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CAMERA
WORK
A PHOTOGRAPHIC QUARTERLY
EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY
ALFRED STIEGLITZ NEW YORK
NUMBER VII
MDCCCCIV
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[pgbrk] CAMERA WORK: AN illustrated quarterly magazine devoted
to Photography. Published and edited by Alfred Stieglitz. Associate Editors: Joseph T. Keiley, Dallett Fuguet, John Francis Strauss. Assistant Editor of Scientific contributions, A. K. Boursault. Subscription for four issues, in advance Five Dollars. Price for single copy of this number at present, Three Dollars. The right to increase the price of subscription without notice is reserved. All copies are mailed at the risk of the subscriber; positively no duplicates. Registering and special packing, Fifty Cents extra. The management binds itself to no stated size or fixed number of illustrations, though subscribers may feel assured of receiving the full equivalent of their subscription. While inviting contributions upon any topic related to Photography, unavailable manuscript or photographs will not be returned unless so requested and accompanied by required return postage. Address all communications and remittances to Alfred Stieglitz,
1111 Madison Avenue, New York, U. S. A. Gravures in this number printed by The Manhattan Photogravure Company, New York, from plates made by Meisenbach, Riffarth and Company, Germany. Half-tone plates made by The Photochrome Engraving Company, New York. Arranged and printed on the presses of Fleming and Carnrick, New York. Entered as second-class matter December 23, 1902, at the post-office at New York, N. Y., under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879. This issue, No. 7, is dated July, 1904. Copyright, 1904, by Alfred Stieglitz.
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[pgbrk] THEODOR AND OSCAR HOFMEISTER
I. The Solitary Horseman. II. Dachau.
III. Meadow-brook.
IV. The Churchgoers.
V. A Village Corner.
VI. Sea Calm.
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[pgbrk] THE SOLITARY HORSEMAN.
WE ALL have seen a solitary horseman, like the one in the Hofmeister picture, riding slowly along the highway through a landscape classic in composition, the gaunt form of trees weirdly outlined against a sky of flying clouds that animate the silence and mystery of the scene. Whither is he riding? We do not know. The great highway stretches far and very far into the infinite distance, and he passes along wrapt in deep thought. He follows his natural impulses, is happy in his own way and fashions his paradise of the passing hours. Mysterious blue horizons beckon him and flee. He watches the sun rise over lonely forests and is intimate with the moon that smiles over sleeping cities. He is the man who seeks and might well stand for a symbol of the whole photographic movement, and in particular of the Secessionists, that class of eager workers who restlessly search for new pictorial possibilities. They are also solitary horsemen, treated with indifference as they are for the present by the profession and denounced by the majority of artists. Yet they cheerfully ride along, trilling their strange little song of a new art.
They are no adherents of any special esthetic creed; they do not say to the
profession, “You are old-fashioned — become modern like us.” They simply say, “You are manufacturers; we wish to be artists.” That is the whole contention, commercialism or art; around this revolves the movement inaugurated by the Secessionists. They wander toward some ideal and gladly forego the ordinary pleasures of life to journey toward some new and wider horizon of art.
The artist, whose gaze is at all times turned inward, seems to be the true personification of the solitary horseman. He is always ready to saddle his horse and leave behind him the great, curious city with its many superstitions, its grotesque rivalries of castes and classes and set out on another journey along highways swept by wintry rains or burned by the summer sun. Some halt at a cozy wayside inn, sit comfortably down to sup and loudly brag about themselves. Others lie down near the ditch in the noonday sun and their fancies build a ladder up into the blue sky where they meet spirits with whom they spend hours in sweet converse. While others, with empty stomach, unmindful of time or weather, persistently ride on, searching at every turn of the road for the highway that leads to some Castilian fountain if not to the Parnassian heights. They are satisfied if they tread the open road and if the winds of heaven blow upon them.
