Letters on landscape photography

:

NM^Ti

I

LIBRARY

OF THK

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Received J1QV.19 .1891 , 18-

Accessions No. ...•.. Shelf No

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY.

LONDON I
PIPER AND CARTER, PRINTERS, FFRNIVAL ST>EET, HOLBOKN, E.G.

LETTERS ON

Landscape Photography,

BY

H. P. ROBINSON,

AUTHOR OF

"PICTORIAL EFFECT IN PHOTOGRAPHY,"
PICTURE MAKING," "THE STUDIO," ETC.

LONDON :
PIPER & CARTER, 5, FURNIVAL STREET, HOLBORN.

1888.
[ALL RISHTS

PREFACE

THE following letters were written to a friend
whose study of photography enabled him to produce
a technically perfect negative, but who did not
know how to put his knowledge to pictorial use.
They were not intended to point out a royal road
to art, but rather to act as a stimulus to activity
in the search for subjects for the camera, and to
teach how readiness of resource may help good
fortune in turning them into agreeable pictures.

" 4
funlridge Wells, 1888.

CONTENTS.

No. I.

PRELIMINARY ..

No. II.
ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY 9

No. III.

THE PHOTOGRAPH EK'S CONTROL OVER HIS SUBJECT... ... 16

No. IV.
THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT 23

No. V.
ON THE MOUNTAIN 31

No. VI.
VARIOUS SUBJECTS 38

No. VII.
FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES 45

No. VIII.
ANOTHER DAY OUT 51

No. IX.
A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM ... 58

CALLING THE Cows 18

TfiESPASSEBS ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 19

MODELS 3'2

SKETCH FOR PICTUHE 35

THE SWAN 46

STEPPING STONES ... ... ... ... ... ... 52

GATHEBING WILD HOSES 53

AKTISTS 54

THE MILL DOOK 56

worlt dre no v/orfe, if Imagination amend

"••••"•'" LETTERS ON

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY.

Addressed to an American Friend.

No. I. — Preliminary.

DEAB, BLANK, — As these letters are to be published, I must
call you Blank, your name as yet not having any interest for
photographers. But we may be permitted to hope the time
will come when your true appellation will be that of a
shining light in the Art which has light for its source.

I now propose to go into the subject of Landscape, more
particularly as it can be represented by photographic means.
As long as you were playing with toys — ten dollar sets — I was
compelled to decline giving you any instructions, because I
could have been of very little use to you. I have not a word
to say against these cheap sets of apparatus, which make me
wonder how they can be made for the money, and I have
taken, and seen taken by amateurs, admirable little pictures
with them; but serious art requires serious tools, and should
not be satisfied with less than the best. You have now,
however, got over the youthful maladies of the art — the

2 PKELIMINARY.

chicken-pox and measles of photography — and you have tried
the usual remedies, such as endeavouring to find a means of
photographing in colour, and a remedy for bad art in a new
developer. You have also ceased to ascribe a lack of brilli-
ancy in your negatives to want of definition in your lens.
You have, in fact, got over the initial little perplexities and
troubles, and are ready to provide yourself with proper tools,
so that you will have no difficulty in following out my in-
structions, and you will find your work interesting.

You are an amateur with leisure, which gives you a great
advantage. Hard working professional photographers can
afford but little time for prosecuting the better parts of their
art. I remember how surprised you were when I told you
that I seldom devoted more than a fortnight in the year to
landscape photography, and then had to take my chance of
weather. But after all, shortness of time for actual working-
has its compensations. I get through a great deal of work
in the time, because I have everything ready, everything
cut and dried for use. I am always on the watch for effects
and subjects, and ideas of all sorts, and jot them down in a
pocket-book, so that perhaps a subject or scene is a year or
two old before I use it. But I have the subjects so "handy,"
if I may so call it, in my mind that they are ready for use
at any moment. And I take care when I have my landscape
holiday that everything shall be in perfect order, not
omitting the models for figures, and that nothing shall be
doubtful except the weather. It may turn out bad, but we
" trust the larger hope." Indeed, even in the matter of the
weather, we are not so much in doubt as formerly. We
turn to the meteorological reports in the morning papers to
see what kind of weather you are sending us from your side

PRELIMINARY. 3

of the water, and "govern ourselves accordingly." Al-
though you never predict anything but storms, we learn how
to dodge between them.

Just as the proverbial millionnaire began his working
life with half-a-crown, so has many a now well-known
photographer begun his art with a cigar-box and spectacle
lens, and it is not easy for the new generation of photo-
graphers to understand the difficulties through which the
beginner of thirty years ago had to grope his way. To
a modern dry plate worker it would be like listening to a
foreign language if I told him of some of the difficulties
of the collodion process. "What does he know of comets,
oyster-shell markings, and lines in direction of the dip ?
In apparatus, also, the early photographers had to put up
with what they could get, and what was not always very
convenient for use. "Weight and French polish seemed to
be the chief objects aimed at by the makers. Both
camera makers and opticians were very stiff-necked in
that generation, and would not allow that photographers
knew what they wanted, so the camera was set up almost
as solidly as if it were an astronomical telescope, and the
lens was made with the definition of a microscopic objective
with the focus all on one plane.

"We have changed all that. "We can now get apparatus
and lenses adapted to our better known wants. Cameras,
especially landscape cameras, without any loss of beauty in
their manufacture, have been made very much lighter,
and lenses are made sufficiently optically imperfect to
diffuse the focus more in accordance with what the eye
sees. The workers of the present day, who are benefiting
by these improvements, have no idea of the trouble photo-

4 PRELIMINARY.

graphers of twenty-five years ago had in persuading
opticians to make lenses with what they called diffusion of
focus, because, as the opticians thought they convincingly
replied, the instruments would not be optically perfect.

And now I come to what you really will require. I take
it that you will not give your ambition at the outset too
great a chance of over-leaping itself in the matter of size.
The time will, I hope, come when you will feel the compelling
influence of sufficient skill to make your work become visible
in exhibitions, and you will feel you cannot do yourself
justice in a less size than 15 by 12 ; but at present 10 by 8
will be large enough for you. You can put nearly as much
art in a picture of this size as into one of much larger
dimensions, and the smaller size saves you a lot of worry
and bother in porterage.

First, of the Camera. This essential tool should be light,
strong, and have all the necessary movements. It must at
the same time be observed that in some modern cameras
there are movements which are not at all necessary, and
appear to be added only for the purpose of displaying the
ingenuity of the inventors. These clever machines defeat
the object for which they are intended. If a camera is
efficient, it cannot be too simple. With a perfect camera a
photographer of even small experience knows how it works at
once, and what to do. The tripod stand should be firm and
rigid, as well as light and portable. This you will easily
judge for yourself.

The lens is always considered the most important of all
the tools the photographer employs. So it is, but I should
like to say boldly that, within limits, I do not care what make
of lens I use. It is as well to have the best your means will

PRELIMINARY. 5

allow, but there has always been too much made of par-
ticular variations in the make of lenses. It has been the
fashion to think too much of the tools and too little of the
use made of them. I have one friend who did nothing last
year because he had made up his mind to buy a new lens, and
could not determine whose make it should be, and he was
tired of his old apparatus. His was of the order of par-
ticular and minute minds that try to whittle nothing to a
point. I have another friend who takes delight in preparing
for photography, and spends a small fortune in doing so, but
never takes a picture. But I am wandering from my sub-
ject. You will want a lens for general use. This should be
of the Rapid Rectilinear form, and should not include too
wide an angle. The focus should not be less than 13 inches
for a 10 by 8 plate. You will find this lens useful for all
ordinary landscape purposes as well as out-door groups and
portraits. But there are some subjects which would be im-
possible with a narrow angle lens, such as interiors and sub-
jects in confined positions where you cannot get far enough
away to include as much as you want with the ordinary
lens, for this purpose you must have a lens that includes
a wide angle of view. To be quite complete you should
have a 10^ inch also, as well as a single meniscus, but this
is not necessary at present.

I need not go into the question of apparatus further. The
experience you have already had will have taught you what
else you will require, but I have one or two words to say on
plates and developers.

Find one good make of plate and learn all about it — all its
peculiarities, how long it takes under the developer before the
image should appear, how long a properly exposed plate takes

6 PRELIMINARY.

to become rightly intense, and how it looks — and stick to this
plate. I don't say don't try any other at any time, but make
the chosen plate the standard. To be continually using
different makes of plates confuses the judgment, and you
scarcely know where you are. I do not recommend the
quickest plates that are advertised, because some plates are
made so rapid as to be unmanageable. We ought by this
time to be able to give the sensitiveness of any plate to the
sensitometer, but I have never known one in which I could
place the slightest reliance. Much confusion prevails. One
maker's " 30-times" is quicker than another's " 40-times,"
while the names given to the plates are most misleading.
The plate I like best and use almost entirely — that is, when
I am not compelled to take a very quick picture — is called
by its maker " Special Instantaneous," but is by no means a
quick plate compared with some others. There is one thing
about which you may be quite sure. If the plate is not
covered with a good body of emulsion — if it looks thin, blue,
and poor — you will not get the best obtainable negative
on it.

The last word I have to say in this letter is about deve-
lopers. Many amateurs try every newly-suggested modifica-
tion of the developer as it comes out, and fritter away their
time and muddle their brains with weights and measures
and homoeopathic differences in proportions. My advice is —
and I cannot state it too strongly, particularly as you wish to
be an artistic photographer, and not merely a dabbler in,
chemistry — keep to one developer, and let that be as simple
as possible. I have used one developer only since I com-
menced with dry plates, and have not found any want of
quality in my negatives ; but perhaps I am easily pleased in

PRELIMINARY. 7

this respect. This developer was suggested by Mr. B. J.
Edwards, and is as follows : —

No. 1. — Pyrogallic acid ... 1 ounce

Citric acid 40 grains

Water 7£ ounces

Ufa. 2. — Bromide of potassium 120 grains

Water 7 ounces

Ammonia '880... .., ... 1 ounce

To make the developer, take three ounces of water and add
one dram of No. 1 and one dram of No. 2. This quantity
should be sufficient to develop a 10 by 8 plate. There are
occasions when the quantity of No. 2 should be increased or
diminished. If you prefer any other developer, such as the
carbonate of soda, which is now much used, I have no
objection ; all I ask is, that you should keep as much as
possible to one developer, and study it thoroughly.

That is all I have to say on the technical or chemical side
of photography in this place ; but don't mistake me. There
are those who look upon technical excellence with indiffer-
ence, but I would not have you be one of them. While I
look upon great manipulative skill by itself as good work
thrown away, there cannot be the least doubt that bad
workmanship mars good ideas, and it is distressing to see
beautiful conceptions wasted by the slovenly way in which
they are sometimes set forth. It is fortunate, however, that
great mechanical excellence is now within easy reach of any
ordinarily intelligent mind. Plates and almost all other
materials are now so prepared for the use of the photo-
grapher, that with care and attention to instructions it is
difficult to go wrong. But there is this to be said. Th*

3 PRELIMINARY.

student must have a good knowledge of what a negative
really ought to be. He must also learn how the " values "
of nature should appear in a print, and he will find that his
mechanical means will enable him to get what he desires.
This power of seeing values belongs to the art side of
photography, and is not so easily attained ; but what T want
to point out is, that when you can " see," there is no great
difficulty in mastering the mechanical means of representing
what you see. I do not, therefore, go into the preliminary
chemical rudiments of photography, but assume your know-
ledge, and leave you to perfect it from any of the manuals
now published, and of which Abney's is one of the best.

