinum Prints, 291 Good Advice, Some, 539

HARTMANN, Sadakichi (Sidney Allan), 33, 115, 181, 415 Head Operator, 260, 308, 362, 409, 454, 298,

550 Helmick, Paul S., 369 Hill, D. O., R.S.A., and His Work, 3 Hints on Retouching and the Reduction of

Halation, 242 Hirshberg, A.B., M.A., M.D., Leonard Keene,

247, 291 Hodges, F. B., 515 Hollyer, F. T., 267 Home Portraiture, 12 How a Photographer Changed His Line, 531

TM PROVING the Negative, 534 J- Individuality in Portraiture, 167 Inglis, F.S.A., Francis Caird, 3 Inquire Within, 316

Iron Developer for Plates, Films and Paper, An, 173

TARMAN, A. J., 30, 94, 148, 173, 345

CELLULOID Negatives, Safe Storage of, 94 Child Portraiture, 49 Clark, Frank Scott — The Man and his Work, , 115

Color Collotype, 267 Combining the Pinatype Process with Ozo-

brome, 275 Conner, Edward, 327 Controlling Developing, 288 Copying Daguerreotypes, 483 Correspondence, 497, 549 Criticism, On, 194

DARING, Arthur, 242 Davis, Wm. S., 25, 124 Developers that Fill the Bill for General Pur- poses, 345 Diagram Lantern Slides, 101 Doctoring and Cleaning Old Negatives before Printing, 326

EDITOR'S Table, 59, 102, 154, 201, 251, 300, 35 3, 401, 445, 487, 540, 587 Etching Portraits upon Glass by Photography, 30

FAXSTONE, R. M., 438 Fixing Bath Become Exhausted, When Does? 246 Fixing Negatives, 144 Frey, Emil, 193

K

ODACHROME Process, The, 235

1 EAVES from My Note Book, 253, 304, 357, ^ 403, 448, 490, 543, 589

MARTIN, Mabel Brown, 36 Miles, H. A., 525 Modern Process in Making Photographs Upon

Wood for Engraving, 572 Modern Photographer, 585 Motion Pictures in Color, 507

NEW Books, 105, 159, 257, 307 New Effects, 562 New European Departure, A, 33 New Profits, On, 395 Notes and News, 63, 106, 161, 316, 360, 452,

493 Novel and Beautiful Studio, A, 389

OPERATOR, 246, 287, 326, 393, 435 Outdoor Groups, Look After the, 392 Over Fifty Years of Photography, 578

PANCHROMATIC Plates in Portraiture, The Use of, 461 Pasewalt, George, 321 Patent News, 266, 320, 368, 414, 460, 506

INDEX

Personal Correspondent at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, A, I. The Opening, 249 II. Doing the Exposition with a Four by

Five, 292 in. Statuary, Mural and Entablature, 347

Phillips, Ryland W., 54, 98, 149, 196, 296, 397

Photographic Opportunities, Our, 190

Photography as an Art Educator, 142

Photography of Flowers, 325

Photography of Microscopic Objects for Begin- ners, 553

Photography, 442

Photography in Great Britain, 107

Photographic Journal of America Prize Compe- tition— Prize Winners, 303, 354

Photographers and Farmers, 327

Photochemicus, 484

Pictures Produced by the Calorific Rays, 122

Pictures, The Framing and Mounting of, 135

Pierce, Henry Havelock — An Appreciation, 181

Pittsburg Salon, The, 213

Platitudes, 430

Point of View, 568

Porterfield, W. H., 213

Porterfield, W. H., and His Work — An Appreci- ation, 69

Portraying Humanity, 315

Practical Lens Testing, 369

Practical Use of the Invisible Image, 382

Practical Points, 66, 110, 163, 211, 264

Practical Talks on Studio Work,

I. Entrance and Reception Room, 54 ii. Studio Room and the Man Behind the

Gun, 98 in. Studio Room and the Man Behind the

Gun, 149 iv. The Dark-Room, 196 v. Printing-Room, 296 vi. Finishing and Delivery Department, 397

Preparing Varnishes for Negatives, Paper Prints and Retouching Mediums, 393

Profitable Side-lines — Trailing the Builder, 168

Profitable Commercial Photography, Some Hints on, 436

Printing with Platinum, 247

Prints in Varied Tones by Development, 432

Production of High-grade Enlargements, 342

RAYMER, Felix, 80 Reece, Jane, of the Rembrandt Studio, 36 Reproductions of Old Masterpieces, 274

I Rodin on Posing, 471

Rose, L. G., 472 ! Ruskin, John, On Purity of Taste, 433

SALADE, Robert F., 531 Sallows, R. R., 436 Salmon, Rene, 432 Scott, Temple, 12, 142

Sepia Tones with Potassium Sulphuret, 193 Simplicity — The Keynote of Photographic Suc- cess, 438 Sitter and his Photograph, The, 440 Showcase Specimens — their Various and Avoid- able Defects, 580 Smee, George, 122, 382 Somerville, F.R.P.S., C. Winthrope, 418 Speeding Up the Oil Process, 129 Sphinx, The, 316 ! Spitta, F.R.A.S., Edmund J., 325 ' Stereograph, How to Make a, 525 Studio Bonaventura, Rome, Italy, 415 Studio Work in Motion Pictures, 584 Swoyer, A. E., 168

TENNANT, John A., 49, 167, 483 Thoughts, 444 Toning, 466

Toning Bromide Prints, 237 I Toning Gaslight Prints with the Salts of Copper, 287 Tricks With the Camera, 139 Two-solution Universal Amidol Developer, 563

UTILIZING Disused Fixing Baths for Silver Plating, 148

V

IEWS and Reviews, 204, 407, 546

WALL, F.R.P.S., Prof. E. J., 61, 104, 157, 235, 305, 358, 405, 449, 491, 507, 544

Wastell, W. L. F., F.R.P.S., 144

Watson, Eva Lawrence, 442

Wein, Samuel, 466

Wet-colloidion Process as Used by the Govern- ment, 472

What's In a Name, 1

Window-light Control — Development, 323

Winter Views, 25

Workroom, The, 260, 308, 362, 409, 454, 498, 550

LIST OF ILLUSTRATORS

Alexander, < George— May Allen, Frances and Mary — July Anderson, Paul L. — July, December Andrews, Earle —July Ai m . v. January

Bachrach Studios — October

Bancroft, F. W. — January

Bennett, Jeane E. — May

Bertling, W. E. — April

Blumann, Sigismund— March

B( is i \\ 11 k, Francesca — May

Boughton, Alice — January, February, July

Brinkley, J. R. — September

Bruckerseifer, Katherine — May

Butler, Norman — July

Christiansen, C. W. — May Clark, Frank Scott — March Cunningham, Imogen — May Conti, Bianca — October, November

Darbe, A. A. — July

Davis, William S. — January, March, July Dihrkoop, Rudolph and Minya — January Dunning, Edwin Gore — July

Ehrich, Adelaide W. — July Esaki, Kiyoshi — July

Frees, II. \V.— February

I .1 ORG, Victor — February Gerschel, Chas. — January Gillies, John W. — May < iOLDENSKY, Elias — June

Haviland, A. S. — January, April

Hill, R.S.A., David O.— January, March

Hodges, F. A. — November

Hollister, G. B. — July

Johnson, Belle — February

Kasebier, Gertrude — May Kellogg, Spencer, Jr. — May

Loehr, Pearl Grace — July

McPhail, E. I.— May

Mellor, W. C— May Miller, Reuben, Jr. — May

Patrick, J. — March

Phillips, Ryland W. — January, February

Photocraft Co. — March

Pierce, Henry Havelock — April

Porterfield, W. H. — February

Price, Sara F. S. — January

Reece, Jane — January, March, July Rey, Guido — February, March Rice, T. W— February Ruzicka, Dr. D. J.— May

Schaaf, Albert E. — December

Speaight — April

Spencer, Guy — July

Snyder, Corydon G. — October

Stieglitz, Alfred — July

Struss, Karl — July

Studio Bonaventura — September

Stump, S. Withrington — December

Sutton, Margaret— February, March

Tarbell, J. H. — July Taylor, Everitt Kilburn — May Toch, Maximilian — July Troutman, Sara F. — July

Vail, Floyd — July Van Dyk— April

Watkins, Thomas Coke — February, March Williar, Harry D. — July Witting, Leonard L. — May

NEW SERIES "WILSONS"

NUMBER I

™j

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNAL OF AMERICA

Wwiii'iwmimtar

NEWSERIES : WILSON'S PHOTOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE • FOUNDED 1864

EDWARD L- WILSON CO*™£ ill EAST 25TH ST -NEW YORK

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THE m.nKST PHmnnBAPHir MAHAZINF. TN AMERICA

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BE

E

THE ART STUDENT"

BY RYLAND W. PHILLIPS

PHILADELPHIA, PA.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ■ JOURNAL- S''AMERICA •

VOLUME LII JANUARY. 1915 NUMBER 1

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

WHEN Edward L. Wilson, the founder of this Magazine, began his life-work fifty-one years ago, photography in America was at a low ebb. The individual photographer and the fraternity as a craft were in greal need of help, direction, and encouragement. With the full realization oi these conditions, Mr. Wilson began the publication, in 1864, of the Philadelphia Photographer.

During the following years, Mr. Wilson turned his tireless energy to the improve- mrni of photographic work, and it is not exaggerating to state that the high standard of excellence seen in American photography today is largely due to the unceasing instruction and example given by him through the Magazine and at gatherings of the craft.

In the year 1885 the office of the publication was moved to New York City, and as the magazine had then grown in size and importance, its editor so closely identified with its many activities, it was quite appropriate thai the name ol the Philadelphia Photographer be changed to Wilson's Photographic Magazine.

During the year 1903 he who had inspired and guided the work of the Magazine for forty years passed to his reward.

The high standard and usefulness of Wilson's, as established by its founder, has been maintained, and with steadily broadening interests, is universally recog-

1

2 "WHAT'S IN A NAME?"

nized in this day of changing standards as a periodical of permanent value and usefulness among photographic workers of all classes. The Magazine in its long history has never been more alive than now to the requirements and needs of the presenl time, nor more intent upon leading the way toward the propagation and advancement of the science and art of photography in America.

With a view of increasing its usefulness, broadening its scope, and establishing on a still firmer basis an authoritative and representative magazine, the publishers have decided to rechristen Wilson's, and the magazine hereafter will be known as The Photographic Journal of America.

Thus we choose our steps and future, remembering that this change means progression. There is abundant and obvious reasons to confidently believe the opportune time is at hand for this move, and this Journal now, as in the past, stands ready to serve its readers. We have repeatedly stated in these pages, and wish again to emphasize, that we firmly believe a photographic magazine is of little or no value unless of real value.

This change of name is not accompanied by any change in ownership or in man- agement; both the business and the editorial staff remain as before, with the aid of the ablest authorities on all photographic topics. It does not indicate any change in principles, nor presage any radical departure from the traditions of the past, only a clearer consciousness of higher aims than ever before and larger appreciations of their application.

The Photographic Journal of America will be conservative, free from person- alities or politics, revering the memory and honoring the achievements of its founder. Progressive in fostering and exploiting the latest appliances and methods by brief, right-to-the-point articles covering a wide range of subjects and ideas. We shall maintain illustrations at the highest point that method will permit. Our plans involve an interesting and important year. We realize there is a higher use for pictures than the mere selection and display of effective and admirable specimens. One picture is often more descriptive and suggestive than pages of skilful text, and we propose to reproduce freely, for the benefit of our readers, examples illustrat- ing the most important tendencies in photographic art.

If any of our readers are at first inclined to feel that they have lost an old friend because of this change in name, we ask them to wait a while before accepting this as a conclusion. The new cover, of two years ago, brought to them the same friend, and the new name will prove consistent to the test of a long acquaintance.

After all it is with the magazine, as with the individual, the real substance is character.

This magazine has no other aim than to be worthy of the name it bears.

Thomas Coke Watkins,

Editor.

D. O. HILL, R.S.A., AND HIS WORK

By FRANCIS CAIRD INGLIS, F.S.A. (Scot.)

Photographer to His Majesty the King at Edinburgh

ALMOST in the centre of Edinburgh, a few hundred yards from Princes Street, there is, on the side of the Calton Hill, a house and studio where it has been my good fortune to live for over a quarter of a century. It is in the midst of the hum of the town, yet how far one feels from it all in the garden! To the east, the Calton Hill rises with its sentinel-like monuments watching over the city. To the north, overlook- ing Greenside, where in the old days the witches were burned and tournaments held. It is on record that it was down the almost precipitous bank that Both- well rode his horse, and so attracted the charming but unfortunate Mary. The spot is now planted with young trees. Beyond this the Leith Walk: Leith with the towering masts of the shipping; the Firth of Forth stretching out in all its beauty from Donibristle Bay to the May, with its islands dotted here and there; the coming and going of the shipping; the towns of Fifeshire, each marked by a ribbon of blue smoke, which, trailing upward, is lost in the I line background of hills which caps this truly noble prospect. Again to the south ami wesl we have the roofs and spires of the Old Town, climbing one above another: the 'Iron, St. Giles, the Tolbooth, the Bank of Scotland, and finally the Castle, with its ragged turrets, the whole bound together by the smoke Of "Auld Reekie"

Such were the surroundings amidst

which I). O. Mill made his very many beautiful photographs between the years 1843 and 1867. This legacy of portraits and views is an invaluable historical record quite apart from its artistic intrinsic merit.

Anion- the visitors to the ( Walton 1 [ill we find the most notable nun of the time: Ruskin, Millais, Dean Ramsay, Hogg

(the Ettrick Shepherd), Dr. John Brown, James Nasmyth (inventor of the steam hammer), Sir James Y. Simpson (dis- coverer of chloroform), John Philips, David Scott, William Etty, Sir William Allan, P.R.S.A., Lord Cockburn, Hugh Miller, John Gibson Lockhart, Dr. Knox. Of most of these we have calotype por- traits, some of wrhich are reproduced here.

David Octavius Hill was born in 1802 at Perth, where his father was engaged in business as a bookseller. Of his boy- hood and scholastic education I have been unable to find any record, excepting the fact that in early life he displayed considerable artistic talent. His father, desiring to encourage this taste, sent him to Edinburgh, where he became a pupil of the late Andrew Wilson, Super- intendent of the School of Art at that time. His attention was principally directed toward landscape painting, and among his first pictures were "Dun- keld at Sunset" and two views of the Tay at Perth. These were exhibited in 1823, and gave good promise of Hill's future success as an artist.

He acted as Secretary to the Society of Scottish Artists in Edinburgh for eight years before the charter was granted, in 1838, incorporating it into the Royal Scottish Academy, for which he also acted as Secretary till March, 1870, when the Academy voted as a pension the full amount of his salary. The Royal Scottish Academy is under a deep debt to him lor his labors and exertion toward providing for Scottish art a local habita- tion and a name. As Secretary he was compelled to be in the front of not a few

of the many hard battles the artists of Scotland were obliged to fight ere they attained their present honorable position. The Scottish Academy, at this time, 1838, had thrown off, at all hazards,

3

I). (). HILL AXU HIS WORK

HOME OF D O. HILL. CALTON HILL. EDINBURGH

the trammels of fortuitous patronage, and it remained to the institution in its freedom to find a new means for the dis- posal of its works. It was then that Mr. Hill suggested the idea of "The Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland," the first Art Union established in the kingdom. After years of searching for a gentle- man qualified to be the public exponent of the scheme, and sufficiently independ- ent to give his time to the requisite duties of the Association, Mr. Hill suc- ceeded in obtaining the invaluable aid of his friend, Mr. Henry Glassford Bell, advocate, afterward Sheriff of Lanark- shire, who in conjunction with himself and Mr. Steel, R.S.A., the distinguished sculptor, devised a constitution for the new society. Its benefits and aims were publicly and most ably advocated by Mr. Bell; and, as Mr. Hill ventured to predict, it proved the parent of many similar institutions throughout the United Kingdom, under the title of Art Unions. The truth of this prediction of Mr. Hill's is illustrated by the fact that an Act for regulating Art Unions was passed in 1846.

As Secretary to the Academy, he

secured the appointment of a Com- mission, which gave a report so favor- able to its claims that the result was the erection on the Mound, Edinburgh, of the Scottish National Gallery at a cost of £50,000, and on a site valued a't£30,000; and in 1840, Mr. Hill and the President of the Academy received the honorable dis- tinction of being appointed by the Gov- ernment Commissioners of the Board of Manufactures in Scotland — a body of noblemen and gentlemen which had un- der its direction the Government Schools of Art and the National Gallery of Scotland.

As a painter, his most important pictures were "Old and New Edinburgh from the Castle," "The Braes of Bal- lochmyle," "The River Tay from the Bridge at Perth," "The Ruins of Dean Castle," "King John's Castle, Ard- finnan, Ireland;" "Edinburgh from Mons Meg," exhibited 1852; "Dunure Castle," exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1861; "The River Tay," exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1862; and the "Vale of the Forth," exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1868.

The last great picture on which D. O. Hill was engaged was the historic

D. O. HILL AND HIS WORK

work commemorative of the Disruption of 1843. It was entitled and repre- sents "The Signing of the Deed of Demission and Act of Separation," by which nearly five hundred clergymen voluntarily resigned, on a point of principle, their livings, manses, gardens, and, dearer than all, their positions as ministers of the Church of Scotland. The canvas includes no fewer than four hundred and seventy portraits. As the work neared completion it attracted the attention of a number of the leading laymen of the Free Church, who consulted Sir George Harvey, President of the Royal Scottish Academy, on its value. He gave it as his opinion that it was worth not less than 3000 guineas. These generous-hearted men, nothing daunted by this large sum, resolved to attempt to raise the amount in thirty 100-guinea subscriptions; but as they found a difficulty in procur- ing more than £1500, the artist intimated that on receiving that sum for his picture, and retaining the copy-

right, he would relieve the committee of all further pecuniary responsibility. The transaction was completed on these terms, the artist receiving for his work £1500 — £1200 of which was raised in £100 subscriptions — an honor which he warmly appreciated. He also retained the copyright in the picture, which was subsequently reproduced in autotype. The picture was presented by the sub- scribers to the then Free Church of Scotland, and was hung in the offices of that body. It measures 11 feet 4 inches by 5 feet.

When this extensive work was begun, in 1843, Mr. Hill consulted Sir David Brewster about the new process of pho- tography. The first calotype portrait taken in Scotland was produced in May, 1840, the negative being taken by the Talbot process, and obtained by the use of a temporary camera obscura made with a common small lens, or burning glass, an inch and a half in diameter. The portrait is that of a lady, and is still extant in the very

)Y DAVID O HILL. R.S.A.