To Hofmeisters’ hero there clings the dust of this great highway. He has traveled far and will go still farther. He is roaming the earth, he can abide nowhere. The wind passes, the birds fly, the great horizons call him and he must go, continue his journey on and ever on, between the mountains and along the plains, past thorp and grange and town, through forests and mysterious places, on and ever on, he knows not whither, save
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[pgbrk] that it is toward something very far away, golden and glorious—most beautiful— which man shall never reach.
And are we mortals not all wayfarers in time and space? Does not the desire of new horizons, the nostalgia for the land of I know not where, govern all our days and years ? Over sea and land, from country to country, from idea to idea, we roam and seek—we know not why, we know not what. And so we continue our journey along the highways of life—friend after friend being left by the wayside and hope after hope carried away by the wind, until at last our soul, void of its earthly tenement, drifts through space like a whirling leaf. Sadakichi Hartmann.
THEODOR AND OSCAR HOFMEISTER, OF HAMBURG.
NOWHERE IN the whole realm of painting nor in that of photography can be found such another example of artistic cooperation as that of the Hofmeisters. Since the very beginning of their
career in 1895 their work has been the product of
their united labors, and their success, unequaled in Germany, was made possible by the wonderful unanimity and perfect harmony of their artistic perceptions.
Of late the exposures have been made entirely by Oscar, the younger of the brothers, but at the beginning of their activities they worked together at this also. In such fashion were produced a large number of those figure-studies of the years 1897-99, taken on excursions to the picturesque vicinity of Hamburg, and which were published in part in the photographic press and in part on illustrated postal cards. It was in the fishing village of
Finkenwarder that they found scenes of the lives of fishermen and coast-
dwellers, and Vierlanden furnished the materials for a large number of interiors of richly furnished peasant-homes which they peopled with friendly peasant-women dressed up in picturesque and quaint old costumes.
At this time, as well as later, the Hofmeisters displayed wonderful patience and perseverance, a single scene being taken as often as twenty times, or whenever some detail of pose, of silhouette or of lighting displeased them. At times, before exposing the plates, Theodor would make a pencil-sketch of the composition so that he and his brother might discuss and agree on the division of space and pose of the model. Before exposure was to be thought of they had to cultivate an acquaintanceship and even intimacy with their models, who often were their hosts at the same time, and it was not until the simple fisher-folk and peasants had lost their natural shyness in the presence of these city-people that they were able to secure the desired poses with any degree of naturalness. Indefatigable, undaunted by severest hardship, they would brave the bitterest weather and for hours at a time would work in the open during the season of winter fishing, patiently using every effort to overcome the self-consciousness of their ignorant models,
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[pgbrk] who, as every photographer knows, at once become stiff and awkward as soon as a lens is pointed at them.
During the last two years, the Hofmeisters have but rarely done any figure-work, and then only to aid in attaining some mystical or fantastic effect, as in “Fairy Tales” (in which an old crone is leaning on her crooked stick and in the background a dark sky glimmers in the last rays of the setting sun), and in “ The Solitary Horseman ” riding over the desolate, uncanny heath.
To-day they produce wonderfully perfect landscapes whose remarkable range of conception and of subject few living painters can surpass. The few examples reproduced in this number giving but an inadequate idea of their scope.
Their last large figure-piece, dated 1901, is entitled “The Churchgoers,” and since it was produced they have used figures but incidentally (as in “The Solitary Horseman”) for suggestion in the accentuation of emotional or atmospheric elements of the picture. It is noteworthy that in all their work the figures are always in harmony with the surroundings into which they are introduced. “The Churchgoers” represents a family of peasants—father, mother, and child—in holiday attire wending their way to the village church down at the lakeside. Landscape and figures supplement each other; change but a line or a form and you would lose that atmosphere of Sunday morning which the picture conveys. This convincing quality is to be found in all Hofmeisters’ work; they convey their effects by means so forceful yet simple, that one can not help understanding them. A simple landscape like the “Meadow-brook” reflects so faithfully the characteristics of Northern Germany that anyone who has once seen the softly rolling ground, the green, moist meadows through which the brooks so slowly wind, the hillocks overgrown with shrubbery, would at once recognize in the picture a landscape of Holstein.