No. II.— Art in Photography.

AFTER several weeks, in which you have certainly not been
idle, I have received the prints taken from negatives pro-
duced with the new apparatus, and find them most inte-
resting. They show that you have completely conquered
the slight difficulties met with on the scientific side of
photography, so wrongly thought by many to be the end of
the art, and are now ready to try to make pictures with the
tools you have selected, as other artists select whether they
will use the brush, the chisel, or the graver. Your prints
show a great approach to mechanical excellence ; they are
fair to see, they are sharp, clear, soft, rich, of good colour,
but they are not pictures. They tell us nothing, there is
not an idea in the lot ; they are dead bodies, admirably
embalmed, without a soul amongst them. I speak very
frankly, as I could not help gathering from your letter that
you think these prints, because of their mechanical excel-
lencies, approach very near to perfection ; but I am anxious
that mere executive dexterity should not have the first place
in your mind.

Touching this same " something" beyond mere mechanical
perfection in photographs, I think I had better say what I
have to say about it at once, and get it out of the way.
That much vexed question, Is art possible in photography ?

10 ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY.

has been discussed over and over again, yet I have always
been content to keep out of the controversy, and with
endeavouring to show, however feebly, in my work, how art
could be made of it. I have never called myself an art
photographer — that title is usually usurped by those who
know nothing of art — but have been content and proud to
call myself simply a photographer, thinking it better to
leave pretension to those who pretend. ^Nevertheless, I have
always held a very firm belief, and had a profound faith, that
photography used by an artist produces art.

The lines of those who now try to put a little art feeling
into their photographs are laid in pleasanter places than
were those who made the attempt a few years ago. There
are still some who deny that anything artistic can be done
by a photographer, but it is my experience that the best
painters now call the photographer " brother" when he
deserves it, and recognise that he can put thought, intention,
and even a vein of poetry into his work — that mysterious
something beyond the border line of hard fact which is felt
perhaps more than seen in a picture. Of course, it is only
those who produce art, in whatever material, who should be
called artists. Original genius is one of the rarest gifts in
this age of imitation. Anything absolutely new seems to be
almost impossible. Emerson says : " The new in art is
always formed out of the old," and unfortunately some of
those original geniuses who create their novelties out of old
ideas are not unlike that divine

" Who took his discourse from the famed Dr. Browne,
But preached it so vilely he made it his own."

It does not seem to be rightly understood what art is. A
man might be a good painter or a good photographer without

ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. 11

being an artist at all. A man who paints is not an artist
because he paints, or a photographer an artist because he
photographs. Both are artists when they can produce fine
art with either paint or chemicals, or any other materials.
The fact is the critics have confounded the art with the
operator. There can be no question that ninety-nine per
cent, of the immense mass of photographs produced year
after year have no claim to rank as art any more than the
works of the million of art students in this country can rank
as art. That, however, is no reason why art cannot be pro-
duced by the camera. Every candid person knows it is, as
usual, a question of degree. Art has been and is produced in the
camera; the great difference is, that it is more difficult to pro-
duce art with our instruments than with the brush. I should
be rash if I attempted to define minutely what fine art is, but
I will limit myself to accepting the dictum that " art is the
result, in the first place, of seeing rightly, and in the second
place of feeling rightly, about what is seen." I also hold it
true that " art is interpretation by means of a creative idea,
and never a stupidly exact copy." There are, of course, in-
capable photographers, as there are incapable painters, but
that is not the question. The question is, is it possible for
a photographer to put his own ideas into his work, to alter,
add to, or modify ; or is photography to be, as Mr. Mantilini
would say, " one demmed eternal grind?"

The camera may be a machine if you like ; I will go
further, and admit that it is a machine, but you cannot be a
machine if you would, and will not be able to prevent your-
self putting yourself into your work for better or worse ;
indeed, there is so much mannerism in the work of many
photographers, that one who is used to studying photographs

12 ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY.

scarcely requires the names of the producers. A year or
two ago I was one of the judges at an exhibition. The
names of the photographers were not given to us, but I soon
found we were talking of the pictures as the work of So-and-
so, and So-and-so, almost as freely as if we had been supplied
with the names.

I have seen it argued somewhere, that the charm and
value of art consist in every case of its difference from
nature as well as its likeness to it. There is just a slight
streak of truth running through the idea. The difference is
often the root of our enjoyment ; old facts are presented
to us in a new way and become more interesting, but when
it is claimed that every step in advance from the mirror
or camera to the master-pieces of painting and sculpture
is a step of difference, we must pause. When the ' ' differ-
ence" shows a purpose, an idea, or a sentiment, then the
piece that is differentiated from nature becomes a work of
art.

There is more common sense spoken about art now than
there used to be. There is not so much said about the
"' awe-inspiring mysteries." The painter now kindly allows
that others may care for and are able to see and feel the
beauties of nature. More than twenty years ago, when the
opposition to art in photography was at its fiercest, there
was a capital article on landscape painting in a now dead
review. Of course its tendency was against there being any
art in anything but paint. It was particularly severe on the
" Chemical Mechanic," and the author gives an illustration
of how out of sympathy with nature the camera is. His
illustration depends on the quality of the photographer he
introduces. The mere fact of using a camera does not put a

ART IN PHOTOGEAPHY. 13

man out of tune with nature. That the exact opposite is
the fact would be nearer the truth. The perfect and un-
adulterated loveliness of the conceit, that none but the painter
artist can see and feel nature, is delicious. This is what he
says:

" To begin with sympathy. In the midst of the forest
when you are alone, and are beginning to hear the finer
sounds, the turn of the leaf, the thud of the nut, did you
ever feel as if you were an attraction there, as if all were
drawing round you? I remember, when touring in Scot-
land, swinging out of a wood on the top of the stage from
Oban, into a wide space of sea and sky, with a glorious fore-
ground of cattle and their doubles in the lucid shallows of
the bay ; colour so pure, so bright, so precious, that it drew
a grunt of admiration from the Highlander on the box. I
was put down and disposed myself quietly in a corner of
the wood, and was soon part of the colour, from the water
to the sky. The ripple hardly broke louder than my pulse.
Presently a stoat bounds into the road, and I had time to
observe what enjoyment of life there was in the unalarmed,
untamed step of the creature. The heron rose near me ; and
as I was beginning to take it all in with half-shut eyes, and
to remark how the powerful tones of the cattle, fawn and
flame colour, white and yellow, blood-red and black, seemed
to give infinitude to space — a photographer walks briskly
before me, and with an air and noise of satisfaction begins to
open and adjust his box. I give you my word that the
look of quiet horror that came over the scene was unmis-
takable— not horror exactly — did you ever remark the face
of a girl when she sets it? It was precisely that. Kot
only did the stoat disappear, but — I don't know whether it

14 ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY.

was the creaking of the machine, or the business-like stare
of the man — the cattle grew conscious and uncomfortable,
and it was not without satisfaction that I saw a mist creep
up from the sea, and steal away the shimmer and the charm.
I left him some cows lashing their tails, some blackthorn and
Scotch fir, and the average coast formation."

All this is very fancifully and prettily written, and it
serves to show with what contempt the painter treated the
photographer twenty years ago. This sort of tip-tilting of
the nose at photography as an art is only possible now with
fifth-rate painters, or, in the press, with their friends, or
those who have failed in art.

Anyhow, what you have to do, and what other photo-
graphers have to do who care for the status of their prof ession,
is to keep pegging away at the production of good pictures.
Taking pleasure in your work, but never being satisfied ;
being always determined that the next picture shall be
better than the last, your feeling for nature will increase
and become more intense, and this love for and better under-
standing will shine forth in your work. As you progress
you will find that, metaphorically, the stoat will be no longer
startled or the bird disappear, the machine will no longer
creak, and — who knows? — you may feel that you are an
attraction to nature, and she may draw all around you as she
did round the young gentleman who lay down in the corner
of the wood.

You may console yourself further; you may feel that
photography has taught art to artists. It is acknowledged
that portrait painting has enormously advanced since the
introduction of photography. Painters are now ashamed of
the conventional absurdities of the pre-photographic days,

ART IN PHOTOGRAPHY. 15

when they " had plenty of taste and all of it very bad."
The column with voluminous curtains dangling from the
skies is now never seen.

Perhaps the photographer has taught the lesson, as the
Spartans cured drunkenness, by showing awful examples;
but the lesson was learnt, and portrait painting is now the one
thing we have reason to be proud of in English art. Photo-
graphers had nothing but bad examples to follow in the
portraiture of thirty or forty 'years ago, and most of their
early faults in taste and composition were due to the painter's
work, which was then worshipped as art, and is now looked
upon with contempt.

No, III,

The Photographer's Control over
His Subject.

LET us now go into the country, camera in hand. Here,
at the outset, I meet with a difficulty which places me at a
great disadvantage. I shall have to refer to the aspects of
nature, aud your nature differs, I believe, considerably from
the kind we have in England, and I can only refer to the
scenery of this part of the world . I have to confess with sorrow
that I have never been in the States. I have had many
invitations and a few chances, which I feel ashamed of not
having accepted, but in spite of Shakespere's saying,

" Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits,"
I have never been able to tear myself away from home,
especially as I feel it impossible to disabuse myself of the
doubtless erroneous notion that the more accessible Wales
contains in itself all the elements of foreign travel — moun-
tain, lake, ruin, rock, and river, as well as a most picturesque
seaboard — besides a language which few but born natives
can understand.

This is of the less consequence, as when you were here at

CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. 17

Tunbridge Wells we took many walks together in the
neighbourhood, and when I talk of heather, gorse, and whin,
you will understand what I mean, and turn the application
to scenes in your own country. Besides, were you not with
me during that delightful^ fortnight in North Wales, when
it first dawned upon you that there might be something in the
claims of photography as an art ? But this came to you only
after one of the two Eoyal Academicians, who were of the
party, had fiercely advocated our cause (in which the other,
being Scotch, cautiously agreed), and demonstrated that it
was not the material, but the man, that produced fine art.
It was there also where Gelligynan, Llanarmon, Dwygyfylchi,
Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, and other names of places, were too
much for your tongue, and compelled you to quote, with
your usual readiness, the lines from the Ingoldsby Legends :

" For the vowels made use of in Welsh are so few,
That the A and the E, the I, 0, and the U,
Have really but little or nothing to do ;
And the duty, of course, falls the heavier by far,
On the L and the H, and the N and the R."