D. O. HILL AND HIS WORK

valuable collection of Mrs. Tulloch, a daughter of Dr. Adamson, When Mr. Fox-Talbot communicated his discovery

by letter to Sir David Brewster, the scientist was the guest of Lord Kinnaird at Rossie Priory, Perthshire. Sir David constructed an apparatus for Lord Kinnaird, and the first experiment resulted in a blurred and hazy outline of an old lady who had been kept sitting for twenty minutes in full sun- light. Fascinated by the work, Sir David persevered: the work improved, and he induced Dr. John Adamson, of St. Andrews, to take up the art, who persuaded his younger brother, Robert Adamson, to learn it. W7e fear Sir David Brewster has received less than due credit in this connection, as he at this early stage acted as teacher and demon- strator of the art. A most patient and painstaking teacher he was, taking his full share in the work and preparation of the sensitive papers, etc.

Sir David recommended D. O. Hill to utilize the new art as an aid to secure the four or five hundred likenesses he wished to introduce into the Dis- ruption picture, and Hill, interesting himself in the photographic experi- ments then being made by Robert Adamson, determined to make use of the process. Robert Adamson, at the invi- tation of the artist, joined him in Edin- burgh, and the many hundreds of calo- types taken at his studio on the Calton Hill, now occupied by me, are still in existence. Hill attended to the group- ing of the sitters, the attitudes, and light and shade, while Adamson manipulated the camera and chemicals.

Apparatus, Slides, Lens, etc. — Mr. Hill was thus the first to apply the new art to portraiture. Of those calotypes I would now speak, but it may be well before doing so to refer to the calotype process, which I have gone into fully and have written up, intending to em-

body it into this paper; but as it is somewhat lengthy I propose to treat it as another paper at a future date.

In the collection there are one or two fine portraits of John Gibson Lockhart, who in a letter to Professor John Wilson ("Christopher North"), dated 28th March, 1844, referring to the calotypes of D. O. Hill, said: "That of Sir David Brewster is by far the best specimen of the art I have ever seen. It is so good that I should take it very kind if you would sit to the man whom Brewster patronizes for me" (doubtless referring to D. O. Hill). "This art is about to revolutionize book illustration entirely." Hugh Miller, whose portrait figures among the rest, in an article on the invention in the Witness, also said, like Lockhart, that it would furnish "a new mode of design for the purposes of the engraver, especially for all the illustra- tions of books." These statements are now more than an accomplished fact.

One cannot speak too highly of these pictures. The composition, the breadth of light and shade, and power of them are only to be found in the works of the great masters. The late J. M. Gray, Curator of the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland, said about the finer of the calotypes "that they resembled nothing so much as powerful mezzotints printed in warm-colored ink." "There is," he says further, "the same broad and effective distribution of light; the same care for composition and the suppression of irrelevant details, and that pleasant dead surface — delicate in the light por- tions and rich and bloomy in the shadows — which is obtained in such engravings. Stanfield said of the calotypes, " I would rather have a set of them than the finest Rembrandts I ever saw." Accord- ing to Brewster, however, the rough grain of the paper prevented justice being done to the delicate lines of the human countenance.

Pin-: greater the work the more care it needs and the more difficult the planning.

Efficiency means doing your work as well as you know how with as little waste of matt-rial and energy as possible.

Contentment is not sloth, nor lazi- ness, but it means taking care of the re- sponsibilities that are nearest at hand.

Welcome trials, for remember it is usually difficulties and responsibilities that bring a man to the fore.

BY DAVID O HILL. R.S.A

THE GUM-BICHROMATE PROCESS

By ROBERT DEMACHY

IT has been said already that gum- bichromate is but a means to an end. Ready-made sayings are not often as true as this one. For it must be well understood that a gum print, if not interfered with during development or the first stage of drying, is not worth the trouble taken to make it. Also, that the process is perhaps the only one through which the photographer is absolutely responsible for everything — from the choosing of the white paper to the mounting of the finished print. After this it would seem that no treat- ise on gum could have any educational value, since the results of gum printing

are given by the man more than by the process. At any rate, one can say that an expert in gum is only an expert in his own gum prints. This can be proved by comparing the contradictory working formulae of the different writers on the subject — and their results. Nor must these be judged from half-tone reproductions only, for nothing is more treacherous to a fine, juicy gum and more flattering to a thin, poorly col- ored one than the translation by the half-tone block.

Only one course remains for the writer on gum: To describe his own methods, and to trust that his readers

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THE GUM-BICHROMATE PROCESS

are seeking the same kind of effects as he does.

The object of the first, and also most important, manipulations of the gum process is to construct a colored coat- ing on paper — of such a nature that when it has been correctly exposed under a negative it will be able to resist the action of water, and occasionally of friction, in such a ratio that it will come off where it is not wanted and stay where you want it to stay; and, lastly, that, when dry, it will retain as much as possible the oily and juicy aspect that it had when it was wet.

It is possible, but by no means easy, to fulfil the above conditions. Even if they are fulfilled it does not follow, though some people seem to expect it, that the resulting print will be a picture. The photographer, to reach the stage of picture-making, will have to learn elsewhere — with his eyes and with his brain — the why and wherefore of the beauty that is found in the works of famous artists in black and white — from Rembrandt to Rops. Now that this is understood, though perhaps not approved of, we will see what is the shortest way out of the purely experi- mental period. You will have to do the rest.

Materials

Any sort of gum arabic will do for the stock solution provided it is gum arabic. For this reason do not buy it ready powdered. Try to make a 50 per cent, solution of gum by hanging it, wrapped up in a muslin bag, in a jar half-full of water, and you will get a 45 per cent, syrup, and also a mucilagi- nous residue, which it is best to throw away. Get this gum up, or down, to 25 degrees (French densitometer pese sirop), and keep it at 25 degrees. It will have to be looked after, for during the first week or so the solution will get thinner as it becomes more and more acid. After a fortnight add a sufficient quantity of fresh thick gum to work the solution up again to 25 degrees, also a few drops of formol. The formol will keep it at the same degree of acidity and thickness for months, barring eva- poration, of course. Finally, make a

saturated solution of bichromate of pot- ash and a 20 per cent, solution of ammonium bichromate in separate bottles.

For pigmentation it is best to use moist water-colors in tubes; they are by far the most convenient. There is no waste and no extra grinding, and it is easy to gauge the quantity of the pigment with the eye by the length of the little cylinder squirted out of the tube, for its diameter is constant. Choose permanent colors, of course, and rich tones. With lampblack warmed with a speck of orange cad- mium for blacks, and with Venetian red, brown-red, and a small quantity of vandyke brown for sanguine, one can attempt the treatment of any sub- ject, severe or graceful.

As to the choice of the paper, one condition only is of absolute necessity — that it should be sufficiently sized to prevent any staining by the colored gum rubbed over its surface. All drawing or water-color papers fulfil this condition except perhaps Whatman paper, the sizing of which appears to be very irregular. More prudence will have to be exerted with papers of un- known brands, but of interesting text- ures, such as those that are used for book-binding, etc. Begin with samples of a medium grain; these are the easiest to coat. Coarse papers take the color well, but are apt to lose it from the apex of each of the protruding grains of their surface during the passage of the dry brush. On very smooth and shiny papers the mixture clings to the brush, follows it more or less, and is difficult to spread smoothly and quickly.

The Sensitive Mixture

Now comes the most important of all the gum manipulations, the making of the sensitive colored mixture. Coat- ing is supposed to be the stumbling- block of every beginner. It is so in a way, but because of the wrong propor- tions used earlier. Nothing is easier than to coat a sheet of paper with a mixture of the right gummy feel ; it is next to impossible to do it with an extra

THE Gl M BICHROMATE I'Koi ESS

1Y RYLAND W PHILLIPS. PHILADELPHIA

thick mixture, and between there are degrees. Yet it is best to err on the side of extra thickness in the mixture, for the following reasons: (1) The possibility of extra fluidity is done away with once for all; (2) the proper degree of thickness will be obtained after one or two trials on waste pieces of paper by successive additions of bichromate solution, which has the effect of increasing the sensitiveness of the coating, If, on the contrary, the misture is too thin, it can only be thickened by the addition of gum, which will lower the sensitive index and the color intensity. Here is a formula which I find works satisfactorily in most cases :

Gum solution (25 degrees) . . 10 ]

Ammonium bichromate and po- tassium bichromate by equal parts 42 to 5 parts

Color to a rich tone

This gives a very sensitive coating, requiring with thin negatives about fifteen minutes' exposure on a cloudy morning in February (one degree and a half Artigue). If on account of any excess of color the spreading is in the least arduous a few drops of bichromate wdll put it right, for, with such propor- tions, the mixture cannot be very far from perfection. Of course, the relative proportions of pigment, colloid matter, and chromic salts in this formula are not necessarily the only workable ones.

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THE GUM-BICHROMATE PROCESS

What I mean to say is that the con- sistency of such a mixture is the best one for coating. A less sensitive com- pound can be made by taking three parts of ammonium bichromate instead of four and a half, and adding the difference — viz., one part and a half — of water to the gum solution; a still less sensitive mixture by using potas- sium bichromate. The exposure will change, but the thickness of the mix- ture will have remained constant. That is the important factor. Remem- ber that badly coated paper will turn out as many failures as there are coated sheets, while error in the time of ex- posure means one failure perhaps, that ought to lead to constant success with the same batch of prepared paper.

Coating

For coating, three different sorts of brushes are wanted — one for mixing, one for smearing the necessary quan- tity of misture over the paper, one for smoothing the irregular layer thus ob- tained. All three are made of hogs' hair, and may be bought for a small sum. The first is the common cylindrical brush for oils, with the hairs cut clean, so as to leave about two-thirds of their original length. The second one is a flat oil-brush about two inches wide. The third is also flat, but four inches in width, with a short, flat handle. Get two or three of these last ones. No. 2 and No. 3 are apt to lose a quantity of hairs during the coating, and any delay for the purpose of removing these will be fatal to the success of this manipu- lation. I have succeeded lately in cementing quite firmly the roots of these hairs with a solution of sealing-wax in alcohol. It must be poured on the roots from one side, holding the brush- handle down. Let it dry in this posi- tion. Since then I have had no recur- rence of this very annoying trouble, which I am told is general amongst gum-workers. The brush must neces- sarily be bone-dry before the solution is applied.

Mix the pigments thoroughly with the gum, using No. 1 brush; add the bichromate solution and mix anew.

Then pin your sheet of paper by the two upper corners on a drawing-board covered with a sheet of blotting-paper, which you will take care to change when it becomes creased. Take No. 2 brush, dip it boldly into the sensitive mixture, smear the paper with a thick St. George's cross, and immediately spread the pigment across and into the white triangles of bare paper, and level the whole surface roughly with four or five downward strokes; then, without stopping, take hold of the No. 3 brush and give several hard strokes from top to bottom right down to the paper. Parallel lines will appear; break them with several strokes from left to right perpendicularly to the first one, but with a lighter pressure; continue brush- ing, each stroke at right angles from last, and with lighter and lighter the touches. Watch your coating, and if the surface is uniform and does not coagulate into ridges or round spots, hang the sheet up to dry in a dark room, preferably in a warm current of air, for it must dry quickly and thor- oughly. A whole-plate sheet ought to be coated in one minute and dry in ten — bone-dry, with a tendency to curl up. If the mixture has been made too thick, the No. 3 brush will come too late, and the ridges left by the rough smearing of No. 2 will refuse to merge into one another. The coating will be wavy, and will develop unevenly, be- cause exposure ought to be proportion- ate to thickness, and is obviously in- variable for one same sheet of paper. If too thin, the mixture will follow the No. 3 brush up and down and from side to side without setting, and later on will coagulate in lumps, spots, and ridges.

Exposure

Most writers (are all of them work- ers?) on the gum process advocate very full exposure, and they expound freely on the great latitude allowed by the process in that quarter. I am of a totally different opinion, perhaps be- cause it is not only an image in gum that I would like to produce, but some- thing better, with rich and transparent tones. At any rate, I have found that

THE GUM-BICHROMATE PROCESS

11

over-exposure is fatal to the beauty of the blacks, and that correct exposure — viz., the minimum of exposure that will allow the coating to stick to the paper and stay there — is an absolute necessity.

I use the Artigue photometer — not a complicated instrument by any means. Paint a strip of white paper with a saturated solution of bichromate, dry it, slip it between the leaves of a book, letting the tinted paper protrude for an inch or so; expose it to the same light that will be used for printing, and leave it there for ten, fifteen, or thirty min- utes, according to the weather, until the yellow protruding paper has be- come quite brown ; now pull it out, the same length, look at your watch, and when the unexposed portion has dark- ened to the same tone as the exposed one the time elapsed will be the length of the Artigue degree for the actual state of light. If you ascertain by ex- perience that your negative requires two Artigue degrees of exposure (viz., the time necessary to darken two por- tions of bichromated paper one after the other) you will always be able to duplicate the exact exposure, though the degree will be apt to vary from three minutes to an hour, according to the season and the weather. The average exposure for thin negatives is of one or two degrees; for medium, of three or four; but, of course, the per- centage of chromic salts in the coating will modify these conditions; conse- quently, a trial exposure followed by immediate development is almost a necessity.

Development

Gum prints can be developed one day, or even a week, after exposure, but the final aspect of a picture developed on the spot is immeasurably superior. The conclusion is obvious.

As I have said before, local develop- ment is the raison d'etre of the process. Yet it is safer to begin development mechanically, by letting the print float face downward in a tray quite full of cold water. Watch the print for the first five minutes. If the pigmented gum melts after a minute or two's im-

mersion the print is irretrievably lost through under-exposure. A faint image appearing in the space of ten minutes will give you a fair chance of success, while twenty minutes' soaking before depigmentation will not necessarily indicate failure. In this case a gentle flow of tepid or warm water will gen- erally start development. The print may be left with advantage in the cold bath until the development of the por- tion of it that will give the deepest tone is judged to be sufficient, for we must bear in mind that the process of washing down does not allow us to add any blacks to our picture; conse- quently, we shall have to keep those that are on the paper, and by local suppression create the necessary con- trasts as we find fit. At this stage the print is removed from the tray and placed on an inclined plane of glass or ebonite, the lower part of which is immersed in a developing tray half-full of water — and the photographer, with sponges, cold or hot water, and brushes of different descriptions, acts according to his lights.

No definite instructions can be given for a class of work that must be entirely personal, and there is no use in obvious truths that will teach nothing to an observant man, and will be of no use to the one who has not found things out for himself.

Once dry, the print must be cleared of all trace of yellow chromic salts by a bath of weak bisulphite of soda (5 per cent.). If this bath is used warm, and stronger, it will soften the film enough for renewed local development by friction.

During development this bath, or a bath of sodium or potassium carbon- ate, can be used, either generally or locally, to soften the film. It must be applied carefully, for it has a disin- tegrating action, and the portions of the coating that have been in contact with it keep very little hold on the paper.

On Failures

Gum prints, quite outside of their artistic merit, can fail in many ways :

1. By extra thickness in the coating. Result: Probable under-exposure, and,

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HOME PORTRAITURE

with proper exposure, probable break- ing off of the film during development.

2. By extra thinness of coating. Result: Probable over-exposure, and in all cases poor blacks and a weak print.

3. Too much color. Result: Gran- ular whites.

4. Not enough gum. Result: Stained paper.

5. Over-exposure. Result: Differ- ent degrees of hardness of film. Dif- ferent degrees in the sunken-in, dull aspect of the shadows when once dry.

6. Under-exposure, Result: Melt- ing of the coating during or after development.

7. Gum too acid. Result: Symp- toms of over-exposure, however short the exposure.

8. Gum too alkaline. Symptoms of under-exposure with normal exposure. Loss of half-tones with prolonged exposure.

This is quite a formidable list; but the beginner must realize that all these failures cannot all happen at once. They will be discreetly distributed over the average of his productions, and will serve to enhance the value of his successful ones; though after some time he will find that, as he despises more and more the purely good gum

print, and seeks after the gum picture, so will the former become more and more frequent and normal, but the latter remains always the exception.

Before finishing this short sketch of one way of printing with gum, I must warn my readers that there are many other ways of producing a complete gum image, most of them, founded on over-exposure and brush development, and that the aforesaid indications will not produce similar results. It is for them to choose. Also that the ready- made gum bichromate papers on the market, to be developed with sawdust, have totally different characteristics, due to the admixture of other colloids than gum, and that the treatment of such papers, and the final aspect of the pictures produced on their specially prepared surface, will have nothing in common with the treatment or the results of pure gum-bichromate papers.

Lastly, one humble word in favor of my countryman, Poitevin, who, in 1855, presented to the Academie des Sciences the description of the gum-bichromate process. I quite sympathize with the late Mr. Pouncy, who took up the process four years after, in 1859, but he no more discovered it than I did, and certainly failed to make it in any way popular.

HOME PORTRAITURE

By TEMPLE SCOTT

PHOTOGRAPHY has been called a fine art, but the definition is justifiable only when the photogra- pher is an artist. If art means anything at all it means personal expression — an embodiment of an idea in such form as will be independent of the thinker, and give in the pleasure it arouses a suffi- cient reason for its creation and exist- ence. Now the photographer has rarely understood this. His camera and the chemical and mechanical operations necessary to the production of a photo-

graph have played so large a part in his so-called art, that the individual behind the camera and the hands performing the operations have been considered as merely supernumeraries. The photog- rapher did nor realize that camera and chemicals are but additions to himself — the camera a more-seeing eye, and the chemicals defter and more magic-work- ing hands. It thus came to pass that the machine mastered the man. The result, of course, is a machine-made product — a joyless thing which may be

PORTRAIT

BY ALICE BOUGHTON NEW YORK

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HOME PORTRAITURE

remarkable and lifelike, but which is really commonplace and lifeless, and, certainly, which is not art.

Let us, for a moment, consider the average so-called portraits, by the pro- fessional photographer, which may be seen any day displayed for our admira- tion in the show-cases before the studios. What are most of these at best? Surely nothing more than mechanical products. The features are there, no doubt; the eyes, mouth and hair and clothes are also, of a certainty, there; but is there really a living human being there? Far from it. The representation is so fixed and hard that it is more like a cameo or a bas-relief in marble than it is a plastic portrait. And yet the photog- rapher has been working with a plastic medium — with the one medium, indeed, which is at the foundation of all plastic art, namely, with light. Instead of using light plastically, he permits the machine to do what it can, and the artist is not only never evident, but, seemingly, is never necessary for the purpose of bringing about the result. The collar round the man's neck is of the same color as the neck itself, a chalky whiteness that never could be a flesh tint. The lady's hands are of the same dead white as is the lace round them; the black background is flat and without depth — an asphyxiation of space so that it never could have seen the result of shadows; a black in which there is not a scin- tilla of light. The eyes look at you as if they were glass beads, not as if a soul were appealing to you through the shin- ing windows of the face. Why are these things so?

