Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art.

In this chapter we shall endeavour to trace the influence of the study of nature on all the best art up to the present day. [Sidenote: Woltmann and Woermann.] In order to do thi...

By the term “decorative,” we mean the ornamentation of anything constructed for some useful or special purpose as opposed to the ornamentation whose object is to please _per se_...

Having thus demonstrated that the best artists have always tried to interpret nature, and express by their art an impression of nature as nearly as possible similar to that made...

Before entering on the subject of development, it is necessary to tell the student that if he does not already understand the principles of chemistry, he should lose no time in...

At a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, held in Paris on the 19th day of August, 1839, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, in the presence of the flower of Parisian art, liter...

From our earliest photographic days we always felt that all “ordinary” printing methods, however good in themselves, would finally have to give way to photo-mechanical methods,...

It were better at the outset to define our terms, for nothing leads more certainly to confusion in studying a subject than a hazy conception of the meanings of words and express...

It is presumed the student has thoroughly mastered and applied all that has preceded this chapter, especially the matter of tone, otherwise it is no use attempting to make pictu...

The camera as used to-day is a modified form of the Camera Obscura adapted to the special end of taking photographs. It is essentially nothing but a light-tight box, to one end...

Having his negative, the next thing our student will want to do is to print from it; but before doing so, it will be necessary to decide upon the process he will use.

A plate can be exposed in three ways, that is, by removing the cap and replacing it, when the exposure is made; by folding the camera cloth and placing it over the lens (the cap...

We do not intend to incorporate in this chapter elementary optics, as the subject is well known to most educated men, but in case any reader should know nothing of light and opt...

Theoretically, retouching may be considered admissible, that is if the impression can be made more true by it. There are, perhaps, half a dozen painters in the world who could d...

By focussing we understand, bringing the ground-glass into the plane which coincides with the sharpest projection of the image; the position of this plane varying of course acco...

Remember that the original state of the minds of uneducated men is vulgar, you now know why vulgar and commonplace works please the majority. Therefore, educate your mind, and f...

We could easily, as most writers have done, have given a digest of Mr. Burnet’s laws of composition, but we have no faith in any “laws of composition.” A law, to be logical, mus...

For portraiture a studio is a necessity for obtaining the best results. We shall very briefly discuss the question of studios, for we hold that, provided a studio be large enoug...

We are all born mentally blind, but almost immediately we detect light, as can some of the lowest animals, then we _learn_ to distinguish the colours and forms of objects as we...

The hazy notions existing among many photographers as to how to secure the copyright of their photographs, and other details, has led us to make a few remarks on the subject. In...

Exhibiting a work of art is publishing it, and the student will, when he obtains suitable works, very naturally begin to think about exhibiting them. The subject of photographic...

There is no need to despair if there is no dark room, no place to build one, no means to pay for one. Some of our most successful plates were developed in a scullery, and others...

Having our print, the next question is how shall it be mounted and framed. There can, of course, be no laws for this, but we feel justified in making a few remarks on this head.

We have then finished Book II., and we presume that the student has now mastered his technique and practice, but the end is not yet. The student may thoroughly understand the sc...

The best enlargements made for the trade are made from very sharply-focussed negatives. In fact, some of the best enlargers take up the negative from which the enlargement is to...

For industrial and educational purposes transparencies of all kinds are valuable, and we shall touch upon them elsewhere. [Sidenote: Lantern slides.] With lantern slides our art...

“Artists are supposed to pass their lives in earnest endeavour to express through the medium of paint or pencil, thoughts, feelings, or impressions which they cannot help expres...

“He does not sufficiently understand that things are of value only according to their fundamental qualities, and he still believes that the care with which a thing is done, even...

“The dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, but the joy of the tourist is to recognize the traveller on the top. The desire to see, for the sake of seeing,...