Above all — and to me this is of the greatest importance — it
was there that you were first inspired to do or die as an
artistic photographer, and determined to carry the world
with a fifty- shilling set. When you assisted me to get some
pictures it seemed to you so easy to do my part of the work,
which you said consisted principally in shouting, while you
were acting as cowboy, collecting the cattle together and
worrying them about until I got the three white cows in
exactly the position in the group I desired, and when you
defied the big brindled bull— like another Buffalo Bill—
while I photographed him. A short description of the

18

CONTROL OVER SUBJECT.

photographing of one of these cattle pictures — a type of
man} others — may be of interest to other readers than
yourself. Here is a reduction of it :

CALLING THE COWS.

It is a much quoted proverb that everything comes to him
who waits. In this age of hurry it is not everybody who
can wait — it is said to be especially difficult on your side of
the water, so perhaps I am suggesting something you would
find impossible ; but I waited for this picture as I have often
waited for other subjects. Two years ago it struck me that
there was the material for a good subject in this bit of
meadow, trees and stream ; I therefore made a rough sketch
of it in my pocket-book, indicating the cattle and the figure
as objects I must get in somehow. I even noted down the
title, " Calling the Cows." At that time there were no
cows in the field, but there were some very pretty calves,
which the farmer told me would not be removed for a year
or two, so I could wait for them to grow. At the same

CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. 19

time the banks of the stream were so overgrown with
underwood, and the trunks of the trees so covered with
foliage, that the pretty glimpse of the river was lost, and
the best part of the picture would have been obscured by a
dense mass of alder leaves. Orders were given to have all
this obstruction, as well as one of the trees, cleared
away during the following winter. The next summer the
hand of the hedger was too plainly visible, and the picture
was allowed to wait still another year for the effect of the
severe pruning to be outgrown.

Critics say photography can have no control over nature.
This erroneous notion has often been confuted ; nearly every
photographer worthy of his camera makes some changes in
the subject before him. To show that he may make even
considerable changes in the aspect of a scene I give a view
taken from the same spot, but with different figures, before
the alteration :

TRESPASSERS,

Everything was ready last summer. The calves had grown

20 CONTROL OVER SUBJECT.

up into young cows, and we soon prepared a figure to call
them. "What a delightful morning that was ! How you, with
two or three other assistants, worked at getting the cows to-
gether so that the right coloured animals should come in the
right place, and that they should express the feeling of being
called. How we failed again and again, and how we got
them at last so that I did not find anything in them that I
should care to alter ! Yet some people say : " How lucky
you were to find such a beautiful group of cattle in such a
picturesque place !"

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance;" so
also in picture-making, it is better to rely on the art which
you may depend upon, than the chance which may fail you.
Touching the figure calling the cows, do you remember the
first time you saw her ? Do you remember the first day you
joined as I took you for a walk along a rural lane, where you
were surprised to find a poor girl in rags hard at work at a
large and masterly painting in oils of the scene before her ?
How I said nothing, but allowed you to admire and wonder
if this was the ordinary occupation of the aboriginal Welsh
girl, and how astonished you were when you found the poor
tatterdemalion was a clever lady-artist, whose works are often
well placed in the Eoyal Academy Exhibitions, and who had
so often to act as one of my models that she found it more
convenient to wear the clothes until we gave up work for the
day?

It was on this holiday you first learned to see. Our party
consisted almost entirely of artists, and some of them were
entomologists and botanists, all worshippers of nature. The
talk, the thought, was all of nature and how to imitate her,

CONTROL OVER SUBJECT. 21

and there you had your first lessons in noticing, like
Browning's Lippo Lippi,

"The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades, changes,
surprises."

This faculty of artistic sight, or, indeed, the faculty of
seeing anything, only conies with training. The ordinary
observer only takes a superficial view of things. He is
sensible that the view is " pretty." He may even go so far
as to feel the grandeur of a mountain, but he can have no
feeling of the exquisite sense of beauty that appeals to the
trained mind. The artist can get very real enjoyment out of
objects and sights in which the ordinary eye would only see
the common-place. The average man only sees the most
gaudy of the flowers and butterflies, the entomologist and
botanist see realms of beauty that do not exist for the other,
and so it is throughout all the arts and sciences. I will not
further enforce this necessity for learning to see here, as I
shall, I hope, have further opportunities of alluding to the
subject. I will content myself with saying that to see
artistically you must learn art. To do this you must learn
what has been considered as the backbone of art for all ages
— composition. Of late years it has been the fashion with a
certain school of painters to decry composition as artificial,
false, and quite too old-fashioned for modern use ; but I notice
that the more these painters emerge from their pupilage state,
the more do their pictures show that they are glad to make
use of the old, old rules. Rules were never intended to
cramp the artist's intellect, and I have never advocated that
the artist should be the slave of any system; but I know the
value of what are called the Laws of Composition and

22 CONTROL OVER SUBJECT.

Chiaroscuro when used as a walking stick to help you along,
and not as a crutch to lean upon.

It is time we got out the camera, so I will finish with what
I have to say in this letter hefore we begin our work.

Enjoy your work, or drop it. You can never do good work
as a task ; good photography, perhaps, but not good art. One
of the best things said by "William Hunt, whose delightful
" Talks on Art " are as much enjoyed in England as in his
native country, was, " Draw firm, and be jolly !"

You must enjoy even your failures, for one of the best
teachers is failure. Like the poets,

" Who learn in suffering what they teach in song,"

the art photographer teaches himself by his mistakes, and
arrives at beauty through much tribulation. I don't ask you
to so far enjoy your failures as to welcome them with joy
whenever they arise, but you may rejoice that there is some-
thing more to overcome, and that you will be the better for
it. On the other hand, don't be too easily contented. Art
is not easy, and it is only the incapable who are always
pleased.

To conclude, I will quote another "William Hunt — old
William Hunt, the painter of Birdsnests, Primroses, Country
Life. His advice used to be,

" Paint what you love, and love what you paint."

No, IV.— The Choice of Subject,

A.S to the choice of subject. A great deal has been claimed
for the extraordinary range of art, " from the hues of a
cabbage leaf to the sufferings of a Christ." " Nay, there is
nothing that man has ever dreamed, or hoped, or feared,
suffered, enjoyed, or sinned in, which is not a subject matter
for art," says Mr. Quilter, one of the most acute art critics
of our time. Eut all who practise art must appreciate the
limitations of the particular department of art which they
practise. The painter in oil has the widest range and an
almost unlimited choice of subjects ; the water-colourist has
a narrower scope, so also has the sculptor ; and shall I be
wide of the mark when I say, it is left for the photographer
to show the greatest ingenuity in the choice of subjects
in which to exhibit his skill as an artist ?

The photographer should try to understand and be satisfied
with the limitations with which he is " cribbed, cabined, and
confined," and endeavour to turn them to his use, or
rather find in the very limitation a certain fitness and use,
because it clears away a vast number of impossible subjects,
confines his study in a narrower groove, and enables him to
give more complete attention to "the things that are his."

We are in the habit of claiming for photography an
• unlimited range of subjects, from the infinitely little to the
infinitely remote ; from the microscopic diatom dredged up
from the depths of the ocean, to the infinitely distant

24 THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT.

nebula in star-packed space ; but there are some things that
may be possible which are yet unaccomplished.

In landscape photography, which is our present subject,
there are one or two things that have not been done. For
instance, have you ever seen a photograph in which one very
common fact in nature is adequately represented — I mean
the effect of storm and wind on an inland landscape ? I say
inland, because such effects are easy enough in sea pictures .
The effect often seen in pictures by Salvator Eosa and
Gaspar Poussin. The bending and swaying branches of the
trees, the driven sky and the fluttering garments of the
figures. The effect of wind is, unfortunately, too often to
be found in photographs, always to the disfigurement of
the picture, but no "lightning" or " special instantaneous "
plate has yet been made that could enable us to do justice
to the grand and pictorially fit effects I have suggested.

Then, again, I have never seen a photograph which gave
me any proper idea of mountains. Photographs of the Alps
always remind me of toy mountains, and I want to see a
child's Noah's Ark on the highest peaks. Perhaps it is
because we now-a-days make such fun of what were once
inaccessible solitudes. We go up Ararat on a bicycle,
instead of waiting for the orthodox flood as jSToah did.

There is another effect which has never been quite
properly captured. In a mountainous country, when the
sun has set to the observer it still shines on the mountains.
The effect is often one of the most beautiful in nature, but
the non-actinic colour of the sun's rays at that time of the
evening has hitherto prevented anything like success in
photographing this subject. As Milton says : —

" Yet from these flames,
"No light, but rather darkness visible."

THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. 25

However, this is a difficulty that may soon be added to the
many conquered in the past. Orthochromatic plates will
solve this problem, and when you have obtained a really
fine example of the effect, here is a title for it (there is a
good deal in a title) from Tennyson's new " Locksley Hall,"
but make the picture worthy of the line : —

" Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day."

This reminds one of another important thing. Never
give your picture a title it cannot support. I like good
titles. I don't mind even if there is a bit of sentiment
— not sentimentality — in them, so that it is healthy, and
the boundary between the sublime and ridiculous be not
overstepped ; but beware of anything in the nature of an
anti-climax. If you have a picture in an exhibition, and
the spectator, before seeing your poor little work, reads an
ultra-poetical title, with perhaps a verse attached to it in
the catalogue, his expectations will be so raised that when
he sees the picture he may feel a cold fit of disillusionizing
jb^thos come over him that he may remember against you
for some time.

While I am talking of titles, I may just add an illustration
of how it is possible to go wrong in naming even the
simplest subjects. I am told that the cows in the photograph
of which I gave a reduction in my last letter were not
cows at all, but are what are called in Scotland " Stirks."
I am quite aware that the natives of that far country, with
an independance which is perhaps praiseworthy but slightly
puzzling, call things by names beyond the comprehension
of other parts of the world, yet I believe I am almost wrong
in calling these animals cows. Some of them may attain the
dignity of cowhood by-and-bye.

26 THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT.

Now for subjects that are possible.

It is a true saying that each student must discover for
himself what is beautiful. It is not every kind of scene
that appeals to the feelings of all alike. Some of us delight
in particular kinds of landscapes, some like grandeur, others
are content with quiet simplicity. " Each of us is con-
stituted," writes Mr. Hamerton, with, perhaps, not a few
verbal impediments, "with a special idiosyncrasy related
in some mysterious way to a certain class of natural scenery,
and when we find ourselves in a scene answering to our
idiosyncrasy, the mind feels itself at home there, and
rapidly attaches itself by affection."

The student may be guided in his search for beauty, but
it is not wise in a teacher to insist too strongly on what is
picturesque or the reverse. Many painters will make good
pictures out of subjects which would seem to be quite
inadequate to others. Many of the greatest landscapes are
of the most ordinary scenes. What could be more common-
place than the scenery of Gainsborough's " Market Cart,'7
Turner's "Frosty Morning," or any of the pictures by
De "Wint and David Cox ? A writer I have already quoted
has written so much to the point on this subject, that I can-
not help quoting him again.