The answer is not far to seek. The simplicity with which a camera can be manipulated and the comparative ease with which developing and printing can be performed have proven fatal attrac- tions to the little-gifted or the ungifted. It looked so simple — this taking of photographs — that, given the money for an outfit, the rest would take care of itself. Well, the rest did not and cannot take care of itself; for the rest is the soul of the artist, and this money cannot buy. And the curious part of this tale of photography is that it has taken several generations of automatic

workers in the medium to pass away and be forgotten before even we began to realize that something more than a machine was necessary to the making of a photograph which shall in any sense be deemed art or accepted as an expres- sion of personality. We have been like children with a wonder-working toy, too fascinated of what it could do for us to think of what we should do with it.

The average photographer, who is trying to make a living with his camera, has no ready answer to this criticism. He serves his customers servilely, and gives the thing asked for. He knows no better than his customers. Were he an artist he would serve his art first, know- ing that in doing this he would best serve his clients also. That has been the way with all artists who were worth employing. It is the Van Dycks only who have grown rich by a fortunate marriage of a pretty person with a pretty art, and it is not given to every photog- rapher to be blessed with a handsome face, to help him in making a fashion take the place of art. A Titian, a Rubens, a Velasquez or a Rembrandt comes but rarely to refresh us with the ever- springing fountain of his genius.

The photographer, once cursed with the fatal facility of his machine, continues to be cursed by it. Rather than travel the hard way of achievement and self- realization he takes the common high- road with the crowd. And he is lost in the crowd. His art is not distinguished and, therefore, little esteemed. But he occasionally changes his gait and attracts some attention to himself. Just now he is realizing that the stupid, dead portraits of the snapping machine are become a weariness to the flesh as well as the spirit. Since he cannot, by his genius, remedy the defects, he does what seems to him to be the next best thing, he brings to his aid all the ready- at-hand elements which go to make up the seeming real. He has hit upon the happy idea of home portraiture. As he cannot create life, he will catch it where it is being made. In his own studio the sitter "posed" and was "operated" on; in the sitter's home, it will be otherwise. There, at any rate, he will be natural and simple. In the studio

HOME PORTRAITURE

15

the properties were after all not a whit different from stage properties; and in the midst of these the man or woman to be photographed must be more than human to rise or sit superior to them. In the home, on the other hand, the "sitter" is at home, unconscious of him- self and at ease with the world. Mahomet shall then go to the mountain ! And thus once again is the way made smooth and easy for the artist-photographer. He shall now take to home portraiture and be an artist, indeed.

But is he, even now, on the way to become an artist? Certainly, the change is for the better, insofar as it seems to demand less of the photographer. He is helped by his subject's congenial surroundings and natural atmosphere. There is no room for the interference of the dreadful feeling of an "operation" in this accustomed place of repose. He has brought nature herself to assist him. But what shall he do now? That is the question. Hitherto he was obsessed with the conviction that he must have a studio with special lighting arrange- ments; now his studio is the room of a house, with the regulation windows only. Here he is at once confronted with his first problem — the all-important prob- lem of light — and until he has solved it his work will be but hesitating and unaccomplished. If this business of home portraiture will do nothing more than compel the photographer to use light as the painter does his palette of colors, it will have done more for photog- raphy as an art than all the inventions, dodges and tricks since the days of Daguerre.

There is no place at any time of the day or night in which there is no light. Light is everywhere at all times. It is the pigment of pigments; it is productive of the most delicate lines of shadow as it is of the finest thread of gleam or the faintest spot of high-light. The photog- rapher must, therefore, fully realize that in taking a picture he is working, not merely with a camera and lens, but with light and only light. The camera with its lens is but a means by which he holds light so that he may, so to speak, paint with it on his sensitized plate. In any ordinary room lighted

by, say, two windows there is an infinite number of points on which light plays, and in each case with different effects of color. It is for the artist to find out which of those points or groups of points are best adapted for his pur- pose. A variation of five degrees in an angle of position with respect to the origins of light will suffice to produce an entirely new series of contrasts. Even the change in the inclination of the head to a very slight angle will not only affect the color of the face but will add to or detract from its mobility and modeling. But these are matters which any amateur knows. What few photog- raphers, however, appreciate properly is that the camera will do their work for them if they will first do what the camera by itself cannot do, namely, take advan- tage of all the light given them.

But my purpose is not a practical demonstration of how a photograph should be taken in a home; my purpose is rather to point out to the photog- rapher the necessity for studying the problem of light and to emphasize the value of this study as a means for his education as an artist. It is because of the opportunities home portraiture affords for independent research into the field of light, and independent solu- tions to the many problems that arise in that research, that I welcome its inclusion in the sphere of the photog- rapher's activity. I know no more direct method for testing him as an artist; and if he has anything of the artist in him, the serious and determined exercise in home portraiture will cer- tainly bring it to flower and fruit. Each place he visits must inevitably present a new problem, which must be solved at once, for there is no time in which to experiment. His own studio he knows; he has worked in it for years, probably, and exhausted, as he thinks, all its possibilities; but a room in a home which he enters for the first time is an entirely different thing. Here his genius alone will stand him in good stead. He will be like Rubens on a visit to Spain or to the homes of the nobles of Mantua; or like Titian and Velasquez leaving their native towns to paint the great men of the courts of Rome and Madrid.

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HOME PORTRAITURE

He will be like these men if he be really in earnest with himself and true to the best he knows. If he be merely a photog- rapher he will do as he has often done before — study, not the problems, but the poses and arrangements of Van Dyck's pictures, and Jbpy them. But, then, he will never be an artist. If he is to study the works of any man, let him study Rembrandt — that will give him enough to do for many a day. There was a wizard of light if you like! But whether he study a master or set himself the task to solve the problems for himself, let him never forget that a photographer is not a man with a camera, but a painter with light.

I harp on this matter of light, because it is the last thing considered as necessary in the education of a photographer. It should properly be the first subject taught him ; and no one should be allowed to use any kind of a camera until he has been made familiar with at least the elementary problems of light and shade. After all is said and done, there is no more valuable method for an education

in art than that which employs the camera. Some day every school and academy of art will include a course of instruction in photography 'as a part of its curriculum. And properly so, because the camera compels the photog- rapher to employ his power of selec- tion, and the power to select is the first step toward artistic expression. Here is where the personal element comes in; for here the work done will show what the worker thought; and it will also show what of the worker himself went into the making of the result. To copy another man's work is to .accept his selection; to select and combine for yourself is to do your own work in your own way. And it is better for you to fail doing this than to succeed doing what another man did before you. Your work is yourself, and there is no joy like the joy which we experience in fulfilling ourselves in our work. For this is the way by which we invite all men and women to participate with us in the refreshing fruits of life. That is, truly, the religion of art.

!Y JANE REECE, DAYTON. OHIO

BY DAVID O. HILL, R.S.A.

FROM THE COLLECTION OF FRANCIS C 1NGLIS EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

BY DAVID O. HILL, R.S.A.

FROM THE COLLECTION OF FRANCIS C. INGLIS EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

BY DAVID O. HILL, R.S.A.

FROM THE COLLECTION OF FRANCIS C. INGLIS EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

BY DAVID O. HILL. R.S.A.

FROM THE COLLECTION OF FRANCIS C EDINBURGH. SCOTLAND

BY DAVID O. HILL, R.S.A.

FROM THE COLLECTION OF FRANCIS C. INGLIS EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

BY DAVID O. HILL. R.S.A.

FROM THE COLLECTION OF FRANCIS C. INGLIS EDINBURGH. SCOTLAND

BY DAVID O. HILL, R.S.A.

FROM THE COLLECTION OF FRANCIS C. INGLIS

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

BY DAVID O. HILL, R.S.A.

FROM THE COLLECTION OF FRANCIS C INGLIS EDINBURGH. SCOTLAND

_ -11 Z -

BY WM. S DAVIS, ORIENT, N. Y.

WINTER VIEWS

By WILLIAM S. DAVIS

SNOW pictures of the right sort are among the most attractive outdoor scenes, and in many instances subjects of very commonplace character are completely transformed as a result of a snow or ice storm into visions of fairy-like beauty.

Owing to the charm of such subjects, I believe many photographers would find it worth their while to break away from ordinary business now and then when good opportunities are offered for obtain- ing such studies, for these might be sold later in various forms, such as calendars or greeting cards, possessing an indi- vidual character not found in the com- mercial article, or good-sized prints suitable for framing, or better yet, com-

plete in mat and frame of harmonious design.

Aside from any commercial considera- tions, however, it is worth while to get out and tramp the roads and fields for the beneficial effect upon both mind and body of exercise in keen, bracing air, and with a camera added for travelling companion one unconsciously becomes possessed of the hunting spirit, giving additional zest to an outing and luring one on and on in a chase for the wonder- ful subjects which always lie just ahead.

When even a short walk frequently reveals a mass of beautiful material, it is often a difficult matter to decide as to just how much should be included in each composition; but here, as with

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WINTER VIEWS

others ubjects, simplicity makes for strength and harmony, although the actual amount of material which can be used varies greatly according to its character.

within the boundaries of the picture and preserve color-values in a truthful manner.

Unnatural tone and color-values have ruined many photographs of winter scenes which contained all the elements for successful pictures, and in many cases this might be traced more to care- lessness, or a superficial study of the actual conditions prevailing in nature, rather than lack of technical control over the results obtained. A few points may therefore be suggested as worthy of observation when an opportunity is pre- sented. In the first place, the popular idea that snow is white is but partly true, for as a matter of fact it is only compara- tively so, every undulation upon its surface producing a modification in the degree of whiteness. Were this not true, all sense of surface texture and perspec- tive would be lost to the eye. Small areas under strong lighting may closely approach absolute white, and the bril- liant effect so produced be suggested in a photograph by rendering them thus,

BY ALBERT S HAVILAND BLOOMFIELD. N. J

Where the charm lies in the lace-like effect of snow-laden bushes and tree branches, care must be taken not to include too much, otherwise the detail will be microscopic in size, resulting in confusion and a weak composition. Much better results are obtained by selecting a characteristic bit, such as a few heavily laden tree branches or prom- inent bushes, as a foreground feature against an unobtrusive background of sufficient contrast; or in a town view a portico or gateway might furnish some- thing of definite character with pleasing lines.

In subjects of the open lanscape class, minute details become of secondary im- portance in interest, and the picture must be built up more with large masses of tone; therefore, a greater quantity of material can be made use of. Since the charm of these compositions lies in their decorative quality and the subtle grad- ations running through the major tones, particular care should be taken to try and secure interesting space divisions

SY ALBERT S HAVILAND BLOOMFIELD. N. J.

but this feeling of sparkle and snap is only felt in a picture when the pure white is very sparingly made use of, being dependent upon contrast with other parts of less intensity for its effectiveness.

WINTER VIEWS

27

1Y WM. S. DAVIS, ORIENT, N. Y.

When spread over too large a space it becomes diluted in strength, so to speak, and the effect simply crude. Attention to the opposite end of the scale is also of equal importance, for, in spite of the strong contrasts often seen, the deep shadows are not entirely black — the reflected light in the atmosphere pre- venting that. A third feature is that of color-values and their proper rendering. The blue and violet tints always present on clear bright days need especial atten- tion, as they are often inadequately rendered in photographs. In an average

scene lighted by direct sunshine the sky is several degrees lower in value than the highest lights on the snow, while the shadows cast on the latter are usually darker than the sky, yet it is not un- common to see little if any difference in tone between these portions and those in full light where care is not taken by means of suitable screens to make the over-actinic cool tints keep their proper place.

By forming the habit of analysis when looking at any subject the question of proper photographic treatment is much

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WINTER VIEWS

SY WM S DAVIS. ORIENT. N. Y.

simplified, for in this way one learns in time the causes back of particular effects, and with this knowledge in mind it is also possible to judge quite accurately as to when a scene may be secured under the best conditions.

The choice of equipment for winter work is largely a matter of personal taste, but considering the convenience with which enlargements of any reasonable size may now be made — and the incon- venience of taking a large instrument on a large tramp — it seems advisable to use a camera of comparatively small size, say 4x5. This, together with one of the modern steel tripods, makes a light outfit. Among the extras which should be included is some form of lens shade, for on bright days light is reflected from all directions upon the surface of the lens, and if not cut off is very likely to produce general foggyness in the nega- tives, which is not infrequently laid to over-exposure rather than its true cause. Next comes the selection of at least one ray filter, as it is quite impossible to do

justice to many snow subjects without such an aid. As a rule, one of about 4x strength is most useful, although when it is necessary to make the most of very delicate gradations, or one is dealing with a subject having an exceptionally long scale of contrasts, a stronger filter is helpful. If any rule is wanted as to when a filter should be employed, it is — always use when in doubt. In other words, while not always essential, it is not likely to injure the result. How- ever, its value is most apparent whenever clear blue and violet tints play an im- portant part in a scene, especially in conjunction with deep shadows formed by trees or other objects of much less actinic color.

In regard to materials. When plates are used a good brand of color-sensitive grade should always be chosen, prefer- ably of the backed or double-coated variety. Experiments made last winter with one of the well-known brands of imported "anti-screen" plates proved them well adapted to the work under

BY WM. S. DAVIS

ORIENT. N. Y.

30

ETCHING PORTRAITS UPON GLASS BY PHOTOGRAPHY

consideration. For snap-shots they gave very good results without a filter, as of course they are intended to do; but in addition I also tried them with a light filter on the lens, the result being similar to that obtained upon ordinary ortho- chromatic plates with one of a stronger shade.

Exposures must be full enough to penetrate the shadows and bring out their gradations in the negative without forcing development. Using suitable plates and filters, as indicated above, this can be done without loss of quality in the snow, provided of course the con- trasts prevailing are anywhere within reasonable limits, which they will be if a suitable time is selected for doing the work. Since the various factors governing exposure vary so widely, it is difficult to give useful data, but other things being equal it should be increased practically in proportion to the amount of contrast in the scene, for a flat, softly lighted view might stand full develop- ment wrhen another of the opposite sort would be quite spoilt by the same treat- ment. As a starting point, however, I may say my experience indicates that I second, stop F. 16, and a 4 x filter would be about right when dealing with open subjects of medium contrast on bright days between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Any of the developing agents in com- mon use are suitable, there being little

or nothing to choose between them so far as final results are concerned. The main thing when developing by the tray

"CURSES ON MY FATAL BEAUTY"

method is to use a solution of moderate strength at a temperature of 60° to 65° F., and stop its action before the high- lights have a chance to block up.

ETCHING PORTRAITS UPON GLASS BY PHOTOGRAPHY

By A.J. JARMAN

THE many uses to which photog- raphy has been put, either in developing new industries or aid- ing in the improvement of an old one, are considerable. The etching of metal plates by the halftone process or in line is an industry that has been entirely brought about by the discovery of pho-

tography. By the use of a sensitized surface upon metal with some prepara- tion that contains gelatin, in some form or other, in combination with a salt of chromium, such as potassium or ammonium bichromate, the action of light causing some parts to become insoluble in water as well as in some

ETCHING PORTRAITS UPON GLASS BY PHOTOGRAPHY 31

BY F. W. BANCROFT, ORANGE, N. J.

chemical solutions, has created a branch of photographic industry that today gives employment to tens of thousands of men, and may yet be the means of creating new industries that will be of inestimable value to mankind.

The introduction of etching por- traits upon glass was discovered acci- dently by the writer, two years ago, when cleaning off some glass plates which had held a well-hardened gelatin image in relief for moulding purposes. It was found upon stripping the film in a solution containing fluoride of sodium that, owing to the length of time that was required to permit the

solution to permeate the film, etching of the glass plate had taken place, and where the film was thin the action upon the glass plate had been somewhat more intense than through the thicker parts, so that as soon as the gelatin film had been released and the plate washed there was left upon the surface, etched, a number of small portraits the exact counterpart of the film that had been stripped from the plate. This etch- ing process occurred with every plate that was permitted to lie for a sufficient time in the stripping solution.

That there shall be no mystery about the method, a full description will be

32

ETCHING PORTRAITS UPON GLASS BY PHOTOGRAPHY

given here, so that others may make a trial, or develop it to a greater extent and form a new process of engraving.

The material employed to secure the image in relief is a special kind of carbon tissue, known under the name of relievo- type tissue. A piece or a number of pieces of this tissue maybe cut — 9 inches by 11 inches is a convenient size. This may be recut to pieces 4x5 after sensi- tizing and drying, thus giving four pieces for trial before using larger sizes.

This tissue is sensitized in a solution made up as follows:

Sensitizer for Relievotype Tissue Filtered water . . . . 50 fl. ozs. Bichromate of potash (cp.) . ljoz. av. Carbonate of ammonia . 1 dram

Glycerin 2 drams

The bichromate of potash and the carbonate of ammonia may be tied in a piece of cheesecloth and suspended in the water which contains the glycerin, by being tied to a wood strip placed across the top of a bottle. As soon as this solution is prepared, pour it into a clean tray, immerse the tissue by unrolling it beneath the liquid, using rubber finger-tips upon the fingers to protect them from the action of the bichromate. The tissue, owing to its thick coating of gelatin, will require some coaxing to get it to lie flat. The time of immersion will vary according to temperature, but as soon as it lies flat, this may be taken to indicate that the bichromate solution has pene- trated sufficiently. Now remove it and place it face down upon a clean, cold, glass plate; cover this with a piece of rubber sheeting; apply the squeegee all over the cloth with moderate pressure; remove the cloth, and wipe the back all over with a piece of clean rag, so as to free the back of the tissue as much as possible of the excess of liquid. Lift the tissue by two corners, insert a wooden spring clip, and suspend the tissue to dry in a dark, dry closet. It will require about four hours to dry. When dry, cut the tissue to the size required, then place it under pressure in a printing frame fitted with a glass plate covered with black paper so as to cut off any rays of light. By this means

the tissue will be quite flat when required for use.

A negative may now be taken that has been made with either an eighty- five, one-hundred, or a one-hundred-and- ten line screen, as used for halftone work. The negative may be made by either the wet collodion process or with a gelatin plate such as is employed for contrast or process work. The shadows must be quite clear. Make a print from this negative, which must be provided with a safe edge. The right depth of

iY SARA F 5 PRICE MT AIRY. PA

printing may be ascertained by placing a strip of gelatin P. O. P. upon another negative, in another frame, of the same density. Then when the paper shows a print about two-thirds done the print upon the tissue will be complete.