This picture was bought by Her Majesty Margherita, queen-dowager of Italy, and it was this specifically North German characteristic, aside from the element of picturesqueness, that attracted her. The original, like many of their latest pictures, is a gum-print in several colors.
Theodor Hofmeister, who devotes himself to the execution of these large gum-prints, has raised this technique to a high plane, his principal merit, however, lying in his delicate appreciation of color. His pictures never offend by too much color; they are always perfectly harmonious and true in value, and in his work in two or more colors his sunlight effects are correctly and accurately rendered. The picture of the little white house and the tall poplars, “A Village Corner,” impresses one as though in monochrome, just as in the evening light all objects in nature appear to lose their local color.
In his latest work (to which belong all those pictures herein reproduced, except “The Churchgoers” and “Sea Calm”) Theodor Hofmeister has made no attempt to copy nature, but has tried to accentuate the sentiment he was striving for by the use of some predominating color to which all others are subordinated, serving merely to bring the principal phase of the pictures into prominence.
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[pgbrk] It is only since they became members of Die Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Amateur-Photographie that the Hofmeisters have become interested in pictorial photography. Eight years ago, incited by the annual Hamburg exhibition, they abandoned the production of view-postals. A more rapid development than theirs is unknown to me. In two years they had reached the top of the ladder, as their pictures, “Greatgrannie,” “Icebound Fisheries,” and “Peat-flowers” proved. These three pictures would to-day create as great a sensation as in 1897 when they were first exhibited.
Generally speaking, the work of our leading Hamburg amateurs is but little appreciated outside of Germany. People are so accustomed to the entirely different work of French, Belgian or English photographers that they find it difficult to shake off their preconceived notions of photography, and they overlook the individuality of Hofmeisters’ work, a quality so different from anything else produced in the domain of photography that it alone is sufficient to stamp their pictures as works of art. In America the work of the Hofmeisters is judged with more discrimination, and this fairer judgment has been brought about by the influence of the high quality of American pictorial work. In my judgment the work of the Americans (Steichen, Stieglitz, Kasebier, White, etc.) and that of the Vienna and Hamburg groups is the most original in the realm of artistic photography. That is the reason why these countries are enabled to form proper estimates of the value of pictorial work standing as they do at the very summit of the movement from which they can obtain a broader view of things than those still toiling up the slopes.
The work of the Hofmeisters has found its way into the collections of connoisseurs, and several Art Institutes like the Hamburg Kunsthalle, the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett and the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld have bought several originals. Yet, despite sales ranging in price from 150 to 500 Marks, they have realized hardly enough to pay their expenses, not to mention remuneration for their labors.
The influence of the Hofmeisters’ style is quite apparent, not only in
the work of several members of the Hamburg Club, but also in that
of other workers in neighboring provinces some of whom have served an
apprenticeship to these brothers. Of late years many strange, ambitious,
serious photographers have visited Hamburg in order to study the method
of the Hofmeisters, and the brothers are ever willing to take their pupils on
photographing-tours to teach them the laws of composition, spacing, etc.
To this course is then added the final one in practical printing. They
voluntarily offer the benefit of their artistic training and their technical
knowledge to every talented newcomer. Particularly pleasant to note is the
influence of the Hofmeister brothers on Die Hamburger Gesellschaft zur
Forderung der Amateur-Photographie. In this group of workers they are
the leaders; and their prestige and knowledge is of great benefit to their
disciples.
ERNST JUHL.
(Translated from the German by J. F. S.)
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[pgbrk] PROS AND CONS.
I. WHAT CONSTITUTES AN “ARTIST”?
AS A text for this short discussion, let me offer the following from that most stimulating of modern philosophic writers, Nietzsche:
“ Worshippers of forms, of tones, and of words and just by virtue of that—artists.”
That gives very conclusively, I think, one answer to the question and one which has my own most ardent applause.
But for another side let me unearth this from a seven-year-old article in The Contemporary Review by an old antagonist of Pictorial Photographers, Joseph Pennell: “Finally, unless a man can draw with his own unaided hand he is not an artist; he never has been considered one and he never will be.”