" When an old Greek made a perfect statue, he made it
(so at least says one school of sestheticians) with absolutely
no i'eeling, save that of enjoyment of its beauty ; all other
meaning, all other emotion, was unnecessary. He wished
simply to produce a beautiful thing ; he produced it, and it
was good. But it is a very curious thing to note, though a
little consideration will convince any art student of the truth
of the fact, that there has never been in the world a great

THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. 27

school of landscape painting, or even a great landscape painter,
whose motive has been restricted in like degree to the beauty,
pure and simple, of nature. Landscape painters have con-
tinually sought beautiful scenes, and painted them with more
or less ability ; but the greater the man, the more individual,,
the more personal to himself, and to men in general, have
been his pictures. And so truly is this the case, that the
rank of great landscape painters might almost be determined
by reference to this fact alone. Beauty sought per se in
landscape has always hitherto destroyed itself; and people
have turned ignorantly but determinedly from the composi-
tions of snowy Alps, clustered vines, and deep-blue waters of
Italy, to gaze upon David Cox's muddy lanes, sheltered by
dark trees, beneath whose shadow the peasants plod wearily
homeward ; or on a picture of some bleak expanse of rain-
beaten moorland, across which a belated traveller struggles
in the teeth of the wind."

Don't be so conceited as to fancy there are so few subjects
sufficiently important for your camera. Of all things, simple
subjects obtain the widest sympathy. Simple things appeal
to everybody; the commonplace is always attractive when
well treated. These simple scenes have the advantage of
exercising the photographer's picture-making abilities more
than the more obvious and grander subjects. It is a greater
triumph to find beauty worth recording in every-day homely
scenes than in those of which every amateur can feel the
beauty. Many a commonplace scene, as I hope to show,
requires only the proper lighting, and perhaps a figure of the
right kind in the right place, to make it beautiful.

Let us, in imagination, stand on this wide piece of waste
land, covered with gorse and broom and bramble, and

28 THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT.

experimentalize a little in " effects." "We are on high
ground, and all around us is presented good middle distance
bounded by low hills. Bits of broken foreground, one of the
most important parts of a photographic landscape, are to be
met with everywhere. Materials for pictures are here in
quantity, but there is nothing very striking, nothing that
shouts aloud, "Come take me!" Here is a chance for
selection and treatment. Subjects are so plentiful, that the
best picture — other things being equal — will be the one that
is best lighted. Let us stand with the sun behind our backs
and observe the scene. We find it, although beautiful in
itself, pictorially flat and tame. The sunlight, being directly
upon every object, affords no shadow. The sun, being broad
on everything, allows no breadth of light and shadow. There
is no relief, no mystery. The equal illumination flattens all
before us. Now turn half-way round and you will have the
scene lighted from the side. There is more relief, and this
kind of lighting is very suitable to many subjects, but there
is still more relief and still more picturesque effect to be
obtained. Turn so that the sun is nearly — not quite — in front
of you. Now we get the utmost amount of relief, and
in this case breadth, for the great mass of gorse and
junipers in shadow, their edges being only just skimmed or
kissed with sunlight, form a broad mass of dark which is
opposed to a grand wedge-shaped breadth of broken sandbank
in sunlight, which fills nearly half of the picture. "We now
only want a dark object, which shall be the darkest in the
picture, joined with if possible a precious speck of white, to
put the whole into tone, and afford us all the elements of the
picturesque, balance of composition, breadth of light and
shade, and tone.

THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT. 2#

I want to avoid, if possible, going too fully into any part
of my subject, on which I have written at length in my
little handbooks. About composition and chiaroscuro
I have said all that is necessary in " Pictorial Effect,"
but there has been so much said about "Tone" — and,
what is nearly the same thing, " Values " — of late years, that
I may as well have a word or two on the subject here.

" Values," or the right relation of one shade to another in
a picture, appears to be looked upon by the young school as
the newest and most marvellous discovery in art. " Tone,"
or the right relation of one shade to another in a picture,
is as old as art itself." Some people — especially those
painters who call themselves of the naturalistic school — seem
to think this is the only aim and end of art. It is really
only part of the beginning. A picture without tone can
never be pleasing in effect, but it must contain a great deal
more than this to be effective.

The study of tone is of more importance to the painter
than the photographer, althou gh a knowledge of it is of vast
use to the latter. In photography, tone, like drawing, is done
for the artist, if his work is properly accomplished, and both
may be untrue if he does not understand his work. A scene
may be distorted — put out of drawing — by a bungling use of
the camera and lens, and the values in a photograph may be
entirely falsified by under or over-exposure or development.
A due appreciation of values, also, enables the photographer
to choose and add to his views, as I have already pointed out
in selecting the scene on the common. It is especially use-
ful in relation to the introduction of figures. The lights and
shades and leading lines of a scene may be all out of tune,
but the introduction of a figure of the right value may

30

THE CHOICE OF SUBJECT.

" pull it together." I cannot do better than recommend you
to read carefully a little book I have already quoted,
" Hunt's Talks about Art." The author is mad on values,
and goes far towards making his reader mad also. It is
delightful reading, full of quaint thoughts, admirable
advice, apposite anecdotes, sound sense, and bewildering con-
tradictions.

No. V.— On the Mountain.

JUST the day for photography! The wind is still; not a
breath shivers the delicate leaves of the Lombardy poplars ;
the sky is not quite cloudless, for numbers of small clouds
lloat lazily over the blue, affording varieties of lighting, either
all sunlight, all shade, or, by careful waiting and observation,
a little of each — often useful when softness and sparkle are
wanted in the same picture. I don't think I can do better
than imagine you are with me. It may be, like a legal fiction,
most convenient ; besides, you know the scenery. Fill your
slides, look over your camera to see that everything is in
order, for however sure you may be that everything is right,
it is always best to have an inspection before marching. To
forget a screw, if you have a loose one, and only discover
your loss when you are miles from home and the view before
you is " perfect," is to promote, possibly suicide, certainly
profanity. There are some things better left at home if you
unfortunately possess them. One of them is any kind of
actinometer. I never knew anything but harm from this
instrument when used to help to judge exposure. Another
perfectly useless worry can be got out of " exposure tables."
It takes all the " go" out of a picture if you have to do a
sum in arithmetic when you ought to be concentrating all
your heart, and mind, and soul, on your subject. Knowledge
of exposure must come by experience to be of use. No

32

ON THE MOUNTAIN.

calculations based on length, of focus and stop are of any
service to a practical photographer. All other things heing
equal — which they never are — they would be an infallible
guide, but otherwise they are misleading. After the plate
has been exposed, and the excitement is over, it would be
useful to make a few notes for further guidance — such as
kind of plate, lens, stop, and length of time, also of the light
and nature of the scene.

Besides the apparatus there is another very important help
to picture making, which is seldom thought of — some models.
It does not matter much what kind they are, whether old
men, young girls or children, or mixed ; the one thing of the
utmost importance is that they shall be appropriate to the
scene, for there must be no suggestion of sham about the
finished results.

The illustration, which was done on a day that turned out
unfit for good work with the camera, shows some of my

ON THE MOUNTAIN. 33

models. A painter is making use of one of them, while two
others are watching the artist, and another is reading in the
foreground. One of the many disappointments which happen
frequently to the photographer is to go out fully prepared to
do a good day's work, and to see the quality of the light
collapse as he walks to his ground.

We will have a lofty beginning to day. Let us go to the top
of the mountain — Moel-y-plas — a hillock you called it, with
your transatlantic contempt for little things, but it is
1,442 ft. 8 in. high, according to the minutely exact calcula-
tion of the Ordnance Survey, and at least affords us that sense
of standing on a round world spoken of by the author of Adam
Bede as one of the out-door delights she most cared for.
Shall we find a picture here ? The hill is glorious with
purple heather just coming into flower, green ferns and
bracken, mingled with the orange and brown of last year's
decay — new life springing from death. As we ascend, we
startle a brood of grouse, which goes whirring down the
valley. We need not mind them now ; next month their
turn may come. The land dips into valleys all around us ;
to the north the lovely vale of Clwyd, beyond which, afar off,
is a glimpse of the pale grey sea ; to the south, the Llanarmon
valley running for miles in the direction of Chester ; and to
the west, the grand range of mountains known as Snowdonia.
"We are standing on the oldest bit of Britain, from the
geological formation down to the Druids. The scene calls up
memories on which every Welshman loves to dwell. There
rise up before us in mental vision, Llewellyn and his
dog, Owain Glyndwr, and .King Arthur and his round
table ; but this is not what we are here for. The
question of the moment is, Where are we to point our

34 ON THE MOUNTAIN.

camera? I cannot see anything that will afford a good
subject. A magnificent view is before us, " palpitating with
actuality," but it is beyond our reach. It would be
impossible to give any adequate representation of those
distant hills — they would be dwarfed into insignificance, and,
if relied on to come on the same plate as the foreground,
over-exposed to the verge of blankness. The foreground is
too insignificant in itself to make a picture, and the view,
as aview, consists of the valleys and mountains. So we must
remember the limitations of our art, and give up the
impossible ; but don't pack up the camera, for here comes our
picture. Here is a group of children, five of them, gathering
bilberries : we will give up the mountains for the present, and
make a picture of the children. We will send one of our
young lady models to make friends with them and rub
off the edge of their shyness. That she is dressed in shabby
clothes will be in her favour; the children will be more
natural and familiar with her. We will select a spot where
the undergrowth is not too dense, but broken up with plain
patches of turf or bare earth. You have already made up
your mind roughly how the group shall be arranged, and
have placed the camera approximately on the right spot, and
f ocussed, pulling out the top of the swing-back before focus-
sing, so as to get greater depth of definition from foreground to
distance. The more exact focussing may be left until the
group is nearly ready.

Two children to the left of the picture, three to the right,
and, to make a principal point, the trained model, not quite in
the middle of the picture, but a little to the left of the centre,
and nearer the camera than the others. Let the principal
figure be standing with her left arm outstretched over a

ON THE MOUNTAIN. 35

large basket, looking to the ground on the left, as if searching
for berries. She, knowing what is expected of her, will not
stand in an awkward attitude, resting evenly on both feet,
but you may rely on her, when you have given her the leading
idea, to carry it out instantly. The sun is shining to the right
front of the camera, throwing out the figure dark against the
distant mountains, but touched with a brilliant edging of
sunlight. Take care in exposing to lift the cap as if it were
hinged to the top of the hood of the lens, for it will then act
as a sunshade. If the least touch of sunlight rests on the

SKETCH FOB. PICTURE.

glass during exposure, the plate will be hopelessly fogged.
It is with the children that the trouble comes. This, however,
we get over with a little patience, taking care that each
figure appears to be as unconscious of the camera as possible.
^Now expose two or perhaps three seconds. . . That stupid
child looked up, just as you took off the cap, to see why you
'were keeping her waiting so long. Quick! another plate
before she is aware you mean another. That is the picture.
It is often the second shot that brings down the bird.
To succeed with a picture of this kind requires quickness

36 ON THE MOUNTAIN.

of decision, and the faculty of seeing at once what ought to
be done, and promptly acting on that insight. The photo-
grapher also must be able, without hesitating or waiting for
words, to say, or oftener to shout, the right thing at the
right time to the models. In fact, the life of the picture
depends on your doing absolutely the right thing in several
directions on the spur of the moment. This facility can only
be attained by long practice, good knowledge of composition
and light and shade, and keen observation of effect.