As soon as the print is made remove the tissue and place it to soak in a tray of cold water until it lies flat; then place it face down upon a glass plate, also wetted, this plate having previously been coated with a thin film of unsoluble gelatin or albumen; squeegee the two

A NEW EUROPEAN DEPARTURE

33

into contact by covering the back of the tissue with a piece of rubber sheet- ing ; apply the squeegee with some force ; then let the plate lie in a horizontal position for half an hour, when develop- ment may be proceeded with by placing the plate and tissue into warm water until the tissue becomes loose, when the paper backing may be lifted and the development continued by placing the plate in a grooved box, either 4 x 5 or 5x7, and allowing it to soak in warm water until the image is well developed, removing it occasionally for inspection and to pour some warm water over the surface. Development by this means may require from a quarter to half an hour, but the image will be perfect for the purpose required.

As soon as development is complete, wash the plate in a gentle stream of cold water, then place it into a bath of formalin, consisting of one ounce of formaldehyde to sixteen of water. Let it soak in this for five minutes, then, without washing, stand it in a rack to dry. As soon as it is dry it will be ready for the etching process, which is accom- plished in the following manner. The solution is made up with the ordinary commercial fluoride of sodium (the chemically pure is not necessary) which may be purchased for twenty-five cents per pound. The chemically pure will cost that much per ounce and give no better results:

The Etching Fluid

Fluoride of sodium .... 1 oz. av.

Water 10 fl. ozs.

Sulphuric acid 5 fl. oz.

■Water 8 fl. ozs.

Mix and keep these solutions separate; allow the acid mixture to become cold

before using. Now take five ounces of the fluoride mixture and place it in a hard-rubber tray; brush around the edges of the hardened carbon image either rubber cement, to the depth of one-eighth of an inch or to the depth of the safe edge; or gutta percha may be used, dissolved in benzol or chloro- form; the latter solvent is the best. Add to the fluoride mixture four ounces of the acid solution. Pour a stream of water, with force, over the carbon image ; insert it at once into the mixture ; rock the tray slightly; then let it rest for a few minutes. Then as soon as there are signs of the carbon film lift- ing, remove the plate, wash under the faucet, and pull the film from the plate. Rinse it well ; dab it dry with a piece of chamois leather, when it will be seen that a well-defined image is etched into the surface of the glass, presenting an unusual effect. The stronger the solu- tion the deeper will be the etching ; but as soon as the film begins to lift the plate must be removed and washed. With care a second etching may be carried out sometimes, which will give greater depth.

From all the trials that have been made there is in this process the elements for an entirely new line of plate produc- tion which may form the base for a new branch of photography.

Of course in such a case the glass plates would have to be much thicker, or mounted upon a strong plaster support. In any case, the process appeared to be new to the writer, and the results as they were produced have been given here so that they may prove of service, and form a new branch in the line of the photographic art.

A NEW EUROPEAN DEPARTURE

By SIDNEY ALLAN

IN looking at these prints from abroad, recent productions from the work- shops of Charles Gerschel, of Paris, and Rudolf and Minya Diihrkoop, we

realize at once that they have artistic intentions beyond the ordinary portrait. Whatever one may think of the tech- nique, they have an unusual and dis-

34

A NEW EUROPEAN DEPARTURE

tinguished appearance. It is the peculiar texture of these oil and bromoil prints that attracts our attention.

In the past months I had occasion to correspond with quite a number of European photographers, and what they had to say about their work and some of the specimens they sent to me showed most clearly that the majority of ad- vanced practitioners had ventured forth on a new departure. They all seemed to be particularly interested in the

BY CHARLES GERSCHEL PARIS. FRANCE

hand-manipulated print. And although the smooth-surface print still served its purposes, no ambitious photographer would dream of scoring or making an impression at an exhibition unless the contributions consisted of bromoil prints or at least Japan prints.

There will not be much professional activity in Europe for some time, I fear, and nobody can predict whether after the war the photographers will pursue the same path. They may be forced

into something less fastidious and excep- tional, as, after all, the artistic print is more of a luxury than a necessity and appealing largely to the moneyed class.

What is of special concern to us is whether this innovation would have reached our professional circles, I mean as a regular commodity, as it seems to be abroad, and not merely as an occasional stunt to display one's cleverness and ability that one can do such a thing, I do not believe that people are quite ready yet to accept this kind of ware and to pay a higher price for it, which neces- sarily had to be the result of individual workmanship. The big establishments, as a rule, keep aloof from it and only supply an occasional demand.

But it is worth while to analyze the merits and shortcomings of this process, and this is the main object of this paper. Its leading characteristic, as remarked previously, consists of the peculiarity of texture. Smoothness was always the bane of photographic reproduction. In this process the gradations, that gener- ally run smoothly from one tone into another, are broken up by a grain of more or less distinct dots. It reminds one of air-brush work that becomes visible and of an old process that was used to make sepia drawings, by the means of working a sepia-filled brush over a wire strainer. I find it difficult to persuade myself that this grain is particularly beautiful. It is difficult to get it even, and in most cases it shows impurities, and, what is worse, blemishes that reveal the actual process of hand manipulation. Of course the latter show more readily in a big head than a figure piece. Still, the prints look dif- ferent and have something about them that reminds one of other black-and- white processes. It is a direct approach to the graphic arts, and this is in itself an esthetic gratification.

The one pronounced advantage of this process is its facility to eliminate unessentials, to remove objectionable details, and to force all planes into a more harmonious ensemble without be- ing obliged to lower the tonal key. It is possible to emphasize passages as well as to subdue them. It really amounts to retouching in a more direct and artis-

A NEW EUROPEAN DEPARTURE

35

tic manner with a vague resemblance to drawing. To be able to draw is abso- lutely necessary, and it would be futile to practise this method without some manual skill and knowledge of form.

The Gerschel print has the delight- ful, soft quality of a charcoal drawing. There is little of the photographic text- ure left, and in this respect Gerschel goes much farther than the Diihrkoops. The print is a portrait of Lucien Guitry, the best character actor in Paris today; no doubt the possessor of strong and impressive features. Whether they have been done justice to in this interpreta- tion is rather doubtful. The picture, although clear, is too vague for that.

The girl resting the chin on her wrist shows the additional technique much more plainly. There is a charm about the pose and a judicious elimination of detail which make the print most accep- table, but the back of the head does not look quite right, and the spottiness of the grain (in the original) rather mars than enhances the textural quality of the print. The big head is clumsily

placed, and no special technique would save it from that condemnation; but the grain as such is hardly noticeable, excepting a few places where radical changes were made in the background. The texture of the face is soft, but has no decided technical charm, being monot- onous and muddy in parts.

The best print of the four, and which shows the process to the best advantage, is the portrait of the Spanish dancer, Tola Valencia. Here we have a real composition, the combination of a sil- houette figure in a strangely patterned robe standing on a checkerboard floor against a light-tinted background. The print has been manipulated all over, but without obtruding upon the eye. The arrangement is so strong in contrast that it swallows up all minor unevenness.

Every process can be worked success- fully. It should only be clearly under- stood that each style demands its own subjects. If one wants softness of text- ure and vagueness of representation with- out blurring or losing the form, the brom- oil process will prove a pliable vehicle.

BY JANE REECE, DAYTON, OHIO

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THE REMBRANDT STUDIO. DAYTON. OHIO

JANE REECE, OF THE REMBRANDT STUDIO

By MABEL BROWN MARTIN

PHOTOGRAPHY, with its manifold interests and pleasures, owes much of its progress along both artistic and scientific lines to the devoted women who have made this profession their life work.

Chief among these is Miss Jane Reece, of the Rembrandt Studio, Dayton, Ohio, who has been able to accomplish sur- prising effects through original research and continual experimenting.

There is an elusive charm about her work, similar to that exercised by a favorite painting in an art gallery, which compels the return of the art lover, by reason of its fascination.

The Rembrandt studio was estab- lished ten years ago, Miss Reece having previously devoted her attention to por- traits in oil. A holiday in North Caro- lina, compelled by illness, suggested the possibilities of the camera as a means of artistic expression, and she selected Dayton as a field where she believed both encouragement and profit would reward her labors.

The very name Rembrandt suggested the luxuriance of color and contrasts in light and shade notable in the work of the great master painter, and Dayto- nians wondered if the name meant any- 36

thing in particular as applied to photog- raphy. They found a woman who had ideas of her own, which were not long in being recognized as "somehow differ- ent."

Strongly imbued with the dramatic instinct herself, Miss Reece recognizes possibilities in her subjects, which she enhances by a trick of pose or gesture, and in a moment imprisons in the camera box a bit of human nature which is loved and treasured by friends of the poseur for many years to come.

Whether she has succeeded or not in the expression of her own individual ideas in photography, is answered in the recognition accorded her today, not only by Daytonians, but by the world at large, in the tributes which have been paid her by the photographic profession and public press.

The fame of the pictures issuing from the Rembrandt Studio has spread from one coast to the other, and the auto- graphed photos of many celebrities hang upon the studio walls, as many of the world's greatest actors, artists and musi- cians have been delighted with Miss Reece's version of their talents, as: ex- pressed through the clear lens of the camera.

JANE REECE, OF THE REMBRANDT STUDIO

37

Contributions from this successful woman photographer have also been frequently sought by many of the lead- ing magazines of the country, and scarcely a day's mail arrives which does not contain some evidence of the respect- ful attention which her work is attracting in the world about. Miss Reece is often also in receipt of letters from photog- raphers over the country, asking the secret of this and that effect, which it is their despair to accomplish.

She has unusually rare powers of discernment in character reading, often surprising you by falling in with your trend of thought, or referring to certain predilections whose existence you have scarcely confessed, or at least imagined securely tucked away in one corner of your brain, indiscernible to anyone but your innermost self.

Miss Reece is frequently queried as to methods pursued to accomplish her ofttimes marvellous results. Her own words on the question may be of interest :

" I work under any conditions or lights, artificial or natural, and I may say that my methods vary with each different

subject, availing myself of the material presented. I always look for* the best in people, and am nearly always able to see something beautiful which will make a picture. I watch the expression of the eyes very closely, and work for graceful lines, as I am keenly interested in line composition.

"In securing a portrait, I do not endeavor to give from my personality something the sitter has not, but try to express my own individuality in bringing out that which appeals to me as being the best, strongest and most dominant characteristic in the sitter's make-up.

"I may consider myself almost wholly self-taught, as I have never received any formal instruction, even in the rudiments. I started out by experimenting, and have been keeping it up ever since, profiting by my mistakes, and lured ever onward by 'the vision beautiful.'

"This original research — if I may so term it — has been the most valuable part of my experience, for often by mere chance I have discovered a new idea or combination which has later proved invaluable in my work."

BY JANE REECE, DAYTON, OHIO

38

JANE REECE, OF THE REMBRANDT STUDIO

Salon Honors

While Miss Reece has been called upon for contributions of her work at exhibitions innumerable, mention of a few of the special honors which have been conferred upon her are timely.

In 1906-7, when the Photographers' Association of America convened in Dayton, first honors were awarded the Reece study of Jan Kubelik, the famous violinist.

In 1908, at the annual exhibition of the Photographers' Association of America, a head of Albert Loos, well- known Dayton artist, received salon honors in the portrait class, Her work was also specially exhibited in Boston that year.

In 1912 she appeared prominently as a recognized authority upon matters photographic, in being called upon to make a demonstration of "Negative Making" at the Association meeting in Philadelphia.

This demonstration was a marked feature of the convention, and, accord- ing to the report of one who was in attendance, one of the most dramatic events of the conclave, as the speaker entirely forgot her whereabouts in her enthusiasm, and seemed to be in her own studio, endeavoring to catch just the right effect from her imaginary subject, herself and audience becoming so absorbed that recall to mundane things was made by a supreme effort.

During the meeting of the German Photographic Association in Hamburg, Germany, "The Maid o' the Sea," and two portraits of Albert Loos, artist, attracted profound attention and were reproduced in various continental maga- zines.

At the exhibit of the Associated Pho- tographers in Wheeling, W. Va., Miss Reece's study of Bishop Wright, father of the famous aviators, Wilbur and Orville, was selected as a permanent fixture, to be placed in the new Audi- torium.

Her work was also exhibited at the Ninth American Photographic Salon at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Pa., under the direction of the Toledo Art Association, and in July, 1912, her

portrait entitled "Reflection," posed by a silvery-haired old veteran of the Civil War, was chosen for salon honors, she being one of but ten thus honored throughout the United States by the National Association of Photographers.

In July, 1913, Miss Reece received a certificate of especial distinction from the Indiana Association of Photographers and also, upon the same occasion, her picture "Beulah" was selected to hang in the Daguerre Memorial Institute at Winona Lake, Indiana.

Her indefatigability as a photographer is well illustrated by an amusing inci- dent occurring during a visit made in 1911 to Los Angeles and vicinity, the Camera Club in that city having made a special exhibition of her work at their headquarters.

Jane was upon one occasion, during her stay on the coast, deeply obsessed with a poetic idea, which she desired mightily to develop by a series of pho- tographic studies. It was at Avalon, Catalina Island, that the opportunity presented to secure a suitable model to assist her in carrying out her ideas, and the world has seen the result in her tragically beautiful camera story of "Lurline." It is not always easy to secure the services of an accommo- dating young woman to pose for pictures which promise to be not only difficult but even dangerous to obtain. To re- cline, for instance, in the nearly-nude, upon sharp-pointed, slippery rocks, while the artist painstakingly maneuvers for just the correct psychological mo- ment, must indeed be granted as trying.

But Jane Reece, enthusiast, was for- tunate in securing a young girl from Los Angeles who consented to try, and so a long, happy afternoon — for the photog- rapher, at least — was seemingly assured. Just when Lurline had reached the deepest abandonment of despair upon the seal rocks, which afforded admirable background for the whiteness of her young body and clinging draperies, con- sternation was suddenly hurled into camp by the untimely arrival upon the scene of a mild and peacefully inclined aggregation of doctors, who had come over to Catalina for an afternoon's holi- day, following a strenous week's session

JANE REECE, OF THE REMBRANDT STUDIO

39

BY JANE REECE. DAYTON. OHIO

at Los Angeles. Coming unexpectedly around a sharp curve of the beach, they produced a " scatterment " of the wildest description. The erstwhile "Lurline" abandoned the tragic idea with entirely undignified haste, seeking the shelter of a neighboring rocky cove with far more speed than grace.

While this diminutive woman has received the most flattering tributes from the metropolitan press — Boston, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia all uniting in praise of her genius — Jane Reece is above all things unassuming in personality. Facts about herself are the hardest things in the world for her to divulge. Of her work — yes, hours,

if you will; but of her success, little or nothing may be gained.

The appreciation with which the work of this painstaking artist has met has in the past frequently fortified her in hours of discouragement and difficulty. For there are such times, always, par- ticularly in the lives of those whom the world has most crowned with its success- ful approval, and Jane Reece has more than once, like the great Abraham Lincoln, "been forced to her knees, because she had nowhere else to go," for the Divine help which she feels has been a great, actuating factor in what- ever measure of success she may have achieved.

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BY RYLAND W. PHILLIPS

PHILADELPHIA. PA

BY JANE REECE DAYTON, OHIO

BY JANE REECE DAYTON, OHIO

BY JANE REECE

DAYTON, OHIO

BY JANE REECE

DAYTON, OHIO

BY JANE REECE

DAYTON. OHIO

BY RUDOLF & MINYA DUHRKOOP

BERLIN. GERMANY

ILLUSTRATING SIDNEY ALLAN'S ARTICLE

BY RUDOLF & MINYA DUHRKOOP

BERLIN, GERMANY

ILLUSTRATING SIDNEY ALLAN'S ARTICLE

BY RUDOLF & MINYA DUHRKOOP

BERLIN. GERMANY

ILLUSTRATING SIDNEY ALLANS ARTICLE

CHILD PORTRAITURE

By JOHN A. TENNANT

UNTIL within the past few years child portraiture remained com- pletely within the recognized sphere of professional photography. That the professional failed to take ad- vantage of his golden opportunity is abundantly recorded in the family pho- tograph album, now so carefully stored away among the "hidden treasures" of every home. In the course of time, modern photography and the amateur came to the rescue, awakening the pro- fessional to a keen appreciation of things before undreamt of in his photographic philosophy. Since which awakening we have had pictures of children such as painters and poets alike failed to give us, full of the roguish grace and abandon of childhood in all its innumerable moods, replete with the charm and illu- sion of life in its happiest phase.

The great lesson which the professional worker has to learn from the amateur is that children should be pictured as chil- dren, and not as little folk masquerad- ing in all the seriousness of grown-ups. Those who will compare the portraits of children in this issue with those of the early sixties will appreciate the point. And yet the professional worker of I865 had the experience of a quarter of a century in photography at his elbow. Oh! the wasted years. What joy the world has lost because this elementary lesson was completely overlooked.

In taking up the photographing of chil- dren— whether as a home hobby or as a business specialty — our little subjects themselves must have careful considera- tion before actual camera work can be attempted with any reasonable hope of success. You cannot take children as part of the day's work. First and last we must abandon the matter-of-fact point of view which we have acquired as one of the penalties of age, and cul- tivate the habit of looking at things as children look at them. While we are

with them the things which interest or surprise or please them must awaken at least a semblance of the same emotions in ourselves, and the wisdom of our years should be restricted to the direc- tion of the mental and physical activities of our subjects toward the end we have in view. There is joy in all this if we go about it in the right spirit, but we must beware of too much ''make believe" or "bluff" in our fraternity with children. They have a wonderful understanding of fellowship, and their absolute sim- plicity possesses deeper subtlety than we can always recognize. Then there are two or three essentials which must be covered. We must have a big love for childhood and all things pertaining thereto — especially a familiar knowledge of its habits and desires. Next we must remember that children are abnormally sensitive to the influence of environ- ment or locality. And we must learn to possess our souls in patience, without which, indeed, it were folly to approach the work we have in hand. Apart from these things we need an abundance of light, a rapid lens, quick plates, and a reasonable knowledge of photographic manipulation, for often our work must be done quickly and skilfully, and in strange corners as well as under condi- tions not always to our liking.

The necessity of a love for children in all who have to work with them is well understood, but it is less generally applied (or shall I say more clumsily applied?) in photography than one would suppose. The tactless, matter- of-fact way in which children are handled in many studios, for instance, is the easiest road to failure, and its result is seen in the average professional portrait of a child. It is hardly too much to say that unless one has a natural and strong liking for children one should refrain from any attempt to make pictures of them by photography. Fortunately this

49

50

CHILD PORTRAITURE

love for children is the most natural thing in the world.

Once gain the confidence of children, and we may do with them, or get them to do, whatever we may desire. But the confidence must come first. As a general thing, it is freely given to all who show a spirit of kindliness and sincere affection — to which children are peculiarly respon- sive. This should not be forgotten when we are asked to photograph children with whom we have had no previous acquaintance. In such cases let the camera be put aside and a little time given to "making friends." Many very interesting children are exceedingly shy at the first meeting, but if the camerist is of the right sort their reserve melts like snow before an April sun, and they open out into the most willing and delightful of subjects.