We will not be ungenerous enough to inquire too closely into the
remarkable sort of "artist” this writer has in mind, who has brushes or
pencils for fingers, since he draws with his own “unaided hand” ; it is the
sort of loosely expressed description that is natural to a loosely held theory and an illogical argument. But as the sentence comes from a professional draughtsman, in the sense in which he evidently means it to be taken it is worth examining and refuting. It is a good example, moreover, of the narrowness, conservatism and real ignorance that beset such a specialist. The study of the quite obvious is always worth while, if only to confirm one in convictions already attained. The kindest treatment of such statements is the sudden-death method of carrying them to their logical conclusion and seeing where they lead us.
If this opposition opinion were true, it seems to me that it would follow that, however badly equipped, however badly trained, however unseeing, lacking in vision, however deficient in taste or crude in judgment a man may be, if only he produce his work by his “own unaided hand,” he is and must be an artist. On the other hand, it is not only that the man who has the seeing eye, who can analyze a composition, can discern purity and loveliness of color, can delight in subtleties of tones, perfection of drawing, etc., etc., but who is unable physically to put these things down on paper or canvas, is not and never can or will be considered an artist, but also that he who uses any other method than the “unaided hand”—say the camera and lens —is not entitled to be called an artist. All catholic-minded students will agree that “any means to an end” is on the whole good doctrine; and at any rate it serves as an excuse for asking why this glorification of the means at the expense of the end ? What is the reason of this apparent jealousy of new methods ? Why not approve or condemn solely on the ground of good or bad art without any reference to method? The. ancient saying is good, “the letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive” ; and in art it is surely not the letter (the method) that maketh alive, as our critic would have it, but
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[pgbrk] the content (the quality, the vision, the spirit in fact). The result and not the means employed proves the artist; and if I may again preach, it is still true that “by their fruits shall ye know them.”
When all this is thus baldly stated, Mr. Pennell’s dictum seems so obviously false and empty as to be unworthy of any examination; but this confusion of means with end, this degradation of the inner powers in comparison with the means of expression, is so common a thought and statement and is so continually administered as a death-blow to the pretensions of pictorial photographers, especially when we are more than usually successful, that its refutation by a simple statement seems useful.
The only point of sympathy one can have with the opposition is that some term seems to be needed to differentiate the producer from the appre-ciator. And I would here use the word “appreciate” in its truest meaning and application, that of "setting a just value upon” ; and not in the usual but wrong sense of mere “admiration” or in the narrow limiting sense of the opposite of “depreciate.” At present the term “artist” is held by writers on and practisers of art to mean exclusively those who produce works of art— craftsmen, in fact. The enjoyer, the appreciator, has no name, and yet when he is to be described or spoken of it is in the only possible terms that so-and-so’s taste, knowledge and sympathy, etc., make him “quite an artist.” Surely it should be obvious that no new term is really needed, but that the “artist” is the appreciator, the enjoyer, the appraiser. The producer is the painter, the etcher, the draughtsman, the lithographer, according to the branch of art he is engaged in; and he is also an “artist,” but only by virtue of his success therein. I can not but think that Nietzsche is right in the admirable sentence I have quoted above, for otherwise there is no term to differentiate the non-producing cultured few, who share with the great producing artist that atmosphere of appreciation which makes them of one kin, from the ignorant crowd who have no real art sympathy, art knowledge, art discrimination and who achieve and admire the banalities, the monstrosities that make up the great bulk of work done in drawing, in painting and in photography.
As the case now stands, the man who can draw or paint, however mediocre his work may be and however contented he be to have it remain so, is dubbed an artist, while the man who is bored and hurt by these productions and who can critically assign them and their badnesses to the right origin is not an artist because he can not or does not physically so express himself.
For myself I take it that to be an artist one must be so enveloped by the atmosphere of pure and true art as to be unable to find any pleasure in bad or deficient works of art of any kind; one must, moreover, be able to give a reason for his displeasure and to justify analytically his unfavorable judgments. Exclamatory denunciation is of no use; it convinces no one; the mere “don’t like it” order of criticism is too cheap and empty to be worthy of the real art-student.