In the scene described above, the figures predominate over
the landscape. We will now reverse the effect, and the land-
scape shall be of the most importance. We won't give up the
mountain now we have taken the trouble to climb so high.
Let us see if we can get a good picture by taking it on two
plates instead of one. Some people say that combination
printing is not quite orthodox, but whether it is so or not,
let us break away sometimes. It is awfully dull to be always
correct. It is not easy to an active mind to be satisfied with
' ' the priceless merit of being common-place." The difficulties
of the subject before us are these : we have a near foreground
of comparatively dark and non-actinic character, a blue sky
with some small strongly defined clouds, a distance composed
of grey blue mountains, and middle distance ; this latter
point of the scene, however, is a long way off. The problem
• is how to combine these apparently incompatible elements,
giving the least prominence to the foreground. No lens
would get the foreground and distance together with anything
like a passable focus, and no dodging of the exposure would
afford both the widely different times they would require.
These \ difficulties are easily surmounted by combination
printing. Get the immediate foreground on the plate with

ON THE MOUNTAIN. 37

an exposure of, say, ten seconds (for you will use a small
stop), and all the other part of the picture on another plate,
with an exposure, say, of one second. These exposures are
only approximate. It would be better in practice, in taking
the distance, to move the camera forward a little, so as to
take in more than is required ; this will facilitate the joining.
I have fully described the various methods of combination
printing which may be of use to the landscape photographer
in " Silver Printing," and it would scarcely be worth while
to go over the subject again.

No, VI.— Various Subjects.

"WE did not finish the day's work in the last letter. Indeed,
we have only taken one picture, and parts of another. But
if that one picture is right, we have done a good day's work.
For I do not count the value of the day's work by the
quantity of pictures secured ; yet I, as do all other enthu-
siastic photographers, like to get all I can out of one of the
few days in the year that are perfect for the practice of our
art.

On our way up the mountain we passed a small lake —
Llyn Gweryd — a wild tarn amongst the hills, on which we
have often enjoyed pleasant sails and rows in the summer
days, and fishing with the long line from the punt in the
evening twilight of the days in the photographic time of
year. Let us see what kind of picture we can make of the
boat-house, which is a picturesque, weather-worn, wooden
building, covered with decayed and moss-grown thatch.
"We get out the old punt, in which there is room for ten or a
dozen people. This we draw to the bank to the right of
our picture, and it makes a grand object for our foreground.
It should keep clear of the boathouse, which is to the left,
and allow the boat and any figures we may have to appear
dark against the shining waters of the lake beyond. In the
middle distance is a tiny island with a tree or two on it, and
beyond, a beautiful curve of the banks of the lake, fringed
with low trees and undergrowth, and backed with hills
which are far enough off to look pale and atmospheric.
This is not a case for rustic figures, so our models are useless.

VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 39

But here come some of the lazy people from the house who
find it too hot to paint or play tennis. "We will impress
them into our service. We will take the camera a sufficient
distance away to avoid making the figures too important.
What we want is a landscape with a little life in it to give
additional interest. The party from the house is coming
nearer. Don't let them know what you are going to do.
The punt is so placed that some of them, with their aquatic
propensities, cannot fail to jump ahoard. It follows as I
said. One of the men takes up a hoat-hook and walks to
the head of the punt to steady it while the others get in.
Another man now jumps in, and is helping a lady to get on
board, while several others stand on the hank waiting their
turn. Now is your time. Yell out, " Steady all, keep
your places." They know what you mean, and keep as they
are while you make a little alteration in the group — not
more than you can help, and without fuss.

The man with the boathook should put some action into
his figure, and the others should be intent on what they are
doing; but don't exaggerate; don't let the figures look as
though it were a matter of life and death to them to look
natural.

Nature does not always compose. Awkward lines will
happen ; and there is that stupid native carpenter, who has
been at work repairing the boat-house, and looks on with
wonder to see what we are doing, standing just where he
will come in the picture. Take him by the arm and run
away with him. There is no time to explain, and he will
understand nothing less. The camera should be quite
ready. You know where all the points are, and have had
time to focus, arrange the swinj&JgtfdffMti^iaake all the

40 VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

other little arrangements, so that nothing is left but to
expose. " You cry out, " Steady all!" and in two or three
seconds you have certainly secured a fine picture.

You could have taken all this with a drop shutter, but
let us see what you would have missed.

In the first place, you must have used a large aperture to
your lens, and as the figures must, whatever else suffers, be
in focus, the lovely distance would have been blurred and
disfigured. Now I don't mind a part of a photograph
being out of focus when necessary, or when it is conducive
to pictorial effect ; but this is a kind of picture in which
moderate definition is required in all parts. Just a little
softening of the distance through being slightly out of focus
would not matter, but it must not amount to astigmatism,
as it would have done if the full aperture had been used.
But it is not the optical point that is the most important.
Your picture is now the result of design, not accident. For
if it had been taken instantaneously without the figures
knowing what was going on, it would have been full of
faults, and all the credit you could have taken would have
been for the selection of the subject and laying out the
punt like a trap to catch the figures — all very creditable in
its way, but not complete. As it was, you had to select
your moment, improve the pose of the figures, remove the
carpenter, and, as I was glad to see you do, all out of your
own head, alter the oars on the ground so that they should
not make objectionable lines, and improve the composition
by arranging the heap of boat cushions and shawls as a
balancing point.

However tempting it may be to take another picture, with
variations, of the boating party, we will refrain. There can

VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 41

be no greater mistake than to take several pictures much
alike to each other, especially if you intend to exhibit.
Your pictures become simply portraits of your model in
various attitudes, or hesitating efforts, without knowledge,
to get the best of your view. Always conceal the art if you
can, and never show your failures. Get all the lessons you
can out of your mistakes, and then destroy them. I once had
something to do with an exhibition to which a number of
beautiful little pictures were sent by a clever photographer
on your side of the Atlantic. There was one real gem
amongst them, but the artist had sent several other pictures
of the same subject that just missed being perfect. The gem
looked like an accidental success amongst a lot of failures.
I saw them before the hanging was completed, and took the
perhaps unwarrantable liberty of getting the inferior pictures
removed. The gem got a medal which it thoroughly
deserved, but which it probably would not have got if it
had been surrounded by the various attempts to attain
success.

Now for another picture. Just to the left of the boat-
house, rising from a bit of land that projects into the lake,
are two beautiful specimens of the graceful silver birch,
called here the " lady of the woods." The leaves of this
tree are seldom still : to-day, when all Nature seems hushed
in repose, affords us an opportunity we must not neglect.
This must be an upright picture. No figures will be
necessary, for the water lilies, now in blossom, and the
reflections, will give us all we want to make up the fore-
ground. We shall not require any help from the swing-
back. The sun is nearly full on the trees, which, in this
instance, is not unsuitable, and will give you a chance for a

42 VAEIOUS SUBJECTS.

quick exposure. A trout was rising a few minutes ago in
the clear patch of water between the lilies. Wait a little
•while on the bare chance, and see if you can secure the
surface rings he makes on the water. There he is, and you
were in time with the exposure. I believe you will find
them in the negative, but if not it will be no great matter,
as the picture ought to be good enough without them. The
lesson I want to inculcate is, never miss a chance.

I see at a little distance down the valley a shepherd
gathering his flocks on the hill-side. The large mass of
sheep huddled together ought to afford material for a good
picture. Let us walk towards them. Here is a pretty
sight ! The shepherd is greatly assisted in his labours by
his collie, who appears to understand every word and motion
of his master, and I notice that the old dog is teaching a
young one his business. This is a most interesting sight ; I
have only seen it once or twice before. These Welsh collies
are the most intelligent dogs in the world. See how the old
one runs round the sheep, and then stands at gaze on the high
ground to see that all is going well and that no sheep strays.
Notice how the young dog is giving his mind to his lesson.
Now the old dog runs in among the sheep and detaches
about a dozen of them, then barks to the younger dog to
bring them back. He has done this to give his pupil some
practice. We must secure this scene, if we expend the
remainder of our plates on it. We will place the camera on
the rising ground opposite : the back horizontal and the
focussing glass swung back, for our subject gradually recedes
from us. The broken hedge and the little rill between us
will give a good foreground. Put in a middle sized stop, for
there is no great depth of focus required that the swing-back

VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

will not correct, and the exposure must be quick— just on
and off of the cap — or the picture may be spoilt by one or
two of the many sheep bolting. I may state here, as a
general rule, that it is better to hare a little loss of definition
though using a large stop, than to have disfiguring blurs
through long exposure. For all that, I like a rather long
exposure when I can get it with safety.

Wait until the dogs and shepherd stand to take another
look at their flock, then expose. I believe you have got
them, but try another plate to make sure ; you may never
again have such another subject.

We have a couple of plates left, so will return to the lake.
We must have a general view of the whole piece of water.
We see it in a totally different aspect to that of the morning.
The wind is now beginning to stir ; the clouds are gathering
over the far end of the lake, leaving a vivid break reaching
to the horizon. The breeze is also beginning to stir the
surface of the still water in little puffs, a pretty effect easily
secured. The near water is broken up by picturesque groups
of sedges and deep green " horsetails," degenerate descendants
of the gigantic Equisetum of which our coal measures are
largely composed. Although there is sunshine on the fore-
ground, the distance is in gloomy shadow from the lowering
clouds. The feeling or sentiment of this aspect of the lake
is distinctly solitude, which should be carried out as much as
possible. The figure of a heron standing silent, solitary, on
that point in the foreground, just clear of the rushes, where
his dark form would show as a precious spot of dark against
the white reflection of the rift in the clouds, would tell
splendidly in the picture ; it would be a grand illustration of
how tiny a point in a composition would be the making of it.

44 VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

This, however, cannot be. !Many herons visit the lake, hut
it would he one of the thousand to one chances that some-
times occur to the patient photographer — who ought, how-
ever, not to trust to chance for his effects. He may and
must take advantage of the accidents of nature, but if he
plays to win miracles he must expect to lose his time. Here
the painter has one of his many advantages over us. He
could easily put the bird in at home — and so could we by
double printing. One almost feels inclined to run down to
the house and get out that old stuffed heron that has
ornamented the hall so long, but the critics would call this
illegitimate — if they found it out — though what difference a
knowledge of how a picture was done should affect in the Art
value of that picture I never could discover. In exposing this
view of the lake, it would be well to lift the cap slowly, as if
hinged to the top, and lower it slowly ; by this means the
foreground will get more exposure than the sky, and you will
save the clouds.