It has been well said that children are born with a sixth sense, fully developed, which very promptly tells them whether the man with the camera "fits" or not. On this intuitive perception they build their intercourse with the stranger, show- ing him reserve, shyness, interest, or opposition, according to their keen appreciation of the inwardness of men and things. Those who seek to make pictures of children, therefore, must cultivate a love for them and seek by constant observation to become familiar with their ways and whims, how to approach them, and by what wiles to win and hold their interest and good-will.

In keeping with all this, wherever we find a photographer more than usually successful with children, we find men who possess the happy faculty of quickly winning the affection of children, and who have acquired the habit of quietly "sizing up" their little subjects, so that the first few minutes of the sitting (the time of most importance in professional work) shall make for success when the studio is reached.

Because of this all-important kindli- ness, women are peculiarly successful as photographers of children, being rich in that love for and knowledge of child- hood which lead direct to the hearts of children. Of the ways by which well- known women photographers, such as Mrs. Kasebier, the Misses Selby, and

many others secure their charming pictures of children, little, unfortunately, can be said. A woman's way hath ever been past finding out, and beyond analysis when she, herself, graciously explains it. That it consists of a magic winningness, a blending of simple affec- tion and womanly tact, conveys the substance of the method but hardly helps us over the difficulties. When a mere man, naturally clumsy and awk- ward in such affairs, turns himself "with malice afore-thought" to so delicate a task, we may perhaps learn something by observing his methods.

There are few influences to which chil- dren are more sensitive than to the influ- ence of locality or environment. This is a detail which intimately concerns photo- graphing children, but it has never received the consideration its importance deserves. Let us think it over. Children are interesting wherever we find them, but nowhere so interesting as they are at home. Home is the natural play- ground of the child — the one place with whose nooks and corners he is quite familiar; the only place where he is free to be himself, with all his faults and graces. At home the inordinate curiosity about everything in sight, characteristic of the child in health, has already been satisfied when we come to deal with him, and in his every-day environment there is no room for that reserve, timidity or shyness which influ- ences him so strongly amid new or unfamiliar surroundings. At the studio the strangeness of the place and of the things about him awakens these undesir- able moods, making success difficult to attain under conditions otherwise favor- able. Herein the reader will perceive that, for our purpose, the photographer's studio, so far from being desirable, is oftentimes a huge mistake, and that the amateur has in this detail a big advan- tage over the professional worker. Thus for pictures of children as we enjoy them in daily life, it may fairly be said that the golden opportunities fall to the amateur rather than to the professional. As a matter of course, where the studio is equipped to simulate the environment of the home, and in those rare instances where the photographer has mastered

CHILD PORTRAITURE

51

JY S, AUNE, PHOTOGRAPHER OF CHILDREN LOS ANGELES, CAL.

52

CHILD PORTRAITURE

the gentle art of making friends of his little visitors, these objections do not apply. Nay, more; where these condi- tions are fulfilled the photographer, favored by his better facilities from the technical standpoint, can more easily produce pleasing pictures than the skilled amateur hampered by lack of these aids.

With very young children difficulty will be experienced in getting their atten- tion directed to any one spot for the moment needed for exposure. The best course to follow in such cases is to get the focus, put in the plate ready for exposure, and then, in absolute quietness, gently tap the floor. This will generally attract the attention of the child, with- out alarming it or causing movement, and the opportunity for exposure is is gained. With older children, whose attention wanders from one thing to another without resting on any one thing long enough for our purpose, the undemonstrative recital of a childish tale will often secure the degree of repose necessary. The vivacious child, of course, can be managed by being "let into the game" and impressed with the feeling that the success of the affair rests upon him. Or we may busy our subjects with some simple occupation, picture- book, or toy, and at the desired moment get their attention for the exposure. Sometimes young children will persist in making "funny mouths," especially when the little teeth are coming. This can be overcome in part by touching the tongue with a small pinch of salt, which causes the child to close its mouth for a moment, during which the exposure should be made. There is a common desire among mothers for a picture of the baby smiling. Do not indulge it without an attempt at a second picture

without the smile. A smile is pleasing at a first glance, but one wearies of it in a picture where it cannot change. Babies have as many moods as older folk, and are interesting in every mood, but the smiling baby does not wear well. Get the child interested, listening, look- ing for something or busy with its toes, and you will be just as gratefully re- membered as if you had caught the smile.

As far as posing is concerned, the less said the better. Children from one to eight years are graceful in every move — - that is, in free and spontaneous move- ment. From eight to fourteen years there is a little awkwardness, and simple poses will be most successful. With girls the three-quarter or full-lengths figure may be attempted; with boys the full figure should generally be avoided. But there are exceptions always. For my part I prefer Mr. Hollinger's method of letting the children loose in the studio, keeping them interested, and using a plate at every opportunity. This "wastes" plates, but insures variety of pose and expression, absolute spon- taneity, and now and again a picture which could not be obtained by a hun- dred deliberate poses. In his studio Mr. Hollinger has a movable platform — which moves easily and noiselessly — and many of his most delightful pictures of children have been secured by its aid between "rides" and "talks."

All this, of course, has been said before. But I am convinced that the photog- rapher needs this sort of wisdom (if wisdom it be) more than information about "eight stool groupers," humming- birds, and similar aids to success with which the old-time articles on photo- graphing children too often began and ended.

It may seem foolish to take pains with small things but by so doing you make the big things in life easy.

Be sure that you have some bent for your work and after you decide on that stick to it in spite of every obstacle.

"Love your enemy; then he will come up close and you can take a good swat at him." — Hubbard.

As soon as a man gets it through his head that there is a right way and a wrong way to every job, that man has taken the first step toward making his job interesting. — John M. Brock.

Be glad that you have a brain with which to work, and hands to execute your plans, these are the things that divide men from the lower animals.

PRACTICAL TALKS ON STUDIO WORK

I. ENTRANCE AND RECEPTION ROOM

By RYLAND W. PHILLIPS

FOREWORD

THESE articles are being written for the help of those photographers who are already established in business, and if suggestions are made by me which seem to indicate a complete upsetting of any studio, I would say that such changes as seem necessary be made conservatively and always well within the earnings of the business.

It has been my desire to treat each subject as simply as possible and to put my ideas into plain English. Therefore, I hope it will be found to be wholesome reading matter that can be understood by all.

Fixed rules have been avoided in most cases and are only used when they apply to general conditions.

The psychology of the studio has been touched on to some considerable extent, and my reason is that all modern busi- ness houses are studying in this direction and are supplying methods prompted by such study. The modern salesman uses brains as an asset, not the bar and the billiard cue.

No formula for developers has been recommended, as this branch of the work is entirely dependent on local conditions, and a suggestion by me would only apply to my locality and might not suit in any other.

You will find that the whole argument is based on the troubles encountered in many studios over the country, and while much of it may not be needed by some, yet I hope that by bringing these things face to face with the photographers they may find points that will help in the general excellence of their work, the improvement of their business, and the economy of their whole establishment.

We photographers often think we are very busy, when we are really flitting 54

from one spot to another, taking up more time in running here and there than we do in actual work. So I have written down, for the benefit of those who wish to read, a history of troubles, largely gathered from experience and observa- tion.

The man who knows his faults and fails to correct them, is in great danger of losing his perspective.

R. W. P.

ENTRANCE AND RECEPTION ROOM

The case at the door is so closely identified with the reception room that it would be well to give it a little study, to see what it means and represents.

First of all, the case or display arrests the attention of those passing the studio. It is the bait for business getting. It should be the medium through which the personality and taste of the photog- rapher is first impressed on the prospec- tive customer. Therefore, your show- case must contain your best prints and be made as attractive as possible. It is the "Stop, Look, and Listen" sign for the photographer.

By applying this idea to your entrance, using the words "Stop, Linger, and Enter," you will be taking the first steps toward getting the public inside. The "Stop" is represented by some one thing, easily seen in passing, which will arrest the attention of the passer. To make this passer "Linger," you must have some picture or set of pictures that will make him wish to study them. To persuade these people to "Enter," you must make the whole show so attractive that it will create a desire to look further.

To come down to illustration, I would say, for example, that you have one large color print, of an attractive subject, placed in such a position that it catches

PRACTICAL TALKS ON STUDIO WORK

55

THE RECEPTION ROOM

the eye from a distance as far away as the opposite side of the street. A large, laughing, baby head will do the trick. Place for your "Lingerers" a set of prints of a child, in several different positions, then add a few others of adults. This will give a variety to hold the lin- gerer. Now that you have him this far, one thing that will impress the desire to enter will be a general tone of harmony and neatness in your whole display.

Do not place a case at the door with two or three tones of prints: Keep them all the same tone and let the beauty of good photography do its part. Do not fill the case over-full of prints, and do not try to show everything you make : Leave something to the imagination. I have often seen people come into our

studio, after something entirely different from the case prints, just because they were attracted by one picture. These are only examples of ideas and are not given to be carried out literally.

The whole scheme must be done with one thing in mind : Get people to come into your reception room. Succeed in getting them there and you have your opportunity to do business. It is good to hear people talk well of certain pic- tures at your door, but it accomplishes little if they stop there. If you wish to enlighten yourself as to the affect of your case on the passer-by, go out and look at it from all points possible. See if it is a simple three-point proposition, or does it look like a conglomerate mass of red, yellow, and white spots?

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PRACTICAL TALKS ON STUDIO WORK

RECEPTION ROOM

There are men in the photographic business who claim that the reception or sales room is the most important one in the whole establishment, but while I believe the selling end of the photo- graphic business to be of great value, I do not believe it is the biggest factor in the success of the studio.

We have studied the showcase at the door and its purpose, so we will now take up the room where our business is transacted.

ENTRANCE TO STUDIO S AUNE. LOS ANGELES. CAL

In considering this room, we should first think of the affect produced on the mind of the new or prospective customer. Have you ever entered a store or office and been so favorably impressed with the surroundings that you were pleased writh the very atmosphere of the place? This is just the impression your room should make on the stranger. It imme- diately paves the way for pleasant busi- ness relations.

There are many methods of producing this favorable impression, and of course the class of custom in your locality has an important bearing on the general arrangement.

The room for a studio of high-class and wealthy trade will hardly be suitable for the one in a mill district, but there are some rules that are applicable to both classes. For instance, you can have the reception room clean and neat at all times, you can have simple but artistic furnishings, and you can avoid the dis- play of quantities of different kinds and styles of prints. This last is an error that many men make. The effect on the customer is bad: It gives him too much to see and hampers the receptionist in pinning him down to one or two styles of photograph; too many things to see will prevent concentration and you must make it easy for your receptionist to bring the customer down to a decision, regardless of the fact that you may make a variety of negatives when you get to work in the studio.

Keep the walls of your reception room in harmony. Do not place a great variety of prints on them but change often. Have the wall display a part of the general decorative scheme. You will find a few well-selected pictures will attract more notice than a large quantity.

I once visited a studio in a good- sized town and was asked to give sug- gestions or make changes. The walls contained such an infinite variety of sizes and styles, framed and unframed, that it made my head swim to look at them. We took these all down, selected a few well-executed white-ground prints and hung them around, leaving plenty of space between each. This produced a startling change in the appearance of the room; much to the owner's satisfaction. The result, as I afterward heard from him, was noticed by most of the people who came in, and his receptionist testi- fied that it was much easier for her to show this or that style, from the albums of samples, as "special" things.

The psychology of selling should have all the helps you can give it in your general arrangement. The wTall display is a start and the seating of the customer will be another help. It is a well-known fact that people can be more easily talked to with their heads up than down ; therefore, if you will place chairs in such positions as to induce them to sit when they first enter, while your receptionist

PRACTICAL TALKS ON STUDIO WORK

57

THE STUDIO— S. AUNE, LOS ANGELES, CAL

opens the conversation, you will have gained a point in your favor.

Do not arrange counters and tables so your saleswoman will stand back of them - — facing the customer. The effect of talking over a counter is psychologically bad. A person is always complimented to have a salesman in a store come out from behind the counter and inquire for his or her wants. Therefore, arrange your room so that the customer is met on an equal footing with your people. In our own studio, one part of the room is one step higher than the main floor, which enables us to step down to them as they walk in, and we have found this to be a great advantage to us in meeting the people.

Place your office as much out of sight as possible. It may seem like a small matter, but the careful attention to small details has often made a man successful, and placing the office out of sight helps the receptionist to minimize the business side of the transaction. It will often help her to get on more inti- mate terms with the customer, and she can give you tips, who they are and where from, prior to their coming to you

in your studio room. Very often she can inform you that a person admired a certain expensive print, but is not ready to order such a style, and if you know this when you are making the sitting, you can easily take a chance by trying one or two other things on approval. Also, if I know something about the person whom I am to photo- graph, I have a start for conversation, and the value of this I will take up when writing on the "studio."

In showing styles it should be possible to arrange your samples in such a way that one class of prints can be presented at a time. If one style does not suit, you can then present another and another, in much the same way as a good shoe salesman tries on shoes. Often the first set of prints will not be the ones to appeal; but the recep- tionist will learn something of the objections to these, and have in reserve samples that nearer fit the taste of the customer.

Never allow your people, nor do you yourself, size up at first sight the pocket- book of the prospective buyer: The man or woman who looks like a post-card

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PRACTICAL TALKS ON STUDIO WORK

sale will often be able to buy your most expensive work if presented in the right way. Always have the one best set of

prints arranged to present in entirely different form from that used in showing your other styles. It will tend to make the sample-book exclusive, and there are main- people who are looking for the thing that seems different. But while pi. inning this, do not forget that these 'Special" prints should be made of the best-known and most prominent people, as it will convey the idea that they are already being sold to the exclusive set.

As to proofs, always deliver them when promised. Make no promises that you cannot live up to. Have your proofs ready, at least, forty-eight hours after the sitting, People are always anxious to see them, and you should not let time elapse for them to forget about it. Do not d isappoint them ; set a time and make good by sticking to it. Make it a point to request the proofs brought back in person. Many an order is doubled where the sitter realizes that a change can be made in the general effect by careful retouching and etching. Nearly every photographer knows this to be a fact, but few plan ahead to reap the advantage. It costs very little to do up proofs in neat, attractive form, and the presentation of them often helps in starting a favorable opinion.

I would suggest that psychologically the seller's position is different, when the proofs are returned, from when the sitter was a prospective customer. At this stage, the sitter wishes to do the talking, and if it is possible the seller should be seated also and assume the attitude of a willing listener. It is the best way to

find what the criticisms are and will most always dispel a prearranged atti- tude of hostility. The receptionist has previously talked with the sitter perhaps two or three times, and is well enough acquainted to seem to be on friendly terms. When one is allowed to talk freely, it does not take long to run dry of caustic language. On the other hand, if the attitude is that of favorable criti- cism, the seller is in a good position to help along by a judicious remark here and there.

One bad piece of business is for the receptionist to assume an attitude of antagonism, and especially is this true on the subject of resittings. We can seldom realize fully just how proofs appear to the families, and the best attitude to assume is to be perfectly willing to make sit-overs. It will often disarm the most aggressive, and will surely impress customers with the fair- ness of your business system. When you come to think of it, the second sitting often means an increased order, if it is done with the agreeable spirit of willingness.

We photographers are in business to satisfy people, and if we cannot do it agreeably we are running big chances of failure. The people always have and always will expect courteous and agree- able treatment. We ask it of the people we buy from, and it is necessary that we return the compliment.

One of the great lasting pleasures of a good business transaction is the knowl- edge of satisfaction given to our customer. Every person wrho goes from out studio feeling that his money is well spent is an advertisement of lasting value for future business.

"Honest thinkers are always stealing unconsciously from each other. Our minds are full of waifs and estrays which we think our own. Innocent plagiarism turns up everywhere." — Oliver Wendell Holmes.

If your work is harder than that of many you know be glad that you have the chance to show your ability and your determination.

Learn your pace in working and then work at an even pace. It is far wiser than to wTork by fits and starts.

It is a foolish thing to quarrel over nothing and wise to stand up for your just right.

A successful man is coming to mean one who knows how to play the game fair and square instead of one who wins out by foul means.

The Most Important Year

BROADLY speaking, the trend of photographic progress during the past year was toward the tech- nical side and mechanical applications of photography rather than to the artistic side. Nevertheless there was a steady and perceptible advance in the artistic quality of the work done. This could be plainly seen at the exhibitions at home and abroad. "Naturalistic" photog- raphy and the "fuzzy" craze seem to have subsided somewhat, and found their proper place. The reaction, though slight, has been altogether healthy, and everywhere amateur and professional workers are putting more art into their work and evincing greater interest in everything pertaining to a higher stan- dard of artistic quality. We see more feeling and observation generally in the pictures shown this year. This is a good sign.

When the picture-maker begins to see things in Nature which the commonplace and unobserving do not notice, and to catch with his camera what he alone sees, then his productions increase in value. Hidden beauty is found, and its inter- pretations are presented by him through his pictures; then he astonishes his admirers by the revelation of unknown truths and translates for them a lan- guage whose charms have been forbidden to them, and then he is looked upon as possessing "poetic feeling." As he goes on he becomes better and better enabled

to bring forth the spirit of Nature. May this good work go on among our readers and crown the new year with results which shall redound to the honor of our art. Corot says: "In art, truth is the first thing, and the second, and the third," so if we desire artistic effects we must begin by making a truthful delineation of what we would portray. A fourth necessity seems to be, to feel truth as well as see it and represent it. "Nature is bountiful in providing the means of simple and acquired percep- tion, but the latter is the result or long experience and continued effort, though we have lost the feeling of its being a voluntary effort."

Perhaps the greatest want expressed in much of the photographers daily work is the quality of naturalness.

The highest usefulness of photography we all know lies in its unequalled power to furnish an imperishable record of events and things which, of themselves, pass and are forgotten, in the irresis- tible progress of the world. The war abroad has called forth untold oppor- tunities and the war-photographer who has gone to the front, through great obstacles and enormous risks — such brave men as James H. Hare and others — deserve the highest recognition for the important and lasting records they are making for the world at the risk of their own lives.

Commercial photography, with its innumerable avenues for profit, is rapidly coming more in vogue. The

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EDITOR'S TABLE

motion-picture industry is increasing by leaps and hounds and is still in its infancy. Through recent appliances, the amateur as well as professional can successfully use a cinematograph. Various color-processes are being suc- cessfully worked out. A new process is now announced which, it is claimed, gives remarkably perfect results, and is simple enough for practical commercial purposes, although not suited for ama- teur work. This process is stated to be a modification of the Ives three-color process, except that only two colors are used — red and green. The process has been perfected by Dr. C. E. Kenneth Mees, connected with the research laboratories of the Eastman Kodak Co., and gives remarkably faithful repro- ductions of colors, features, and fabrics in portrait work.