If it be objected that this is describing an art-critic rather than an
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[pgbrk] artist, the best reply is that the latter should include the former. One may almost wholly agree with Lessing—“ Every artist is a born critic, but every critic is not a born artist.” Only this is using the term artist to mean producer, and many capable producing artists make very deficient critics because too immersed in their special field of work to be catholic enough for really good criticism.
To do all this seriously is to be all of an artist, except for the actual producing power, and, if the camera and lens as tools are to be excluded, this deficiency is surely due only to lack of the necessary physical equipment, the natural start in physical gift of expression which is given to man unsought and which it is the artist’s mission to train and develop. Man has no power over this natural equipment nor over his environment; all he is called on to do is to till his little plot of ground to the utmost degree of productiveness; and his success in this, whether in the direction of making or of appreciating, makes him an artist indeed, or a mere sham or a negligible quantity.
The artist is he who either does or feels truly and deeply, not merely he who happens to be gifted by nature’s eccentricity with a facility with brush or pencil and who perhaps uses neither to any real advantage or successful achievement.
Take the art of singing for an analogous example; how very often we find Dame Nature in her stupidity giving a superb larynx to the man with no soul, while to the man who is all soul, pulsating with music and the desire to express it vocally, she denies the necessary gift of this said superb larynx and dowers him only with the capacity of suffering from the other man’s misdoings !
In painting, take Millais, who was a prodigy almost from infancy; if he had happened to have lost both his hands in childhood he would still have been Millais, the artist, all his life, though his only proof to the world would then have been his searching, instant and instinctive appreciation and knowledge of true art-work.
Of course, our opponent’s text means that a photographer, qua photographer, can never be an artist, and all such talk as I have here indulged in is, at best, smilingly condoned as merely a pathetic sort of plea for recognition as a “real artist.” But we, in our turn, can afford to smile when the painter-critic tells us we are not and never can be “artists” in our chosen medium of expression, if we produce something which is not merely “nearly as good” as the painter could have done in his own way, but something which is independently as good, as valuable, as true, as personal, and which, at the same time, is as manifestly a photograph—something produced by camera and lens—as a painting is a thing produced by pigments and brushes.
But it must be remembered that it is only those who study art-works as seriously as a would-be painter does who can hope to achieve real success and advance this independent value in and recognition of camera-work.
We must not allow ourselves to make crude mistakes in subject or treatment, for if we do it inevitably happens that it is not the worker who gets blamed, but photography, a very different thing. Therein can be found
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[pgbrk] the drag to the true progress and recognition of photography as an independent method of art-expression of very real value, though, of course, photographs will always be beneath and far less than those works of art produced by really great painters and draughtsmen, those so rarely given to the world,
“pour encourager les autres.”
FREDERICK H. EVANS.
THE TECHNIQUE OF MYSTERY AND BLURRED EFFECTS.
MYSTERY IS a sort of attenuation,” said D. W. Tryon, the landscape-painter, to me one day, “and the painter who is in pursuit of it has to sacrifice a good
deal of color and form and other qualities before
he will find himself able to run the mystery down.” This definition seemed to me a very comprehensive one. If we draw a row of trees and exaggerate the frugality of their anatomy and blur the background, we shall at once have added a charm of vagueness to the composition and, by the principle of simple, vacillating lines in parallel succession, have attained something like mystery.
Tryon’s method of painting carries out this idea perfectly. During the six or seven months he annually spends on his Massachusetts farm he hardly paints at all. He merely takes mental notes or makes a hasty color-sketch in pastel. Returning to his studio for the winter's work, the conception of three or four pictures has so far developed in his mind that the composition causes him no further trouble. Without trusting to good fortune and accident for his effect, he “lays in” all that is essential for the start. At this stage his pictures look very much like the paintings of some rabid impressionist. The color is virulent, the lines and space-
division rather crude and the form merely suggested. Slowly these defi-
ciencies are overcome, the color-effects are softened, the line-work purified and idealized and the various color-patches subjected to a most scrupulous analysis. Also due attention is paid to the fretwork of details. Weeks have passed and now, at last, begins the process of weeding out all unnecessary elements. He begins to touch up and break the surfaces and to stipple and cross-hatch with nervous touches. The forms appear less solid and more ethereal, the colors dissolve into nameless nuances, the details lose all obtrusiveness and the composition, although remaining precise, assumes a dream-like character. The picture is finished.