Now, as all our plates are exposed, and the afternoon is far
advanced, let us get home and forget photography for the
day, if we can accomplish that almost impossible feat. We
shall doubtless find the others of our party on the tennis -
lawn, as it has become cool enough for a game before dinner
— dinner always followed by those discussions in the billiard-
room, chiefly on art and kindred subjects, you so much
enjoyed, and of which I may perhaps give you a sample in a
future letter.

No, VII. — Figures in Landscapes.

I left you we had just taken a view in which, we
sadly wanted a heron. Our artistic instincts craved for that
long-legged bird, but it was denied to us. By the introduc-
tion of the heron the picture would have been raised from
insignificance to a position of some importance ; it would have
shown intention, acquired a meaning, been sensibly improved
in sentiment, and the proprieties of composition would have
been observed ; yet we did without the figure rather than
use a stuffed one which we had at hand, and which, if used,
could not have been distinguished in the print from the live,
feathered, fish-eating biped. From a miserable fear of being
found out, we spoilt our picture. We refrained from doing
something which nobody would have detected, - and which,
to blissful ignorance, would have been harmless — nay, \ery
good — because we were afraid of the critics. How useful
critics are to keep us guiltless of deception ! — and that is
the only moral I can find in it.

Even a bird — and a live one, too — may sometimes be made
to pose as the balancing point in a photograph. I once
selected the corner of a small piece of water as a good sub-
ject, if I could only get a " point " of light or dark in the
right place on the water. A boat was not available, but
there was a solitary swan that appeared to be very much
interested in what we were about. After playing with him

46

FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES.

and throwing him biscuits for nearly an hour, I got him to
the place where he was wanted, when he steadied himself
in expectation of more crumbs. Here is the result.

THK SWAN.

At the time of exposure a puff of wind ruined part of the
water and greatly improved the effect by giving surface, as
the reflections give depth. The swan makes a very small
point in the picture, but is invaluable to the effect. I won't
go into the reason why. You have read my little book,
•" Pictorial Effect in Photography," in which I have gone
fully into the subject of the balancing point. I would
rather that you should now know and feel that the picture
is made by the swan. Imagine the scene without the swan,
and you will at once see how little there is in it. All this is
much more apparent in the photograph than in the little
illustration.

This would be a convenient time for me to enter a little
into the question of figures in photographic landscapes. In

FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES. 47

one of his delightful papers, written always with rare
humour, and nearly always with sound sense, my friend
Mr. Andrew Pringle gives many reasons why the photo-
grapher should not attempt to introduce figures. Writing
in the British Journal of Photography, he says : —

"A very crucial test of a man's artistic power is his
selection and arrangement of figures in a landscape. I do
not wish to be hypercritical, and the stone I throw hits
myself often, but I must say that in ninety-nine out of every
hundred landscapes with figures that I see, the figures ruin
the whole affair. They are inappropriate figures, inappro-
priately dressed, inappropriately occupied, inappropriately
posed, inappropriately and wrongly placed, and in most cases
would be better at home in bed. Wherever figures are in a
landscape picture, they are sure to catch the eye ; if they are
near the camera, the eye can with difficulty look beyond
them ; if they are at a moderate distance, they irritate and
distract, unless treated with the greatest skill ; if at a great
distance, they look like defects in the plate ; if they appear
near one side of the picture, they are in almost all cases
fatal ; while in the middle they are almost invariably mis-
chievous. I have never myself learned properly to arrange
figures in a landscape, and I prefer sins of omission to those
of deliberate commission, so, as a rule, I leave figures out,
and among the photographers of the world I cannot count
more than three or four who ever use figures perfectly, and
not one who is alivays happy in his arrangement. Among
the hundreds of landscape negatives with figures in my pos-
session, not one satisfies me in this respect, while most of
them are actually criminal in their ugliness. The commonest
faults are (1) Making the figures so important that one can-

48 FIGUKES IN LANDSCAPES.

not say whether the " subject " of the picture is a landscape
or a figure subject ; (2) Making the figures so small as to
distract and harass the eye, and to produce a sensation of
superfluity; (3) Putting figures in without any connection
with the landscape, or where figures are not wanted at all."
The writer gives one excellent reason for figures in land-
scapes, which should be all-suificient to the enthusiastic
photographer. He says that to introduce figures properly
requires the greatest skill, and is a " test of a man's artistic
power.' Ordinary photography is so easy and so entirely
mastered down to its chemicallist depths by Mr. Pringle,
that he should be rejoiced to find there is still something
left to call for his reserve powers. I agree with much that
my friend says. It does too often happen that the figures
are inappropriate to the last degree — wrongly dressed,
wrongly occupied, wrongly placed. All this only shows that
there is a good deal of art-ignorance and want of taste
amongst photographers, and that the great thing they really
want is art-teaching. "What is the use of all their fine manipu-
lation if they cannot turn it to a good use? All photo-
graphers strive to get beautiful gradation in their negatives
this is the one bit of art beyond which they do not attempt
to go. Why cannot they go further, a step at a time, until
they really learn how to " put squadrons in the field?"
That figures attract the eye is true — it is one of theii chief
functions ; that they irritate and distract is, as Mr. Pringle
justly says, from want of skill in the artist ; but how they can
be especially fatal when they appear on one side of the picture
puzzles me; figures are often very useful at the side. Their
quality, though small in size, will often balance mere quan-
tity on the other side. For an illustration of this see the

FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES. 49

little picture, "Calling the Cows," in Letter No. 3. Mr.
Pringle would probably call this composition " juist a wee
ae-sidet," but to my eye the mass of trees to the right is
perfectly balanced by the greater pictorial value of the cows
to the left. To leave out figures, to prefer sins of omission
to sins of commission, is not worthy of the pluck I know
Mr. Pringle possesses.

Mr. Pringle points out the "commonest faults;" my
answer as a teacher is, don't commit them. Not that I
think the first of them a very great defect. I don't know
whether it is necessary to anybody but a statician to know
whether a picture is a landscape or a figure subject. If it
is interesting, it will give sufficient pleasure without being
tabulated.

A landscape without a figure in it can seldom claim rank
as a picture. I have taken the trouble to look through the
exhibition of the Royal Academy for examples of pure
landscape without figures, and have found very few — not
one per cent. I call to mind one or two fine exceptions of
which Millais' " Chill October " is the chief, but their
beauty depends almost entirely on the splendid power of
execution. They do not translate well into black and white,
and can therefore be no guide to the photographer. Of
course there are some scenes which come under the head
of landscape in which figures would be inappropriate or
impossible, such as some aspects of Niagara, yet in one view
of this tremendous scene I have seen a tiny steamer which,
by contrast, added immensely to the realization of the
majesty of the mighty rush of water, and I have seen others
in which the impertinence of the figures have made me
sorry that photography was ever discovered. There can be

50 FIGURES IN LANDSCAPES.

little doubt that "combining the aspects of nature with
the doings of man "is at the root of all great landscape,
whether painted or photographed. I grant that it is difficult
to obtain good models, but it is a difficulty which can be
surmounted. Then again I am often told by young beginners
that they cannot think of incidents, cannot find anything
for their figures to do. All I can say is, these things will
come by constant study, and the more subjects an intelligent
photographer may use up, the more will come to him.
Ideas seem to come >vi;h practice. John Stuart Mill, who
had more ingenious ways of making himself miserable than
any dozen other pessimists, used to reflect on a time when
all musical combinations would be exhausted ; and the artist
also may look with apprehension to the time when all
possible subjects may be used up. But he need not fear.
It may be said of nature as of Cleopatra — " Nothing can
stale her infinite variety."

No. VIII.— Another Day Out.

IT may be worth our while to take just one more walk with
the camera. There is that lonely lane, famous for its wild
roses, and the river, and the mill, 'and more particularly the
miller. New and useful e xperience is obtained from every
picture you make, if you study the subject earnestly, and
put all you know into the representation of it.

As it is near at hand, we will begin with the lane, and I
know at least one subject there that is properly lighted at
this time of the day. Climbing over a stile we come to a pic-
turesque part of the lane where a small stream meanders along,
while dotted across the stream is placed a row of stepping
stones, beautifully varied in their forms. These stones are to
be the subj ect of, and give name to, our picture. The sun shines
irom the side, but slightly in front of us, casting the shadow
of part of the hedge over the foreground, throwing up the
stepping stones— our subject — into brilliant light. The scene
as we now see it is pretty, but it is not a picture, it is only good
material for a picture. It is even badly composed. There
are several parallel lines running in the direction of the stones.
This must be corrected. We must have a figure, and the
place for a figure is obvious. We have brought a model with
us. On the way she has amused herself gathering ferns, and
is carrying the great fronds over her shoulder. Get her to
cross the stones, and call her to stop at the right spot and
lemain in the act of stepping. Try again and again until

52

ANOTHER DAY OUT.

you are satisfied with the action of the figure. Don't be
afraid of giving trouble, she is here only to obey your
command ; you may obey hers when she changes her dress.
In her present capacity she would take any trouble to help
you, or she is not worthy of her office. Don't you see how
that dark hat she is wearing is lost in the dark hedge behind
it ? It is essential to make the figure stand well out from
its background, therefore change the hat for a lighter one,

STEPPING STONES.

which you will find in the basket of odds and ends of rustic
costume we always carry with us. Now you will find that
the figure has converted a scene not worth photographing for
itself into a picture. The composition is corrected, the
parallel lines are broken and are no longer prominent, the eye
is centred on a principal object. I almost think you may
exhibit this picture if you do not muff it in development.
Expose an extra plate for fear of accidents.
Going up the lane we turn and find this scene. The scene

ANOTHER DAT OUT.

53

is well composed in itself, and the lines of the pathway are so
varied and picturesque, that we won't hide them by placing
a figure in front of any part of them, although a small figure,
someway down the lane, would he effective. However, we
elect to have the figure rather nearer, for the sake of the
blossoms. She shall be gathering wild roses, which will give
us a title. Now when you are doing a thing it is as well to
do it thoroughly, therefore I recommend you to gather some
more branches of roses and add to the rather scanty supply

GATHERING WILD ROSES.

growing in the place for our figure. The girl must appear
to take interest in what she is doing. In this case the upper
part of the dress would have been more effective if not so
dark in colour, but we have neglected to bring a lighter
jacket.

"We come to the mill just in time to catch the miller feed-
ing his two calves, and they fall easy victims to our camera.
A little way up the river is one of the artists painting, and

54 ANOTHER DAY OUT.

another of the boys looking on. They happen to be in
exactly the right place, so we will not disturb them. Say
nothing to them. They will pretend not to notice what you
are about — professional etiquette, I suppose — but they see
what you are going to do, and will be quite still all the same.
This suggests that some subjects must be shouted to, and
others left to themselves.