Xor can we overlook the new Auto- graphic Kodak, one of the greatest photographic inventions of the last decade. With this ingenious ap- pliance, used with an Autographic Film Cartridge, one is enabled to write on the film, at the time the exposure is made, any notation or record data that may be desired. You merely write the title — it does the rest.

Never before in the history of pho- tography have the possibilities of our art-science been brought so near to the hands of all who would grasp them as they are today. Enterprise and unflag- ging perseverance will win, as in years past.

The period through which we are now living, in its display of scientific and

artistic accomplishment, is the most broadly significant in the record of photography. And it is the ambition of the Journal to be as nearly as pos- sible representative of the times.

There is no surer road to success than knowledge — the reading of a good author- itative journal, the persistent following of the advances which take place in photography as it progresses, the careful and intelligent study of what passes in the active life of the craft as mirrored in its pages month by month. To be in- formed is the best assurance of growth and progress.

For over fifty years this Journal has been of real practical help to thou- sands of readers. And now in its new and enlarged form, and thoroughly abreast of the times, will endeavor to make this the most important year of all.

On this threshold of 1915 let us dwell only in the "cheerful yesterdays and con- fident tomorrows," and thus insure a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

To Our Subscribers

THE subscription price of this maga- zine has been three dollars. With a desire to give greater value to our readers, we are reducing the price one-half. Beginning with this issue the subscription price will be one dollar and fifty cents. Any subscriber having paid the former rate for 1915, will be given full credit for the additional period, and subscription will be extended.

ABSTRACTS ^ TRANSLATIONS

BY E.J .WALL. F.R.P.S.

Oxygen Magnetic

If air is cooled down to - 211° C, the nitrogen will become a solid but oxygen is still liquid. G. Claude has found that it is possible to remove the oxygen occluded in the pores of the solid nitrogen by applying a strong magnet, as liquid oxygen is very magnetic. — Frankfurt Umschau, 1914, p. 636.

The Photokaleidograph

Dr. Pulfrich, of Zeiss's, has invented a new kaleidograph which gives perfect images of the pretty and instructive figures as seen in the ordinary kaleidoscope. The three mirrors of the kaleidoscope are replaced by a prismatic glass rod, the surfaces of which are silvered and which is also surrounded by a protecting black glass.

The ends of the rod are optically polished. On the top of the rod is placed a small photo- graph of the object or design with a drop of cedar oil to form a homogenous immersion system, while the other end of the rod carries the objective. The latter throws the image of the object on to a dry plate, but in order to see the image a mirror is inserted between the objective and plate so that the image is thrown to one side on to a ground glass; in fact, it becomes then a reflex camera. As soon as the design is as it ought to be, the mirror is thrown out of the path of the rays and the image falls on the plate. As light source the mercury vapor lamp is used, with a color filter that limits the light to the green ray. The light is placed at right angles to the tube but is reflected down it by means of a mirror. — Phot. Ind., 1914, p. 993. Some very beautiful designs have been pub- lished made by this new instrument, one of which is reproduced herewith. Some years back, Bakett, in London, used a modified kaleidoscope to reproduce designs, but the instrument was rather rough and unhandy. The applications of the new instrument to the manufacture of designs for wall papers and linoleums and so on is obvious.

Selenium Toning

Namias suggests the following toning bath for purple-brown tones on development and bromide papers:

Sodium sulphide

cryst ... 30 gm. 210 gr.

Selenium powder 3 gm. 70 gr.

Water . . . 1000 c.c. 16 fl. oz.

Rub up the salts in a mortar and add the water slowly and then filter. The prints must first be bleached in the usual ferricyanide and bro- mide bleacher, and after washing immersed in the above solution. They assume a pleasing purple-brown tone. Silver sulphide is formed, with probably a superficial deposit of metallic selenium. — II Progress Foto, 1914, p. 195.

Exactly where the novelty of this comes in is not quite clear. Valenta, some few years ago, recommended the same thing, and a similar solution, patented, has been on the market for some time.

A Tip for Color Workers

At a recent meeting of the R. P. S., E. H. Gamble described a method he has devised for obtaining better rendering of the colors, particu- larly the greens, in half-tone work. The colored original is pinned to the copy board in the usual way, and a negative taken through the red filter is made of it in a camera which is directed obliquely toward the original, so that it is out of sight of the reproduction camera placed in its ordinary position. The negative thus obtained is replaced in the camera, which is then converted into a projector by the addition of a condenser and an arc lamp, and the green negative image projected on to the original, which is then copied in the usual way. — B. J., 1914, p. 861.

Exactly what is the particular benefit of this process is not quite clear from the above brief report. It is stated that Mr. Gamble claims that it enhances the brilliancy of the greens, but this it can only do by increased illumination or by cutting out the other colors or their visual and photographic effect. I have an ill-defined recol- lection of a somewhat similar plan being sug- gested many years back by Professor R. W. Woods, of Johns Hopkins, but I have been unable to confirm that; still I am loth to dis- believe my memory, which is somewhat tenacious of possibly worthless ideas.

The Distar Lens

Zeiss has introduced a supplementary lens or magnifier, to use a familiar term, which is specially designed for the Tessar, so that it converts this lens into a longer focus objective without extra bellows extension. The advantages claimed for this new addition is that it is freer

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ABSTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS

from distortion than the half or single combina- tion of the usual convertible or three foci anastig- mat. Further, by the use of several of these dis- tar lenses any focus can be obtained. It is more convenient in use and allows large images to be obtained with relatively short bellows extension. — Photo-Woche., 1914, p. 8, Heft 52.

Apparently this distar is a negative meniscus placed in front of the Tessar, and would appear at first sight to be somewhat on the same principle as the additional negative lens in ordinary use, thus altering the position of the principal point and the nodal point of emergence.

Home-Made Pyro

SENIOR rails attention to Thorpe's method of making pyro, and this may amuse if it is not useful to anyone. Gallic acid is very soluble in glycerin, and if such a solution is cautiously heated there is no difficulty in obtaining about 75 per cent, of the theoretical yield. A wide test-tube should be used and 150 grains of dry gallic acid placed therein and 1 fluid-ounce of in added; the tube is then closed by means of a loosely fitting cork, through which a ther- mometer passes with its bulb immersed in the liquid. The contents of the tube are then heated in a sand bath to 185° or 200° C. Carbonic acid gas will be given off, and vent for this must be provided l>y cutting a slit in the side of the cork. The heat is continued for half an hour, or till the evolution of gas ceases, and then the contents of the tube are poured into 33 ounces of distilled water, and the result will be a solu- tion of about three grains of pyro per ounce. — Phot., 1914, p. 338.

O D

About fifty years ago Reichenbach (so far as I am aware no connection with him of cellu- loid fame) advanced the statement that men and most animals were surrounded by a peculiar appearance of light when they were excited by sounds, friction or blows, and many people were found to believe this. The subject was investi- gated by many well-known scientists, and among others by H. W. Vogel, who tried to obtain pho- tographs of this peculiar phenomenon without satisfactory results. In fact, Vogel came to tin- conclusion that the appearances were due to quite other causes. Quite recently Dr. Bene- dikt has been writing on O D and asked Eder to attempt to obtain some negatives. Eder consented and briefly sums up his experiences by s.l\ -ing "an objective proof free from doubt has not yet been obtained by photography." — Phot. Korr., 1914, p. 397.

It may be of interest to add that in 1892 I had the opportunity of carrying out a series of attempts to obtain spirit photographs with the aid of one of the most famous mediums in England at that time, and incidentally the question of O D came up, and I was then intro- duced to a man who said he could always pro- duce this peculiar emanation at will. I spent much time and more plates trying to obtain results than I now care to think of. In neither could I obtain anything like an image. I was then told that I was not en rapport, and pre-

vented the spirits and O D from acting on the plate. The curious part of the whole perform- ance was that the mediums could see what nobody else could and that the plate could not see. My experiments were dropped merely because I got tired of paying the fees of the mediums and getting no results. I did not know the word "sucker" in those days.

Writing upon Negatives

J. Dunning states that he has found the following varnishes useful for titling negatives:

Gum dammar Benzole .

Gum sandarac Benzole . Acetone . Alcohol

No. 1

100 gm. 1543 gr. . 1000 c.c. 33.8 oz.

No. 2

97 gm 420 c.c. 420 c.c. 180 c.c

1498 gr.

14 oz.

14 oz.

6 oz.

be applied to the negative cold and better than pencil. — B. J., 1914, p.

These may uc ap^ucu i will take ink better than pencil. — B. J. 814.

Silver Nitride Emulsions

J. Bekk has examined the action of silver nitride or hydrozoate, AgN3, in emulsions. When used for camera work it is too slow and too readily reduced by a developer to be of any value, for it was found to be about 200 times less sensitive than unripened silver bromide, that is a slow lantern emulsion. For printing-out papers, however, it appears to be far more sensitive, but even then it is twice as slow as an ordinary collodio-chloride paper, though this could be lessened by variations of the method of making the emulsion. For a basis of the latter kind of emulsion the following formula was used:

Silver nitrate Citric acid . Hot water .

B

Gelatin .... Hot water . Sodium nitride .

C

Tartaric acid Sodium bicarbonate Alum .... Water ....

3 . 2 gm. 0.8 gm. 16.0 c.c.

10.0 gm.

70.0 c.c.

0.35 gm.

0.3 gm. 0.15 gm. 0.2 gm. 14.0 c.c.

B and C were mixed at a temperature of 102° F., and A added at the same temperature in a dark room with vigorous stirring. Prints were made on this emulsion coated on baryta paper, and before toning they had a brownish-yellow color, which was changed by gold toning into a violet or black. When emulsified in collodion the results were very unsatisfactory, the sensitive- ness was low and the prints flat. Similar results were obtained when using the salt for salted paper. The use of this salt is protected by a German patent. — Zeit. f. wissent. Phot., 1914, p. 105.

Eastman Two-color Process

Rochester, N. Y., Nov. 20. — An exhibition of color portraits by the new Eastman two-color process has been opened at the Rochester Memo- rial Art Gallery, and an announcement of the perfecting of this new process was made last week by George Eastman. This is the first public exhibition of the new process.

The new color process is said to be the result of years of experiment and research at Kodak Park research laboratory. It is stated that the most delicate nuances of color are reproduced with absolute fidelity.

The great advantage of the new process over former attempts at color photography is not only in the perfection of the work, but also that the art may now be practiced by almost any photographer of ordinary professional experience. The successful photographer in black-and-white now has at his command the means by which may be produced the most delicate, brilliant, and life-like flesh tones.

Dr. Kenneth Mees, of the Eastman Kodak Company laboratories, recently delivered an address at the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, on the subject of "Color Photography," in which he said:

"The first real step in color photography was taken by Clark Maxwell in his lecture at the Royal Institution in 1861, when by means of three lanterns he combined on the screen three pictures projected by means of light of three different colors and obtained an approximation to the colors of the original. This method of color photography has since been adopted as one of the very best ones of getting color photo- graphs. A modification if it is that used in the Lumiere autochrome process, where, instead of the three lanterns, the whole surface of the plate is covered with microscopic color filters — red, green, and blue — which are made by dyeing grains of starch and then scattering the mixture of the dyed grains on to the plate covered with a tacky varnish, and squashing them down so that they touch each other, after which the sensitive emulsion is coated on the starch grains and the picture is taken through the little filters thus made.

"The objections to this process, however, are the dullness of the resulting photograph and the difficulty of working it, and this latter

objection applies to what is known as the 'sub- tractive' process of three-color photography, in which three pictures taken through three nega- tives are printed on three gelatin films, which are dyed blue-green, magenta, and yellow, and are then registered on top of one another. Some good slides were shown made by this process, but it was stated that it will always be a difficult one to work.

"The new Eastman two-color process repre- sents a real simplification of this three-color subtractive process, two colors being used instead of three and the two negatives being directly transformed into the partial picture, the red negative being turned into a green posi- tive and the green negative into a green posi- tive, and the two superimposed face to face to make the completed picture. The working out of this process involved a very important and quite new step, the direct transformation of a negative image in black silver into a posi- tive in which the silver of the negative was represented by clear gelatin, and the places that were lightest in the negative by the full strength of a colored dye. It was the working out of this specific process of transforming a silver negative into a dye positive which made the new two-color process possible."

Gustav Cramer Memorial Fund

To honor and perpetuate the memory of a man who stood out before all others during his life as the friend of all men, whose charities were manifold and whose influence in our pro- fession of photography was a big factor in its wonderful progress, it was suggested at the Ohio-Michigan convention of 1914 that a com- mittee be appointed to establish a memorial fund to be used in some manner that would seem peculiarly appropriate to the character of this man, Gustav Cramer.

Mr. Pirie MacDonald, being interested in the matter, called a meeting of the gentlemen men- tioned for the committee for November 1, at the Phillips Studio in Philadelphia.

Present at this meeting were Messrs. Mac- Donald, Ryland Phillips, W. H. Towles, G. W. Harris, Dudley Hoyt, Frank Nobel, Frank Scott Clark, L. B. Jones, and J. C. Abel.

It was decided then to establish this memo-

63

6-1

NOTES AND NEWS

ri.il and to proceed to collect funds, the purpose

Hind- to 1"

tablishment of an endowment of a room

in a hospital, preferably in St. Louis, which

would be called the Gustav Cramer .Memorial.

rious plans for the collection of moneys

were discussed and adopted by the committee,

which will be made known very shortly through

the medium of the photographic publications.

Mr. Ryland Phillips, of Philadelphia, was

made the permanent chairman, with Mr. E. B.

. of New York, permanent t reasurer-secre-

t.irv. Mr. MacDonald was appointed chairman

of the Press or Publicity Committee.

Ili,- following gentlemen were appointed to the Executive Committee: Messrs. Phillips, MacDonald, Harris, Noble, Clark, Strauss, Stein, Meckel, Walinger, Knaffl, Rinehart, Ham- mer, and Topliff. The chairman will appoint a larger general committee, whose members will cover the entire country. The affairs of the memorial will be handled for the present by the Executive Committee. The full plans will be made public shortly. Meanwhile those desiring any information can address Mr. Ryland W. Phillips at 1507 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

"Be Prepared"

Tin. Win's and Wherefore's Convention of ih, Professional Photographers' Society of New York will be held in Rochester, February 23, 24-, 25, 1915, at Hotel Seneca.

ything Brand New from Start to Finish. — Something doing every minute. New stunts, new ideas, new and old) faces. New plans to help you gel your share of those elusive dollars during the coining year. An educational con- vention in the true sense of the word. All the demonstrations, lectures, etc., will be practical.

Warning. — The notices to be sent out about this decidedly different gathering will be few and far between, for the reason that everybody will be so busy preparing to give you "The time of your life," that not a minute can be wasted in giving details of the many good things in si , ire lor you from the minute you arrive.

P<> it Now. Get two of your best pictures, size 8 x 10 or larger, framed or unframed, reach to send no! later than February 15th, and see that they start on time, otherwise your work will not be represented in the finest collection of pictures ever exhibited at any convention. No judges. No classification. No prizes.

Don't. Please don't forget the time — the place and the reason. Jot it down now on your cuffs, calendar, hatband, or any convenient place or spol that will remind you each day of this, the best and largest gathering of New York Mate Photographers in the history of the P. P. S. of N. Y. Sincerely,

J. E. Mock, President.

( ompos] i ion in Portraiture

l'»\ Sidney Allan

The publishers of this well-known and popular book are compelled to announce that it is now entirely oul oi print, and cannot be supplied until a new edition is ready.

Southern School of Photography

McMlNNVILLE, TeNN.

We received the illustrated hand-book of this well-known school, an elaborate and beautiful announcement.

After an experience covering a period of eleven years in the conduct of the Southern School of Photography, the future of this school seems assured, and that it is bound to be a great benefit, not only to those who take up the prac- tice of photography as a profession, but also to the entire fraternity, we feel confident.

To those who might wish further informa- tion not contained in this catalogue relative to the Southern School of Photography and the methods used in the rapid advancement of the students, the same will be furnished upon appli- cation.

Southern School of Photography,

W. S. Lively, President.

Pictorial Landscape Photography By Paul Lewis Anderson

Many of our readers are familiar with Mr. Anderson's writings — always suggestive and helpful. This volume from the press of The Photo-Era, is worthily printed and forms an interesting text-book on pictorial landscape photography. The author speaks as one having authority and treats on the "subjective side," "subjective technique," and "technical methods." The illustrations are well chosen and add to the value of the text. Price, SI. 50, cloth. Supplied at this office.

Exhibition of Pictorial Photographs

An exhibition illustrating the progress of the art of photography in America, will be held in the Rosenbach Galleries, Philadelphia, Pa., from January 18 to 30, 1915.

The exhibition will be under the auspices of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia. This is the oldest society devoted to photography in America, and in organizing and supporting for main' years the Philadelphia Salon played a prominent part in the early development of the art of photography in this country.

As the exhibition will have the support of the most progressive artist-photographers, every en- deavor will be made in the maintenance of a high standard in prints.

American Annual of Photography

A copy of the 1915 edition of this publication has just reached us, and as usual the illustra- tions are excellent, having been selected from the best photographic work of the year. There are many articles on up-to-date subjects, such as Small Hand Cameras, Bromoil, Motion Picture finishing, Home Portraiture, etc. Copies can be supplied through this office for $1.50 each.

NOTES AND NEWS

65

The Spectroscopy of the Extreme Ultra- violet, by Theodore Lyman

London and New York : Longmans, Green & Co. Price, $1.50.

This work forms one of the excellent series of monographs on "Physics" in the course of publication, under the editorship of Sir J. J. Thompson and Dr. Horton. Professor Lyman's reputation in this particular department of spectroscopy is such as to lead one to surmise that we should have an authoritative work, and with justice. In his preface he is tempted to offer an apology for a work on such a limited subject, for he deals with that portion of the ultra-violet discovered by Schumann, extending beyond wave-length 2000; but no apology is needed, for the work is a monograph in the strictest sense of the word and therefore all the more valuable. If one may be permitted to find fault, it would be with reference to the author's proneness to refer to text -books rather than to the original communications. This may be ligitimate, but it does not give one a clue to the original communication, which is often more valuable.

The book opens with an historical introduc- tion that emphasizes the value of photography, although the author does not specifically point this out, but he makes up for this in the later sections of the book.

Practically, Professor Lyman divides the sub- ject into two sections: Part I, dealing with the photometry of the ultr-violet and the ab- sorption of gases and solids, which is an extremely valuable collection of data. In fact, I can recall no book that puts into such concise form the absorption data for this region. Part II deals with the apparatus and methods of investiga- tion, emission spectra, and photo-electric and photo-abiotic phenomena. This section is based on the author's work at Harvard and is, therefore, all the more practical and valuable. Numerous tables of wave-lengths, a biblio- graphy, and a list of Schumann's writings on the subject are included. There is in this sec- tion the only typographical error that I have found, and that is the use of "sulphate" for sulphite of soda. The style is pleasing and the subject made interesting even for those not specifically engaged with the subject.