The actual technique of his process of attenuation is largely a glazing with pure color, without useless trituration with varnish and all that illegitimate cookery with which painters encumber their technique; or, in other words, it is a breaking up of the fundamental colors by the juxtaposition and superposition of others, the conquest of gray, the color of modern life, by an invasion of all the half-tints and minor gradations of the spectrum.
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[pgbrk] It is a lesson to all artists desirous of exploring the realm of mystery. The losing of form by some blurring process is one of the safest media in suggesting mystery. George Fuller, Corot, Carriere and Israels have all successfully applied it. But it is not the only way. Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci, for instance, accomplished it by a skilful manipulation of light and shade. Rembrandt by strong contrasts, weird light-bursts flitting across a sea of shadows, and da Vinci by a mysterious light that seems, like golden threads, to be woven through the entire texture of the picture. To express mystery by mere attenuation of form without the blurring of outlines (i. e., by weirdness of conception and a bizarre style of execution) was accomplished by some of the symbolists (Raoul de Guardier, Heinrich Vogeler and the German sculptor Minne), but the awkward emaciated shapes, which they pass for human bodies, hardly conform with the demands of artistic anthropometry. Rodin obtained the effect of mystery by the contrast of rough and smooth surfaces, by letting fragments of human forms emerge from a solid, chaotic mass, not unlike the sudden introduction of a few melodious bars in the tumultuous developments of a Brahms symphony. Michael Angelo, whose frankness of method disdained all subterfuges, realized mystery by pure form; he simply introduced horns on the forehead of his Moses and thereby added the charm of mystery to a monument that otherwise would have impressed us only with awe and majesty. Distinction of form, however, is as a rule not conducive to the expression of mystery. Nor is softness of form (viz., Watteau) generally sufficient. Clear outlines say everything at the first glance; they conceal nothing and excite no wonder. Bocklin and Gustave Moreau each created a legendary world of his own; but Bocklin, despite his greater profundity of thought, will never be called a mystic, while Gustave Moreau, who, by the means of vague and grotesque shapes, expressed only one-half of what he felt and thought, gives us in all the pictures of his later period a faint suggestion of something wholly unknown, of something beyond ordinary human comprehension. In literature, if we ignore curiosity-exciting plots of the Wilkie Collins stamp, mystery is less frequently met with. Words are less evasive than colors. Their vocation is to attain to logical directness. Only in poetical effusions may they become enigmatical. Unhappy, fantastic Poe, who saw ghosts even in broad daylight and to whom the world appeared, at all times, as if steeped in some phosphorescent gloom, produced the desired effect by alternate repetition of long and open or short and obtuse vowel sounds. Maeterlinck, with whom the suggestion of mystery amounts almost to a science, adds a parallelism of phrasing, a repetition of apparently meaningless words which continually conceal the author’s thoughts. He works in a less direct manner than Poe and appeals to the mind of the reader to assist him in his fantastic explorations. In literature, moreover, mystery seems to consist largely of a concealment of actualities, of depriving the words to a certain extent of their literary significance or of investing them with pictorial and musical qualities.
Our fondness for mystery is a great danger to modern art. We all know that we have become less versatile in artistic accomplishments than
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[pgbrk] our predecessors. To such an extent have the stress of modern life and mercenary reasons turned us all into specialists that we hardly realize how ridiculous it is that one artist should devote his entire life to sheep-painting, another to the depiction of pirates, a third to portraits, etc., just as if each branch were a profession in itself. If a painter were to limit his emotions in a similar way he would arrive at a point where he might be satisfied with continually representing the same mood of nature. A certain number of our painters have already fallen victims to this monotonous practice and even Tryon has actually limited himself to two phases of nature—to dawns and twilights. How the old masters would laugh at such proceedings, they, whose brushes subdued the entire objective universe!