Don't omit to have a shot at that splendid group of cows
cooling themselves in that quiet pool. Half of them in sun-
shine, the other half in shadow from the trees and bank, they
make a fine effect of light and shade. Be quick, but don't be
in a hurry ; there is nothing gained by going off your head.
Above all, don't be tempted to under-expose. In this subject
there is great contrast of light and dark, and it is essential
that the cows in shadow should be very well defined, to give
transparency and depth to the shadow, and that the lights
should not be chalky. This can only be secured by sufficient

ANOTHER DAY OUT. 55

exposure. If you blow a dog whistle just before you are
going to expose, you will find it will sufficiently attract the
attention of the cows without making them move away. It
may even have some effect on their whisking tails, which are
always a nuisance.

We are again in luck. Here comes material that must
suggest a grand picture for our final effort to-day. Let us
call up all our forces. The miller's donkeys are coming up
to be loaded with great bags of flour for his boy to deliver to
some of the villagers. The miller is always our friend, and
will do anything to oblige us, so that we don't take up too
much of his time. Range the two donkeys up to the mill-
door, put some bags and the boy on one, and let the miller be
loading the other. See that he does it with vigour. What
more natural than that a couple of passing girls should stop
to observe the interesting operation and have a chat ? We
have two models with us, who are soon in their places. It
so happens that the gamekeeper who accompanies us to carry
our camera and plates is coming up from the river ; stop him
in the act of walking before he gets up to the group. His
dark figure is in the right place to carry the eye into the
landscape, where in the distant meadow among the trees on
the other side of the river I see some cattle, but I fear they
will come too much out of focus to be of much use. Your
models now all know their duty, and the only doubtful part
of the problem is, Will the donkeys be still ? It is of very
little use trying to attract the attention of these animals, so
your only chance is, in fact, to take your chance, and several
plates.

In this case the figures are larger than is usual in landscape,
and, perhaps, not large enough to make what would be called

56

ANOTHER DAY OUT.

a figure subject. It may be either, or anything you like to
call it, so that it makes a picture. There is much diversity
of opinion as to what is a landscape. I once took a medal
for Genre with a picture that contained only three small
figures in a large landscape. This was at an exhibition where
the exhibits were strictly divided into classes, and the selection
must have been left to the porters.

THE MILL DOOB.

I don't know that it would serve any good purpose to go
through other scenes with you at present. Every picture
you do should be the outcome first of a deliberate purpose ;
secondly, of the operator availing himself of every accident.
These latter differ with every subject. I should like to
impress upon you before we part that the world is full of
beauty. This is an evident platitude, but it is not so evident
that there is beauty in almost everything; it depends on
how you look at it. It does not follow that every beautiful

ANOTHER DAY OUT. 57

thing would make a picture. A great deal that is beautiful
in nature is far from adapted to pictorial treatment. I
remember you once said to me that a good deal of this so-called
beauty was not visible to you. That was probable ; you had
not learnt to see. You also posed me by asking me what
beauty I could see in chimney-pots.

At the time I really had no reply. I could not defend
chimney-pots, but it happens that I have since had a grand
opportunity of studying these useful, but not very attractive
objects. Perhaps I may be allowed to relate the personal
experience, possibly more interesting to myself than to others,
when I found that a little mist, aided by as much imagination
as is within nearly anybody's reach, give beauty — even
grandeur — to the much maligned chimney pots. It depends
on how you look at it. Anybody who likes to think so has a
good look out even if his view is only, like Dick Swiveller's,
an uninterrupted view of " Over the way."

It was my unhappy fortune, in the early part of 1886,
to have to lie on my back for some weeks, after a remarkable
exploit in vivisection of which I was the victim, in an upper
room at the back of a large house in one of the London
squares. There was a large plate glass window overlooking
a spacious court, in which were some low buildings with
flat roofs of lead, the back of some old delapidated houses,
and a splendid collection of chimney pots, amongst which
the chirpy London sparrows held carnival. As many a
London photographer will remember, there was scarcely a
day in town during January and February of that year that
was not foggy, the nature of the fog varying from a delicate
silvery grey mist on some days, through drizzle, sleet,
Scotch-mist, pea-soup, to "the blanket of the dark" of

58 ANOTHER DAY OUT.

Macbeth, and the absolute darkness of " collied night" on*
other days. Thus thinly or thickly obscured, the view
underwent every variety of picturesque change. The
chimneys sometimes became towers and castles ; the other-
wise ugly and ignoble backs and roofs of houses, rocks and
mountains — the scenery of the Ehine without the river;
and when the lead roofs beneath were wet with rain> it was
not difficult to imagine the scene where —

" The castled crags of Drachenfels
Frown o'er the wide and winding Rhine."

Sometimes the rare gleams of the low sun struggled through
the houses and illuminated the mist, then the backyard
became a scene of enchantment, and when a touch of
delirium came on, as it would now and then, the cloud-
capp'd towers and gorgeous palaces of Shakespeare were
nothing to compare with the mystic view. There is much
pictorial virtue in mist ; even fog may be beautiful in the
right place.

I have seen that backyard since on a clear summer day,
and all the beauty had vanished with the mystery of the fog
and mist. Perhaps also I was in better health.

Corot, the most poetical of the French landscape painters,
is said to have seen a great deal to like in a London fog, and I
know nothing to surpass in fairy-like beauty a still, misty,
silver-grey day in the country, with a dash of sunshine on the
foreground.

No, IX.
A Talk in the Billiard-Room,

I PEOMISED I would give you something like a report of one
of the discussions that take place at night in the billiard
room during our annual visit to Wales. I fear I shall not
be able to recall any particular night, therefore you must be
content with a "blot" or " impressionist memory " of
several. A smoking chat, well mixed with chaff, is not
easily reportable or profitably readable, so I will omit a good
deal that may not be interesting or teach you anything.

White. Our photographer was painting to-day ; how did
he get on ?

Black. I was much complimented by the Miller, who
takes an acute interest in art. His great desire is, he says,
to go to London to see all the pictures in the Tower. He
had never seen me painting before, and it gave him great
satisfaction. He said in his best Anglo-Cambrian, "Ah!
you do 'do them by hand too. It is well when a man
can turn his hand to anything. You do yours by machine
mostly, and can make many, but it takes the other gentle-
man a long time to do them by hand I"

White. Ante up the product.

60 A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-BOOM.

Black. There is the interesting and valuable result.
Speak your mind, Brown, you are a great painter ; but as is
often the case with great painters now-a-days, you don't
know much about art, but we will take your opinion on
the smudgey part of it.

Brown. Oh ! I can't be bothered with such juvenile
efforts. You ought never to waste good oil colours. Turn
it upside down and begin another if — and only if — you can't
find something better to do. Eut why do you bother your-
self with paint ?

Black. Eliger Groff says, " When a man forgets his first
mother it's time for him to be born again," and this is not the
first time I have painted.

Grey. The Renaissance was a healthy time for art.

Black. The appositeness of the application excuses the
interruption. I don't see why I should not paint occasion-
ally ; I acknowledge that disuse of the brush has made it
more difficult for me to express my thoughts in the easier
vehicle than with the camera. There was a time when
painting was easier to me than photography, and I don't
know now which is the less difficult, the machine — as the
Miller calls it — or the brush ; if, indeed, the brush also is
not a machine.

Grey. "We are all machines in our way. We — even we
painters — we can own it among ourselves, are all adepts at
turning on steam and stoking. It is, perhaps, shameful ,
but nevertheless true, that we are most of us manufacturers.
As I read in a provincial paper the other day : "The great
painter turns out so many pictures a year, just the same as
the machine turns out so many legs and backs. All his
materials are provided for him, and are very convenient. His

A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. 61

tubes, his easels, his fanciful brushes, his arrangements of
light, all simplify the task for him ; and, perhaps, as he sits
and paints, a faint dream crosses his mind of a happy day
when artists will paint portraits by electricity, playing them
out on the keys of a piano-like instrument." The writer
should have made exception, but I am afraid he is right in
the main.

White. Really, Grey, I wonder how you can be so dread-
fully candid. Success has made you reckless. It does not
do to exhibit your thoughts in the nude in that barefaced
manner ; you should clothe them a little. It is positively
indecent to talk as you are doing.

Brown. Especially now we have got the public to believe
that painters are the only poets in art ; and that Black here,
with his machine, isn't in it.

Grey. You know I don't agree with you there. I have
always maintained that there were art possibilities in photo-
graphy. The difficulty has been in the ease of the process.
The art work of the few in photography has been swamped
in the rubbish of the million. All men are not born to play
Bach's fiddle fugues, as Browning somewhere says, and it
is reserved for the few to get the right tune out of the camera
box. Photography has not had time enough to produce a
large crop of geniuses. There are those who think that the
really great geniuses in painting — an old art like that — are
only lately born, and that " only we, the latest seed of time,"
know anything about it. I am an old-fashioned painter
myself, and don't believe it.

Brown. "Well, I think we are showing them how to do it,
if I may be allowed to say so.

BlacL " Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit."

62 A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM.

Brown. Go to ! irreverent youth. Tell me if anything has
ever been seen in art like some of the suggestions of nature
some of us give you.

Black. Never ! Small things were never done so greatly,
so few great things done.

Brown. Your emphatic "never" scarcely sounds like
applause. Let us see what the others have been doing. Ah !
Grey and White have been painting the same scene. Both
of the pictures are like the subject, but they are a long way
from looking like each other. This shows how man's mind
comes in. The photographer cannot do that with his boxes.

Black. Cant we ? As usual, you are perversely ignorant of
what we can do. I never yet saw two photographs of a scene
that were alike, and if I saw two by different men, and I had
been accustomed to their work, I could tell you who had
produced which.

Grey. Different people see differently and translate what
they see differently, it is astonishing to how great a degree.
Ask any two men to describe the effect of no rain for forty
days. One will go from Charing Cross to Yokohama to de-
scribe it, the other will just walk round his garden and do it
better.

Black. That is what I claim for Photography.

White. Take it and be happy.

Brown, Eoth sketches are good. White's only wants the
details of the trees, which he can easily get from one of
Black's photographs, to make it a finished picture.

Black. Just like you painters, everybody's property is your
own. You only look on photographs as something you may
possibly purloin. I totally differ on this subject. "Why
should the photographer play jackal to the painter's lion,

A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. 63

and collect scraps for him ? The photographer should be
above this, and make complete pictures for himself. I would
no more copy another man's photograph than I would his
sketches. I don't mind painters " refreshing their memory"
with photographs, but there are some who are not ashamed
of stealing complete and perfected ideas. They soothe their
honour by persuading themselves that the photograph is not
the work of man but of nature, and nature, they say, is open
to everybody. I am often pirated. Once there appeared in
one of the London Galleries a large painting, copied "lock,
stock, and barrel," from one of my photographs. After I had
kicked up the demon's own row, and threatened to claim the
painting, as I could do under the Copyright Act, the painter
apologised for the " inadvertence ! " Ancient Pistol said,
" Convey the wise it call," but the modern art euphemism
for making a mistake in the ownership of property is "in-
advertence."