E. J. W.

It is now planned that the Third Annual Con- vention of the Photographic Dealers' Associa- tion of America shall be held in the New Grand Central Palace, New York, from March 27 to April 3, 1915, and that in connection with it there will be an International Exposition of Photographic Arts and Industries open to the public. Full information will be given later.

An Opportunity

Gentlemen: Our new No. 19 Bargain List is now ready and in this list we are offering our customers, entirely free, a year's subscription to their favorite photographic magazine. There are no strings attached to our offer and in doing this we have two objects in view:

We believe that a man getting a magazine through us each month will always remember us for twelve months in the year. Second, it will increase the circulation of the different maga- zines, thereby doing us more good in our adver- tizing and also helping the entire fraternity.

I believe our scheme is entirely new — and we make no extra charge on the instrument that the customer purchases. We are going to be abso- lutely fair, as we are in all our business trans- actions, and we are not going to suggest any particular magazine — that will be left entirely to the customer, but if you have any way in which you can get the customers to select your magazine, it is all the same to us to whom we pay.

New York Camera Exchange,

108 Fulton Street, New York.

Development

A writer in Camera Craft says: "I have had experience with many developers, but my favor- ite is pyro, used in a tank. It gives good, crisp negatives, the kind that give the best results on developing paper. Of course, one hears a great deal about the stains that pyro gives, but this is mainly a matter of using a tray. Substituting the tank and, while the negatives may not be as pleasing in appearance, the results, the prints, will be highly satisfactory."

Large Enlargements

Now that anastigmatic lenses are so com- monly used for enlarging, the defect of biting definition is frequently seen, particularly in very large portraits. Whatever may be thought of the fuzzy effects so often seen in photographic exhibitions a few years ago, and not entirely absent nowadays, there can be no doubt that diffusion of definition is pre- ferable to absolute crispness when we get to such large sizes as 20 x 16 and over. Par- ticularly in this sharpness objectionable when, as sometimes happens with a slightly under- exposed plate, there is a slightly lighter edge on all the light tones abutting on heavy shadows. It is difficult to avoid this sharpness because it is not an easy matter to decide in the enlarging room from the image on the easel just how much the image may be thrown out of focus. Nor is a small trial strip much help, for the effect of such cannot be gauged by holding it at the dis- tance at which the completed picture should be viewed. Experience must, to a great extent, be relied upon, and so some method should be em- ployed which allows of a certain effect being accurately repeated. The racking in or out of the projection lens is one such method, provided the same stop is always used and the racking is pro- portional to the greater conjugate focus. Another method is to hold in front of the lens a sheet of thin, clean patent plate-glass, and gently to swivel this so that the rays pass through it not quite at right angles to its surface. With all such methods some little experimenting is needed to obtain the most pleasing results, but the end usually justifies this experiment — British Journal of Photography.

PRACTICAL POINTS

A Printing Frame for the Busy Photographer

lin following describes a printing apparatus adapted to the need of the professional pho- tographer or amateur who does a large amount of printing in a locality not supplied with gas or electricity. It is intended to be used for day- light exposures and is quick acting. The frame is described first; then the method of locating and installing.

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B \

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Oroove J^'Widi

First procure a piece of f inch material, 18 inches long and 12 inches wide, for the base- board .1. To this nail two pieces, B, the shape and dimensions of Fig. 2; the back edges A' coming Hush with the back end of the base, the slanting edges being to the front. This forms three sides of a box-like structure across the 4 inches in top of which are nailed two pieces, C, 1 ', inches wide, arranged to leave an opening or slot, D, | inch wide. On the inside of each side- piece, B, fasten with brads two small strips as in Fig. 2, forming a groove £ inch wide to coincide with dot P. The top-piece C is beveled to fit the Inmt panel I-'., which is made with an opening in the (enter 7,' inches wide by 9\ inches high. Around this opening nail strips far enough back from the edges to receive an 8x10 glass or nega- tive. The hot torn strip has an opening, F, 1 inch wide left in it to facilitate lifting out the glass. Now procure the front of an ordinary 66

8x10 printing frame, G, and hinge it at the top of the opening in front panel. At the bottom of the opening secure a button to hold G firmly in place when printing. Now directly opposite the ends of the slot D nail a scaffolding, H, to the sides of frame as shown in the sketch. The top of the scaffolding is 12 inches above the slot D. Make a frame of f inch material 14 inches high, and of a width to slide easily inside the grooves inside the sides B, and cover this frame with orange paper. Where it rests on the base- board tack a piece of felt to deaden its fall.

As to the location; if possible select a window with a southerly exposure and board up half of the lower sash, leaving an opening just large enough to fit snugly around tbe back of the frame (see drawing). The other part of the sash should be fitted with a ruby glass or covered with heavy orange paper. Fit the top part of the window with an opaque shutter, hinged at the top to allow shutting out the light or not as may be necessary. Build a shelf or bench on a level with the window-sill to support the frame, and when in place fasten a flexible spiral spring from the hinged cover G to some convenient point on the window-frame. This spring, I, is to hold G up and out of the way when changing negatives or paper. From a screw-eye on the top of the sliding frame in the grooves run a cord, Y, up over pulleys and down to a . foot pedal as illustrated.

To operate, the negative and paper are placed in the frame and the cover brought down to bear over them and buttoned as ordinarily, the the sliding screen is raised by pressing the pedal, the required exposure made, and ended by releasing the foot. The operator, seated at the bench, can thus with little effort turn out a remarkable number of prints. One of these printing frames has been in actual use for a number of years by a professional photographer and gives the best of results, being rapid and sure. — Lawrence B. Robbins.

Soft Vignettes on Bromide Paper

Use a serrated vignetting card, which is easily made by cutting out of corrugated board with a sharp knife, holding the knife at an angle of about 45 degrees. This automatically serrates the card owing to the corrugations, and with no additional trouble.

Trimming Prints

As a cutting board on which to lay prints when trimming, a piece of ordinary cork carpet is an excellent thing. It lasts a long time before the surface becomes seriously cut up, and has no effect on the knife when trimming.

PRACTICAL POINTS

67

To Remove Silver Stains from Negatives

To remove the brown silver stains due to damp contact to silver paper with a negative the fol- lowing is recommended: Place the negative in a dish of old hypo, cover it up. If the stain is an old one it may take a week; if recent, 'one to four days; but the cure is certain. Examine day by day; when perfectly clear, wash well, and the stain has gone for ever. The hypo will not soften or reduce the negative.

To Cleanse Paper Prints Bromide of silver, platinum, or pigment prints on rough paper, that have become soiled, may be cleansed in the following manner: Make a thin paste of common starch in cold water and apply it with a soft brush to the face of the soiled picture, which is first spread evenly on a clean glass plate. After allowing it to remain for about ten minutes the starch is removed by washing with running water. For this purpose a short piece of rubber tubing attached to the faucet, closing the free end with the finger, is excellent. If the dirt is not all removed the first time the operation may be repeated.

The Best Work A man or woman, in public or private life, who ever works only for the sake of reward that comes for the work will in the long run do poor work always. I do not care where the work is, the man or woman who does work worth doing is the man or woman who lives, breathes, and sleeps that work; with whom it is ever present in his or her soul; whose ambition it is to do it well and feel rewarded by the thought of hav- ing done it well. That man, that woman, puts the whole country under an obligation. — John Ruskin.

A New Sepia Toner

The following formula will give fine sepia tones by a single solution process. Immerse the

print for twenty to thirty minutes in a bath compounded of:

Arsenic acid 10 per cent. sol. . 1 oz.

Citric acid 1 oz.

Potassium bichromate ... 1 oz.

Water 12 oz.

Air-bubbles in Lenses Small air-bubbles in a photographic lens are in reality a mark of quality, just as slight flaws in some precious stones signify genuineness, for optical glass which is sufficiently clear and homo- geneous cannot be produced without them. In the manufacture of the famous Jena glass the various elements used must be heated for a given length of time and to a certain degree, the process being stopped at just the right moment whether all the air has been driven out or not. There is no alternative.

The manufacturers discard all but those por- tions best suited to lens-making and the lens- maker in turn examines all glass both in the rough state and before the lenses are sent out as a finished product. All sections are rigidly made

and actual tests prove that small bubbles in lenses, whether single or grouped, do not interfere in any way with the perfect work of the lens. The actual loss of light is inappreciable and the pres- ence of these bubbles, even if near the surface, has no effect whatever on the optical quality of the image.

A Simple Reducer of Excellent Quality

Whenever a negative is to be reduced, especially only to a small extent, the photog- rapher will weigh the matter over well before attempting the operation. The red prussiate of potash and hyposulphite of soda reducer of Farmer is nearly always adopted; sometimes ammonium persulphate is used. For a slight and uniformly even reducer the following pre- paration, which was worked out by the writer, answers the purpose admirably. The color of the deposited indigo becomes changed to a brown, but this forms no detriment. The testing of the solution is made several times during one month. The action is slow but uniform, the shadows are not destroyed as is the case with some reducers. The following are the propor- tions of the salts used that were found to be best united :

Water . 8 fl. oz.

Perchloride of iron (crystal) . 2 dr.

Oxalic acid 4 dr.

As soon as the perchloride and the oxalic acid are dissolved, which may be hastened by shaking the bottle well, the mixture will be ready to use. All that will be necessary to complete the opera- tion will be to wash the negative well for fifteen minutes, then dry, when it will be ready for printing. — Alfred J. Jarman.

Replies to Queries K. Franklin: The flashlight powder you mention in your letter is a very dangerous one, owing to its containing sulphide of antimony. The following composition, for stone burning, will give a powerful actinic light suitable for underground illumination and at the same time is quite safe:

Powdered shellac . . . 2 oz.

Powdered magnesium . . 2 oz.

Nitrate of baryta .... | oz.

Potassium chlorate . . . 1 oz.

Mix with a bone knife; place the mixture in a tin or zinc box, ignite with a taper or match, by placing three or four matches in the mixture as a wick.

Watson Smith: The varnish you inquire about for ferrotypes is made as follows and used cold: Benzole made from coal-tar, 4 fluid- ounces; gum dammar, 100 grains. As soon as the gum has dissolved, filter the liquid through absorbent cotton. Cover the funnel with a glass plate during filtration, and be careful that no flame is brought near it, as it is very inflammable.

B. Philips: Your inquiry, as to how you can test the presence of hypo in the wash-water of prints, is answered by the following reply: Take 8 grains of potassium permanganate and

68

PRACTICAL POINTS

7 grains of caustic soda and dissolve them in 8 fluidounces of distilled water; add 3 drops of this mixture to 4 ounces of distilled water; then allow the water from a fixed and washed print to drip into this. If a trace of hypo is present the liquid will turn to a pale greenish-brown; if no hypo is present the faint pink color of the liquid will not change.

Light Sensitiveness of Mercuric Oxalate Ix 1879 Eder suggested the use of a mixture of ammonium oxalate and mercuric chloride as an actinometer, and this has been in general use ever since. In 1909 Winther found that the addition of very small quantities of pure ferric chloride considerably increased the sensitiveness of the light reaction. Eder has again examined the action of light with the pure mercury salts, and finds that on pure mercuric oxalate 99.7 per cent, of the action can be ascribed to the action of the ultra-violet rays. The addition of 0.0025 per cent, of pure ferric chloride increases the sensitiveness about 120 times in diffused light, but in strong direct sunlight about 85 to 100 times more than in diffused light. Eder finds that the addition of ferric chloride increases the sensitiveness of the mercuric oxalate to the visible spectrum by about forty times. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that for estimating the action of the ultra-violet alone the pure mercuric oxalate is preferable. — Zeit f. wissent. Phot., 1914, p. 172.

To Carry Wet Negatives If wet negatives are to be taken for any dis- tance, or sent through the post, they can be pro- tected from all damage by being packed in pairs (or, if singly, with a plain glass), face to face, the films separated by means of the little slips of card used by the plate makers. The inner wrapper should be of wet paper to prevent drying from beginning, as this might lead to drying marks. As soon as possible, they should be unpacked and dried in the usual way. It would be a wise precaution to use a bath of formalin one part, water nine parts, the last thing before pack- ing them, as this would minimize the chance of decomposition of the gelatine commencing.

Hot Solutions Much of the difficulty of mixing hot solutions may be overcome by the use of old jam-jars. They will stand almost any heat short of boiling point, and are easily kept clean. The large glass jars answer best. I have some, with the measures marked in different colors for each solution, which have lasted me for years.

Printing from a Thin Negative From a negative too hopelessly thin to print in platinum, or even to produce a P.O. P. print which can be toned, I have made many fault- lessly-printing negatives by using an untoned glossy P.O. P. half printed from the thin negative. This delicate, evanescent print can be photo- graphed, using a slow commercial plate, and the finest gradation of tone obtained in a strong- printing negative. A further advantage of this

method is the possibility of enlargement at the same time.

It is obvious that the untoned print must be kept from the light, except during exposure of the slow plate, focussing being done from a piece of newspaper, cut the exact size of the original, placed under the glass of a printing frame.

Strong Prints from Flat Negatives The prints are fully exposed and over-devel- oped, fixed, and washed.

They are then placed in the following iodine bath until whites are strongly blue, and then fixed for five minutes.

iodine bath

Potassium iodide . . . . 30 gr.

Iodine 3 gr.

Water 10 oz.

If not sufficiently lightened, the print may be washed, and the process with bleaching bath and hypo repeated.

A Powerful Developer A correspondent wants to know what is the most powerful developer of which we know, and asks that a formula be given. An authority in England, T. Thorne Baker, gave the following some years ago as being the most rapid, and one that would work wonders with under-exposed plates:

Metol \ oz.

Sodium carbonate . . 1| oz.

Sodium sulphite . l|oz.

Water 20 oz.

This is to be used full strength, and without the addition of bromide.

Blue-print Paper

For the amateur who wants to make his own blue-print paper or cloth the following formula is recommended:

A Red prussiate of potash .100 gr.

Water 1 oz.

B Citrate of iron and ammonia . 125 gr. Water 1 oz.

Dissolve each in a separate bottle, using cold water, and for use take equal parts. Coat unruled paper with a small sponge.

Brilliant Prints Developed prints, bromides and others, when wet, have great brilliancy and charm, but when dry are often dull and lifeless. To restore the brilliancy, apply to the dry print, with a brush, this varnish :

Gum sandarac 1 oz.

Oil of lavender, true ... ^ oz.

Alcohol 8 oz.

Such treatment is, of course, not always desirable, but certain kinds of subjects appear more pleasing when so treated.

NEW SERIES "WILSON'S"

VOLUME LII

NUMBER 2

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THE PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNAL OF AMERICA

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NEW SERIES: WILSON'S PHOTOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE • FOUNDED 1864

EDWARD L- WILSON CO"^ 122 EAST 25TH ST -NEWT YORK

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PUBLISHED IN" THE INTERESTS OF THE PROFE SSIONAL &> AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER fl 15 CENTS A COPY • $1.50 A YEAR

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A Film Comparison

Photographic films are composed of

1st — the nitro - cellulose base, that is the transparent, flex- ible, ribbon-like material;

2nd — the sensitive gelatino- bromide emulsion coated on the transparent material;

3rd — the paper, wooden spools and other items necessary to produce the daylight car- tridge.

The nitro- cellulose base of all good films is made according to and under the Goodwin patent, recently upheld by the courts.

To ascertain the superiority of

Ansco Film

made by the Goodwin Film C& Camera Co. a simple test is sufficient.

Load your camera with ANSCO FILM, set shutter at, say, ^ of a second and your lens at the largest opening. Snap the entire roll on the same subject decreasing the lens open- ing for each successive exposure. Then load your camera with the film you wish to compare and expose it immediately on the same subject and in exactly the same way the ANSCO film was exposed.

The result will tell the story.

AnSCO Company, Binghamton, N. Y.

By GUIDO REY

ITALY

PHOTOGRAPHIC

•JOURNAL-

y AMERICA •

VOLUME LII

FEBRUARY, 1915

NUMBER 2

FEB 8 )

Siorial

<^y

W. H. PORTERFIELD AND HIS WORK

AN APPRECIATION

By SIGISMUND BLUMANN

ONE may expect the very worst sort of "an appreciation" of a great man's work from either his best friend or his worst enemy, for the former is likely to slop over in praises and the latter to envenom the subject with his own feelings; both procedures doing the matter in hand injustice. So, too, the best critical article may be expected from a writer who, being neither blinded by affection or hate, having a knowl- edge of the art or science which con- stitutes the output of the man of whom he writes and a command of the language, sets out determined to tell truths courageously and do justice.

This prologue puts me out of the picture on every count. I am not an

intimate friend and certainly not an enemy of Mr. Porterfield, but then neither have I a wonderful knowledge of photography or English. However, modesty having been paid her tribute, if the reader will accept an assurance of my absolute and fixed purpose to be truthful and just, I shall tell what I know and what I think of Mr. W. H. Porterfield and of his work in pho- tography.

First, then, you shall be told that he is radical to the uttermost. Not only does he believe that a negative may be worked upon to any extent, that the print may be doctored still further, that an enlargement may be brushed up, crayoned, and otherwise manipu-

69

7()

W. H. FORTERFIELD AND HIS WORK

W H PORTERFIELD

lated, and another negative made from the enlarged print, but he helieves one or all of the methods of improving are essential to the obtention of the highest art in pictorial photography. To the writer this is astigmatic. It is dangerously like denying a place for photography in the fine arts, since the only way of getting it so classified is to prop it and bolster it and jockey it with the tools of other branches of art. It is my belief that a picture is a work of art no matter how much nor how little it has been reworked: Even if it has been left as the lens sawr it. Some great work has been done by men who composed on the ground-glass and who got their modelling, lighting, atmos- phere, planes, etc-., with aperture, ex-

posure, and development. Yet, be it said, Porterfield, resorting to any and every method of gaining a desired result, does gain it. It does not prove his contention, but it proves him a master. Sometimes it has seemed to me all of his greatness was needed to render acceptable the amount of handwrork he puts into his work. The greatness is there, always.

An amusing story is that of an argument sustained at long range be- tween Mr. Porterfield and myself some months back. One of us happened to wish the prints of a famous European marine photographer might be enlarged. The statement was made that a print that was not improved by enlarging was not worth making. The other held that a miniature in photography, no less than in painting, might be a great work of art, and that a picture that needed enlarging to be wrorth something was not worth anything much to begin with. You see, one of us worked in large sizes and the other did no work worth mentioning. The one with truth on his side had the best of the argument and we are now in the state of readiness to debate which side had truth as an ally.