But one thing may be argued in favor of the modern artist—that, limitation having turned him into an expert, he has become superior to the old masters in the depiction of atmospheric effects and subtler emotions. To know an age aright, we should seek to understand its ideal. The ideal of modern art lies in its musical tendency. Walter Pater asserts that “all art constantly aspires toward the condition of music.” This is true in a certain sense. But how could an age in which music was still in its infancy make musical ideals the leading elements of its art? The school of Giorgione had a physical suavity and charm, quite apart from the subjects it represented ; but this quality, so far removed from mere topography, materia and actual circumstances, was, after all, merely an accessory and the inspiration which created it more religious than psychological. But what has music to do with mystery? some reader may ask. Merely this: that mystery is one of the few means (another being color, pure and simple, as manipulated by Monet and Chavannes) by which musical ideals can be expressed in painting. The vagueness of represented forms runs parallel to certain sound-impressions—and that is the reason why modern painters so often make vagueness the vehicle of their emotions. They are aware that mystery dredges deeper than any other emotional suggestion; that it represents to our mind an everlasting enigma which no human thought can solve. The music of mystery, to speak with Browning, drags up “abysmal bottom-growths” from our soul-sea. It is the endeavor to perpetuate particular moments of human happiness, vague currents of the “unsounded sea” which at rare intervals lash our feeling into exquisite activity. And to realize this is indisputably one of the most deserving and ambitious tasks a modern artist can set himself.
Sidney Allan.
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[pgbrk] ROBERT DEMACHY
I. Behind the Scenes.
II. Speed.
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[pgbrk] THE GUM-PRINT.
IT IS wonderful how many experts in gum-bichromate have appeared in print during the last twelve months. English, American, German and French papers are full of gum. The thunderous “Gummidruck” of the Teutons being, without doubt, the most appalling, not only because of its terrible sound, but because of its suggestion of insurmountable difficulty. I have gone through most of these articles, and though I have been steadily working with, if not at, the process since 1894, some of them seemed exceedingly strange and new, others a little too familiar, very few honestly instructive. So much so that I have often been haunted by a cruel doubt in regard to the practical experience of some authors. It is but a doubt; and when I look at my wide and deep basket, after having read of the wonderful and constant results of some new formula (the last hinted at a solution of bichromate of potash of 50 per cent.!) I feel very sad indeed.
Of course, these numberless formulae and these conflicting instructions are confusing, but there is something worse to fear. For the impression one gathers from the perusal of such articles is that, once a moderately faithful positive image in gum-bichromate has been obtained, the process has been so far mastered and that complete mastery consists in repeating the above result at will. On all that makes the unique and peculiar quality of a beautiful gum-print there is absolute silence. In consequence the beginner, who has never seen a fine and complete example of the process, will be ignorant of what he ought to be working for and will take for granted that his own results, whatever they show, are the genuine results to be expected from gum and that it can not be carried further. Under the circumstances the utterly wrong conclusion at which the amateur has arrived is but natural. Give half a dozen sheets of gelatine-chloride paper, a good negative and a booklet of instructions to a raw amateur of average brains, and he will turn out a series of prints amongst which there will be one at least that will give him a truthful idea of the best results the paper is capable of. The same man, if not forewarned—which he is not by the gum-experts—will expect just as much from tentative gum-printing. The best print of his first batch will be put down as the genuine and only style of gum-print. Well, I have noticed that the earliest complete images one gets by this process are of two distinct and invariable styles, according to circumstances. Either the beginner, imbued with the utterly false and proportionately widespread principle that it is always safer to overexpose, produces a gritty, small-pox effect of mixed planes and haphazard values, for which the abrasion of the film, necessitated by the hardening of prolonged insolation, is responsible—or he follows the vague and elastic dogma that proclaims an extra thin film indispensable and makes it so beautifully scarce that his picture, good enough when wet, dries with sunken shadows, no accents and an unhealthy out-all-night appearance such as is unhappily quite common in modern gum-work.