White. Do you object to painters photographing ?

Black. I no more object to painters taking photographs and
copying them than I would object to their making sketches
with a pencil for the same purpose ; but he must be a very
experienced painter with a fine memory for colour who could
make a good use of photographs. It must be very deleterious
practice for the young, immature student. He had much
better keep to nature and draw and think for himself. Now
for Brown's picture.

Brown. There it is. If you see anything worthy of your
approbation you can put your hands together, but don't wake
the house.

Black. It reminds me of the criticism of a famous R.A. on

64 A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM.

your last year's great effort, " and he had so much promise !""
Take it away.

Brown. It is not composed artificially enough to suit Black.
A picture is not a picture if not composed, or I have read
what he has written on the subject wrongly. Composition
is not the whole of art.

Black. I agree with Brown for once. Chalk it up. In the
endeavour to be simple and clear, I believe I am often too
definite and precise. Many people think that I am trying to
teach art when I am struggling to give them some notion of
composition and light and shade. It is nothing of the sort. I
know perfectly the distinction between the means and the end.
I am afraid I am sometimes wearisome in the way 1 explain
that rules, and laws, and principles, are only the skeleton of
art, and not the living soul ; yet dense fellows, like Brown,
will misread me.

Grey. The principles of composition are the principles of
common sense, and run through all the doings of civilized
life — from a picture or building, to a dinner or a company of
friends. These annual holidays of ours, for instance, have
been going on for twenty years, and how harmonious they
have been ! — never a hitch anywhere. This is all due to
skilful composition. The components were selected and put
together by an artist wfco understood composition. We have
balance, contrast, light and shade — and havn't we our
"values ?" The result is a harmonious whole.

Brown. Ingenious, but too gaudy. It would be interesting
to know what you photographers do, that you claim to be
artists and judges of art.

Black. Everybody is a critic now-a-days, so why not photo-

A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM. 65

graphers? Touching the other part of your question, we
invent, we select, we modify, we execute. What more do
you want ? Modern painters do little more. We confess
there are many things we cannot do. We do not aspire to such
subjects as "The Last Judgment," or the "Battle of
Waterloo." We have the sense, which painters have not,
to avoid such impossibilities. But we can do many things.
If nature does not suit us, we can alter nature, just as a
painter does.

White. Your alter-native is to alter nature ?

Black. Yes, if nothing short of a pun will suit you, we
even alter the natives when they do not suit us raw, or
provide substitutes for them. Like that grim Earl Doorm
we read of in the Idylls to-day, we compel all things to our
will. See the changes I have had made in the river to suit my
work.

Brown. It is not every photographer who can lay waste a
country side for the sake of his pictures.

Wliite. And call it art !

Black, I only want to show our resources. I do not
advocate an indiscriminate felling of timber. I could go into
details touching invention, £•«., and how we can modify
nature, also how we can modify our execution of it — what you
would call " treatment " — but it would be the old tale over
again ; we have had it over a score of times. You all agree
with me, but, being excellent draughtsmen, you love to
" draw " the photographer.

Orey. Whether he is an artist or not, we must all agree
that his affection for art reminds us of that ardent lover who

66 A TALK IN THE BILLIARD-ROOM.

worshipped the very smoke that came out of his mistress's
chimney.

Brown. Perhaps the analogy is nearer than you intend.
You imply that the photographer gets no nearer the flame of
art than the smoke.

Black. It certainly seems to come under the head of con-
tentious matter, but I am content to accept the compliment
Grey intended. I am not to be drawn any further. I feel
that my verdantcy begins to assume a russet hue. I am not so
green as I have been. Good night.

TJHIVEESIT7

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LIST OF PHOTOGKRAFHIC LENSES.

PORTRAIT LENSES.

IMPROVED.

No. 1 for Portraits 64 x 4f ... £1515

„ 2 „ 4,, 64 ... 24 6

" 3 „ 10 „ 8 ... 35 4

„ 4 „ 18 „ 16 ... 38 5

„ 5 „ 22 „ 18 ... 4912

RAPID « CABINET."
No. 1 for Cabinets, 14ft. distance
„ 2 „ 18ft. „

„ 3 20ft.

QUICK-ACTING C.D.V.
No.'l for Cards, 14ft. distance

11 14
15 15
17 11

16ft.
19ft.

10

EXTRA RAPID C.D.V.

Invaluable for Photographing Children.

No. 1 4i in. focus, dia. 2Mn. ... 12 3 0

„ 2 6 in. „ dia. 3|in. ... 22 10 0

UNIVERSAL PARAGON LENSES,

FOR

PORTRAITS, GROUPS, STUDIES IN
STUDIO, & PANEL PICTURES.

No.

View

Size.

Group
Size.

Dia. of
Lenses.

Back
Focu

Prices
in Ri«?id
». Mounts.

£ 8.

1
2

8iX 64
10 „ 8

Hx 44

8*,, 4

2 ins.
2}

84in
10?

s 6 15

8 2

3

12 ,,10

do „ 8

2?

13*

i 11 5

4

15 ,,12

12

,10

H

16*

! 14 17

5

18 ,,16

15

,12

4

20

j 22 10

6

22 ,,18

18

,16

5

24

! 40 10

7

25 ,,21

22

,18

6

30

49 10

8

28 ,,24

[25

,20

7

36

1 60 0

WIDE-ANGLE LANDSCAPE LENSES.

Working Aperture, U.S. No. 4, F.8.

No.

Size of
Plate.

Dia. of
Lenses.

Equiv.
Focus.

Price.

1

5x4

U ins.

5} ins.

£2 19 0

2

H » *i

u

7 „

350

3

473

if

8J „

410

4

10 8

i!

10 „

4 19 0

5

12 ,10

3

12 „

660

6

15 12

4

15 „

7 19 0

7

18 ,16

3

18 „

990

8

22 ,20

3f

22 „

12 12 0

9

25 21

4 :,

25 „

17 2 0

PORTABLE PARAGON LENSES,

LANDSCAPES, ARCHITECTURE, AND
COPYING.

Large . Medium 1 Small

No.

Stop | Stop I Stop i Equiv.
covering j covering! covering Focus. Price .

1

3 X

3 4 X

3 1 5 x 4 3 in. i£2 14 0

2

4

35,,

4 1 7i,, 441 4 „

2 18 6

3

5

4 i 7|,,

44i 8 ,55,,

330

4

7|

44 8 „

r 84 64 6

3 12 0

5

8

5 84,,

64 9 7 j 7 „

4 10 0

6

84

64 9 „

7 10 , 8 8 „

580

7

9

7 10 ,

8 12 .10 9 .,

660

8

10

8 12 ,,io iis ai io ;;

7 4 0

9

12

10 13 „

11 '15 ,12 12 „

820

10

13

11 15 „

12 18 ,16 15 „

900

11

15

12 |18

16 22 ,18 18 „

10 16 0

12

18

16 '22 ,,20 25 ,21 21 „

13 10 0

RAPID PARAGON LENSES,

FOR

GROUPS, VIEWS, INTERIORS, AND
COPYING.

Price in

Size of

Size of

Dia. of

Equiv.

Rigid

View.

Group.

Lenses.

Focus.

Setting.

4x3

Stereo.

fin.

44 in.

£3 12 0

5 , 4

4ix 3|

1 »

6 ,,

3 16 0

6 , 5
8 , 5

5 „ 44
7{,, 44

It::

74,,
9 „

4 14 6
536

84 > 64

8 „ 5

i*,,

n „

5 17 6

9 , 7
10 , 8

8r, 3

U ,

n

12 „
14 „

6 15 0
7 12 0

12 ,10

10 „ 8

2

16 „

990

13 ,11

11 „ 9

i\

18 „

10 7 0

15 ,12

13 ,,11

24

20 ,;

13 0 0

18 ,16

15 ,,12

3

24 „

18 13 0

22 ,18

18 ,,16

34

30 „

22 10 0

25 ,22

22 ,,18

4

34 „

27 0 0

28 ,,24

25 ,,20

44

38 „ 36 0 0

WIDE-ANBLE

PARAGON LENSES,

Giving 100° of angrle for Photographing
Cramped Positions.

Largest

Dia. of

No.

Dimension
of Plate.

Front
Combin.

Hack
Focus.

Equiv.
Focus.

Price

1

7JX 44

l~^

34 in.

4 in.

£410

2

84,, 6|

li

4- ,

51 „

4 19 0

3

12 ,,10

!4

ef

7 „

6 19 0

4

15 ,,12

2

"4

gi

990

5

18 ,,16

»i

11

13 „

12 12 0

6

22 ,,20

3

14

154

18 0 0

7

25 ,,21

3f

17

19 ,.

27 0 0

Iris Diaphragm fitted to above Lenses. For Price, &c., send for List.
The above prices are subject to ten per cent, for cash with order.

UNIVERSITY OPTICAL WORKS, 81. Tottelai (M Road. W.C,

Photographic Apparatus Manufacturer,

26, CALTHORPE STREET, GRAY'S INN ROAD,

FOURTEEN PRIZE MEDALS have been awarded to G. HARE'S Cameras

and Changiny-Box Jor Excellence of Design and Workmanship. Silver Medal

awarded at the International Inventions Exhibition^ 1885.

G. HARKS^NEW^CAMERA.

Invented and Introduced, June, 1882. The Best and most compact Camera ever Invented.

Since its introduction, this Camera
has received several important modifi-
cations in construction. It stands un-
rivalled for elegance, lightness, and
general utility. It is specially adapted
for use with the Eastman-Walker Roll
Holder. A 6£ x4f Camera measures
when closed 8x8x2^ in., weighs only
Sflbs., and extends to 17in. The
steady and increasing demand for this
Camera is the best proof of its popularity.

'« Little need be said of Mr. George Hare's well-known Patent Camera, except that it forms
the model upon which nearly all the others in the market are based."— Vide British Journal
of Photography, August 28, 1885.
Size of Square, with Re-
Plate, versible Holder.
5x4 £600

726

7 10 0

8 15 0

Since this Camera has been introduced, it has been awarded THREE SILVER
MEDALS : at Brussels International Photographic Exhibition, 1883 ; at the Royal Cornwall
Polytechnic Society, Falmouth ; and at the INTERNATIONAL INVENTIONS EXHIBI-
TION, 1885. Also Bronze Medal, Bristol International Exhibition, 1883— HIGHEST AWARD.

Brass
Binding.
£0 16 0
1 0 0
100
100

Size of
Plate.
10X 8
12x10
15x12
Thes<

Square, with Re-
versible Holder.
£9 16 0
11 0 0
13 5 0
j prices include one

Brass
Binding.
... £140
160
1 10 0
Double Slide.

. HARE'S Improved Portable Bellows Camera

Invented and Introduced 1878.

This Camera offers many advantages where a little extra weight and bulk is not objected to.
It is very solid and firm in construction, and especially suited for India and other trying climates.

ILLUSTRATED PRICE LIST on Application at the Manufaotory-
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"The Studio; and "What to Do in It."

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