The biography of a living artist begins writh his first work; of a photog- rapher with the first camera he owned. Salon medallists pass up through all the stages of single meniscus, rapid rectilinear, anastigmat, diffused focus, and back again to R. R. and wide- apertures, but the very first camera is historic, potent, immortal. It is the first child to the mother of a large family, the first effort of flying to the birdling, the first empyrean flight in the new aeroplane. That six dollar view-box which we wrorked without milled-head ratchets, and without other shutter than our own hand, and a velvet-lined cap for the lens — which by the way had that romantic disk of Waterhouse stops — the leaky plate- holder trap over which we so carefully kept the all-enveloping focussing cloth, also of velvet, the tripod so generous in timber, oh! all this and that which means nothing since the Reverend Goodwin and the worthy Eastman

W. H. PORTERFIELD AND HIS WORK

71

THE PLAIN OF CHECK-TO-WA-GA

got busy. The instrument, the mate- rials, the use of them, the pleasures, the aggravations, are all so merged and blended in a sort of mental moonlight that it is to be gently condoned in the writer the mixing of his figures of speech. You who remember the days of wet plates, the elder Wilson, and Dundas Todd, can feel with me.

We return for this short time to the ancient days when men focussed sharp, and, lest some detail be lost, printed on glossy paper and then squeegeed on glass or ferrotype plates to get an enameled surface that should bring out every line needle-sharp; when every available way of getting and retaining their sharpness was exhausted, the opticians worked out new lenses that got still greater detail and more sharp- ness and sold their glasses at fabulous prices. That shows what men thought of all this fine focussing. They paid fabu- lous prices not for speed, mind you, but for details. The speed proposition came later. It came with the need for it. In the days of Waterhouse stops, the light- ning express thundered through Albany

as fast as thirty miles an hour, and on sunny days one could get that at 16. Then, too, enlarging was off color those times. It was in the province of the solar printer to make enlargements for a most questionable trade, but the pictorialist got in every line and leaf and branch and spot, and got them fine. To lose any of this minutiae were to have sacrificed that for which fine lenses were made and careful focus- sing done. Get this mood. Inhale it deep.

Now wake. This big noise is the extremist at his worst. The Fuzzy- wuzzy has evolved and in a day has grown to enormous proportions. It is rampant. No lens can give effects broad enough. The pinhole insists on showing recognizable features in the picture, so it is discarded for a hole big enough to shy an apple through if you are a good shot. Every degree of evolution is a cataclysm. Some- times, as in the Geological, these cata- clysms are so protracted that to the short-lived human they pass unnoticed. But in human effort such an activity

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W. H. PORTERFIELD AND HIS WORK

is tremendous. Real pictorial photog- raphy was coming with travail. Men were beginning to think the camera and all the marvels of sensitive mediums might be made to convey thoughts and emotions as subtly and effectively as could chisel, pencil, or brush. Tem- perament surged to the front and in a sudden access of power went mad for

AN OLD-FASHIONED LANDSCAPE (5)

a while. The old school laughed, scoffed, condemned, abused, and died. It was a sad day for glossy albumen when the new-school pictorialist found he could sensitize Whatman's roughest tooth paper and enlarge thereon an already fuzzy 5 by 7 to an heroic 22 by 28 with whiskers on every outline and the high-lights running into the shadows like one watercolor brushed on before the other had set. You remember those times, too, dear reader. As many more of you than can recall Dundas Todd in his youth. And we are getting close to our subject: Porterfield and the Buffalo pictorialists are in sight.

From the heterogeneous mass of fuzz, with an intention lost somewhere in the mess, something was bound to come: Something good, for the intention was good. An effort grew to make smudges and masses of black and white mean something, not merely suggest. Slowly

the pendulum swung back toward detail, and it is now being held with the force of a vast contingent at the point where it belongs, or near it. Photography has evolved into a fine art. And to those who brought it there and whose efforts keep it there, we owe tribute. If I refuse to accept their extremes as essentials, let them be assured my appreciation for what they have ac- complished and are accomplishing is not the less adequate. I have in print paid my little modicum of a great homage due to William Norrie, Mrs. Nancy Ford Cones, and others. Here and now, I hand Mr. Porterfield both the palm of peace and a laurel. I might flatter him more and do him less justice. His merits need no enlarging and his defects are probably best known to himself.

" A STUDY IN POST" (4)

Having bounced over photographic history, hitting the high spots and arrived at today, let us know something of the man whose name is the subject of this ramble. We shall begin with his first camera.

It was a Korona, 4x5, and cost $11. This is definite and was twenty-six years ago. And by a coincidence Mr.

W. H. PORTERFIELD AND HIS WORK

73

LANDSCAPE BY W. H. PORTERFIELD LONDON SALON, 1914

Porterfield was just twenty-six years of age when he decided, after long consideration, to buy himself a photo- graphic outfit. Just what use was made of this outfit I have not learned to my entire satisfaction. With the modesty of able men, friend Porterfield resorts to phrases that please but do not satisfy when asked for particulars. We are assured that he wasted but few plates on "children, dogs, etc.,"

and that he had earnest ambitions from the start. Now, I doubt these asser- tions. As a judge of character I should say he began with great hopes but most indefinite ambitions. At that time pictorial photography, as we know it, had not been conceived, and accepting his present inflexible standards of his art, it must follow that the pictures he made, whether of children, dogs, land- scapes, or whatever, were plates wasted,

74

W. H. PORTERFIELD AND HIS WORK

THE HIGHWAY OF THE SEA" (1>

except inasmuch as they conduced to knowledge, technique, and facility. I should like to see a few Porterfield prints of fifteen years ago.

Following the Korona came a Graflex; a step probably meant toward the practical and remunerative; it led to greater things, however: The visible image, seen right side up and under conditions that permitted of comfortable study, must have begotten the spirit of inspiration. This is a tenable assump- tion, since a soft-focus lens made for him by the Spencer firm was put on and this equipment is still in use. The temptation to rest here and amplify on the lens that makes the masterpieces is keen; but as the writer is firm in a belief that men, not lenses, make great photographs, and as, furthermore, this is not an article on apparatus, we shall briefly tell that Mr. Porterfield having had something to do with the planning, suggesting, or perhaps in honor of his using this lens continually, the glasses have been named Portland lenses (Porterfield, minus the field, added to

Landscape, minus the scape). It must be a good lens to have served its user so well. But it must have been a master to make it do such work. Let this point sink in well. Without a soft-focus appurtenance Porterfield should have made pictures that win prizes. Paderewski owes more to his brains and temperament, be assured, than he does to the Steinways. By which I mean to convey, now and whenever and wherever space is granted me to do so, that you should save your money from numerous lenses and culti- vate your faculties. Put on probation with a spectacle lens and a cigar- box the able pictorialist will make pictures.

After reading an able dissertation of Mr. Porterfield's art in Academy Notes (April, 1910), I was prejudiced by an academic flavor of defence and a boast- ful insistence of the author on the seventy prizes. The number of medals, etc., has, I am informed, accumulated to eighty at this writing and shall probably go on gaining into the hundreds. Empty

W. H. PORTERFIELD AND HIS WORK

75

A SUGGESTION OF BARBIZON

glory for really great work; for Porter- field has vitalized each advance in photography with a personality and genius that, if not always acceptable to his critics, is still a tribute to his greatness. So long as he gives us one, two, or three prints a year that shall serve as advance guards in pictorial progress his radicalism shall need no defence and the medals, whether gold or diamond-studded, shall gain lustre from his possession, not confer an honor upon him.

The first Porterfield print to attract national attention was one called "The Highway of the Sea" (1). It is still a popular favorite.

A direct question as to which of his own prints pleased himself best brought polite evasion. He retired behind the familiar and pathetic, "Can no more choose than a mother from among her children." No, no, Friend Porter- field, I will not be satisfied with that. There have been some pictures which were special joys in the planning, or especially pleasant surprises in the eventuation. Raphael often felt such

astonishment when his own completed work stood before him. Be this as it may, and let the secret of his preference remain his alone, the public has pref- erences. Committees on awards have preferences. And be it known that the average of many fine intelligences some- times aggregate one very poor judg- ment. I have sometimes thought that the wisdom of numerous Solomons might constitute the sense of one com- mon ass. Our Salons have died, are decrepit and dying of poor judgment and too keen a deference for awards. Some such committee influence induced or permitted the Porterfield who gave us "A Suggestion of Barbizon" (2), " Homeward, " "Monday — Dante Place" (3), and other classics, to expose his mortal side in such things as "A Study in Post-impressionism" (4), and the "Old-fashioned Landscape" (5). It may displease my friend, this gratuitous censure, but I were less his friend did I not discourage his digres- sion into dangerous byways like this. I would deliver to him the Critique Calomel for the biliousness of mind to

\Y. H. PORTERFIELD AND HIS WORK

which too much praise and too little judgment on the part of his nearer and sycophantic friends subject him.

"Monday — Dante Place" is truly- great. It is great in the message it conveys. It is great in sentiment. It is current with the present. Gals- worthy, Brieux, Shaw and the greatest in present-day literature are exponents of the things that are, and as they are. Moreover, this picture goes not one hair's breadth beyond the boundaries of pho- tography and by that very quality proves photography a high art and Porterfield an artist.

MONDAY — DANTE PLACE" (3)

Howr I do wander! Well, perhaps a man's work is greater than the man, and then lore more consideration to it than to him is justifiable. But the human interest must be maintained or the reader turns away and the editor puts a blue mark against the author's record. Human interest then. Here goes.

Porterfield is forty-two years old and does not care to have it published. He told me so and hurt me. Is forty-two such a passe age? I happen to be forty- two. And Porterfield carries his camera

writh him wherever he goes. He looks for beauty everywhere and we are pre- pared to concede he finds it. It takes a poetic eye to see and glorify the entrance to a department store in terms of art. Porterfield has done so. Turn- ing from a picture before me entitled "The Plain of Check-to-wa-ga" (6), with its atmosphere of moonlight to give value and credence to its moon, I read in a letter recently received that his dark-room is a small back chamber where, on a table, are "some bottles and trays." It emphasizes so that the greatness dwells not in externals but in the individual. This artist himself asserts that there are too many among the pictorialists wrho worship their equipment too much. He confesses to a comparatively elementary knowledge of the science of photography and in his own language says, "A working knowl- edge of the camera, its parts, and of chemistry^ is all that is needed. " To the manufacturers I commend the following from the Porterfield store of epigrams: "Let the Eastman Company worry about the plates and papers and lenses and such things; our concern is or should be with pictures. " And again: "By our pictures we are known and not by the amount of money we have invested."

There is much material at my elbow anent the methods, the developers, etc., data, and what not which may interest the reader; but in this, as in articles that have preceded it of a similar char- acter, I have and in future articles shall strive to convey as best I can the spirit of the worker, not his statistics. Metol- hydroquinon is the same in any dark- room, and dear reader were you to borrow Porterfield's entire outfit, from camera to final fixing bath, and move in his very footsteps, you should be no nearer to his attainments. Study the pictures, study the classics, go forth in your own environments and translate the beauty of things about you in your own way to photographic means of expres- sion. In the degree in which you have the divine spark within you, you shall attain. Like all notable men in the arts and sciences Porterfield as a Pictorialist is not an individual but a lesson, not a personality^ but an epoch. Let that suffice and may we make much of it.

ANIMATED ILLUSTRATIONS FOR PERIODICALS

BY A SCREEN-PLATE PROCESS1

IF you were to open an illustrated weekly or your favorite magazine of current events some day, and before your very eyes should see a platoon of marines storming a Mexican parapet in an animated picture of the event, it is likely that you would accept the illusion as punishment for your imprudence of the night before. In the not very distant future you are going to see this very thing and you are going to pinch yourself into a realization of the fact that it is neither a nightmare nor an illusion. Fanciful as the idea may appear, it is surrounded with far less of the improbable than was contained in the public mind at the first mention of the possibilities of the telephone, the kinetoscope or wireless telegraphy. The portrayal of current event by means of the animated illustration is assured without adding bulk or the annoyance of a mechanical contrivance to the peri- odical of tomorrow. The illustrations will simply move — that's all — without effort on the part of the reader or the assistance of apparatus.

Alexander S. Spiegel, of Chicago, recently has accomplished results by photography that guarantee the fulfil- ment of the prediction in every detail. The invention has passed the experi- mental stage, the manufacturing plant is in operation, the camera that pro- duces these wonderful results is in the hands of the photographer, and today, if you choose, it is possible to have a portrait of your countenance showing the animated passage of a broad grin to a deep frown.

The feasibility of applying this idea to the production of animated illustra- tions for the popular magazines already has been considered.

The simplicity of the idea is one of its most valuable features. The motion

1 By courtesy of The Inland Printer.

photograph is a composite picture (Fig. 1) produced by successive ex- posures on the same plate. Therefore, a half-tone reproduction of the photo- graphic print would be of the same nature, requiring but one impression to secure an animated illustration of any scene of action, no matter how compli- cated.

The methods employed in producing these results can be best illustrated by referring to the various mechanism of the motion camera shown in Figs. 2 and 3.

Fig. 2 is a back view of the camera with its cover turned back to show the method of adjusting the sensitized plate, which may be any one of the standard dry plates used in ordinary commercial photography. In Fig. 3 we have a similar view showing the sensitized plate covered with a transparent glass screen consisting of a series of parallel opaque lines each separated from the other by a clear space of about one two-hundredth of an inch in width. It is obvious that in making a single

7 s

ANIMATED ILLUSTRATIONS FOR PERIODICALS

^

Jl

exposure, only the exposed portions of the plate between the opaque lines will be affected by the light. Let us say that the opaque lines are three times as wide as the open spaces between them. In such case, the first exposure would affect only one-fourth of the area of the sensitized plate. A screw, micromet- rically accurate in its adjustment (A in Figs. 2 and 3), is used to regulate the movement of the screen forward one two-hundredth part of an inch so as to bring the opaque lines to cover all portions of the plate previously exposed. This operation is repeated successive times to cover the full action of the picture. By this method from two to four exposures can be made on the same plate, limited only by the relation of the width of the open spaces to the width of the opaque lines. A print from a plate exposed in this manner resembles Fig. 1, which is a composite of a man in the act of tipping his hat. If this com- posite were separated to show each individual exposure, the result would be as illustrated in Figs. 4, 5, and 6, the successive stages of the action. The photograph is made animate and opera- tive by registering over its surface a transparent screen, also containing opaque lines, which must be an exact counterpart of the glass mask used during exposure' of the sensitized plate. The screens for the finished photographs

are of a very thin, transparent celluloid, attached in such a manner that the slightest movement of a protruding por- tion exposes selective areas of the com- posite in consecutive order, in this way revealing the action of the photo- graphed subject. This is more clearly

illustrated in Fig. 7, which shows a young couple kissing in a boat, produced by a composite of but two exposures.

In considering the application of this process to the production of animated illustrations for periodicals, it has been proposed to print a half-tone reproduc- tion of the composite photograph in the

ANIMATED ILLUSTRATIONS FOR PERIODICALS

79

same manner as though an ordinary one-color process engraving were being used. Animation of the subject would be secured by supplying a printed screen of very thin and transparent paper. This sheet would be attached during binding, similar to the manner in which tissue interleaving for the protection of choice engravings is in- serted. The mask would necessarily have to be registered over the print by hand. By gluing this screen in the binding margin, and in the trimmed margin of the book as well, and by allowing the screen lines to cover the print rather loosely while lying flat, it is obvious that the tension brought to bear on the screen in opening the book, or bending its pages, would cause the transparent shield to move to and fro over the print, thus exposing the succes- sive movements of the subject with each two-hundredth of an inch in the dis- placement of the superimposed sheets. In other words, the mere handling of the magazine in opening, or turning of the pages, would put life into every print prepared in the manner described. The process is covered by letters patent No. 1,066,766, issued to Alexander S. Spiegel, July 8, 1913.

In April, 1914, The H. S. Crocker Company, of San Francisco, one of the largest printing houses on the Pacific Coast, purchased the California

rights for the production of moving- photographs by this process. It has been stated that this house is deeply

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ARTISTIC LIGHTING

interested in the possibility of apply- ing the invention to the production of animated illustrations and, if experi- ments along these lines should prove entirely practical, we may look for a publication of this character in San Francisco during the Panama-Pacific Exposition.

As a forerunner of developments along these lines it may be of interest to note

that a toy moving-picture book, in which a printed screen is applied to produce action, is now on the market. However, the pictures in this book are printed from plates with ruled lines, produced entirely by mechanical means. The use of half-tone reproductions of photographs from life has not been attempted in any of the toy books that have come to the writer's notice.

ARTISTIC LIGHTING

By FELIX RAYMER

HOW many times I have been asked the question, "Can you not tell me some way in which I can work my light?" This is, of course, a personal question, and at first thought would appear to be one that it would be almost impossible to answer. When one has time to think over the matter and make some few calculations he will find that if he understands the principles of lighting he will be able to formulate some plan whereby even the most ignorant will be able to do some- thing better in the way of portrait work. It is not so much the manner of working as the results we obtain; and let us fully understand that it is the results we are after, and not the way in which they are secured. I have been attending the State Conventions as well as the National Conventions for more years than I care to mention, and many times I am tempted to laugh in the face of some demonstrator or lecturer when he undertakes to tell an enlightened audi- ence that his way is the way, and that all others are frauds or make-believes. What we are after is the principle of the thing, and then all that will be necessary will be to read until we know what that principle is. We shall then be able to better our condition and make artistic work, provided we study the detail and technique of the question.

The main problem with the average workman in the average studio is, "How

am I to make the most of the light that I have on my hands, and how am I to make the best work under it?" This is the topic and the most important one that I have had under consideration for the past year or more; and all the time I have been trying to find out if there was any way in which such a question could be determined. After having tried about one hundred lights as oppor- tunity has offered at the different conventions during the past five years, I have arrived at one conclusion, and that is that light is light, and that all that is necessary will be for the workman to learn what he wants, and it will be an easy matter for him to attain his desires. In other words, there is a way by which any light (it matters not what the size or the pitch) may be worked and as good results obtained as by any other source. In proof of this assertion it is only necessary to mention the many workers of national reputation who are working skylights of entirely different construction from any others in the country, notably Mr. Ed. Rosch, of St. Louis, who has nothing but a straight, slant light, extending upward from its starting point to the highest point without a break of any kind. We might, without stopping to think the matter out and without knowing what we say, perhaps have the idea that such a light would be nothing more than a side light. This is entirely wrong, as we

ARTISTIC LIGHTING

can make it either side or top light by the manner in which we pose the subject under it; and in proof of this we will mention that we have not seen for years any more artistic work than is done by Mr. Rosch under his perpendicular light.

On the other hand, we find other operators claiming that we must have a light that sets into the room in order to secure a fall of light from a certain angle.