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[pgbrk] These two specimen beginners honestly believe that they have extracted from the process all that it can give, and, if they are afflicted with what their friends call originality, they will later on exaggerate the distinctive racial peculiarities of their first creations and we shall have a school of figure-studies with flesh of granite structure and of cotton-wool landscapes with gray paper shadows.
It must be understood that there is no process under the sun that can be responsible for a more complete series of abominable, inartistic effects than gum-bichromate. Between the innocent white paper that emerges from the developing-tray when exposure has been insufficient and the black and forbidding surface of the overexposed sheet, unresponsive to all developing agents, there are many and many stages of possible artistic deformities—and few of artistic excellence. The former, like all ill things, force themselves upon you; the latter, more timid, have to be wooed; and the beginner, deceived by wrong teaching or absence of teaching, is apt to be satisfied with the bad. It follows that some sort of definition of the best results must be found. Though it is a common adage throughout photographic literature that photography must resemble no other graphic art, I must say that the best results I have ever seen in gum, in Steichen’s, Puyo’s, Watzek’s, Kuhn’s, etc., have always reminded me forcibly of fine engravings, fine etchings, fine lithographs or fine wash-drawings. The repetition of the adjective is intentional, for, notwithstanding that this fact is never considered in the eternal comparisons between recognized art-processes and photography, there are thousands of engravings, etchings, lithographs and wash-drawings that are quite as bad as any very bad gum-print. Of course, I am referring only to the beauty of the blacks, the delicacy of the half-tones and the general quality of the spots of color, aside from subject or composition, for these have nothing to do with what we are writing about. And I must add, also, that by beautiful blacks I do not mean intensely dark tones, but shadows, whatever their value, that give the impression of depth and not of a flat surface of merely black paper.
For the initiated, or perhaps for the insane (this is a question of words), there is a most exquisite pleasure in the contemplation of fine shades of deep and translucent black independently of form. I must be a little mad in that quarter, for a beautiful smudge of Indian ink on white, creamy paper will interest me much more than many an elaborate bromide picture. You will find on analyzing Japanese works of art in monochrome, such as kakemonos, that most of the special sensation derived therefrom is due to the beautiful quality and freshness of the blacks and to the wonderful gradation from pearl-gray to deep shadow. A Japanese artist lately presented to me an exquisite decorative study which he painted before my eyes in twelve strokes of the brush on a large sheet of beautiful paper. It consisted of a bamboo-stem thrown diagonally across the paper, with a few dagger-like leaves to fill the proper spaces. The stem was painted with one stroke of the brush and a few stoppages where the knots of the wood came in, the difference of tone between the light and dark side of the round stem being obtained by unequal
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[pgbrk] pressure sideways on the conical Japanese brush, and the result was perfect. The same bamboo-stem painted in a finicky fashion, with a multitude of touches, would have produced quite an inferior effect. The blacks would not have been the same, and the fluid, watery sensation between the light and shade would not have been there.
Now, what is important in a wash-drawing is just as important in a gum-print. Fine tones, true rendering of values, etc., are no more the property of one process than of another; they are evolved from the brain and hand of the artist who is using it. A beginner in gum ought to have it impressed upon him that the first complete replica he will obtain with his process (unless by some extraordinary stroke of luck) will show the worst side of it and will be unfit for publication. He must learn that the finest composition will not be worth much, if it be printed in dirty black with values placed haphazard and with a mangy, old-Italian fresco surface lacking even the excuse of antiquity. One must have worked at gum-bichromate for some time to realize the numberless variety of results produced by degrees of over- and under-printing and by varied thickness of the film. From these the gum-printer must learn how to choose. He will not learn this in a day nor will complicated formulae teach him.
It is impossible in an article of the length of the present one to go into every technical detail of the process, but I think that two sound principles can be given as a basis for personal experiments:
First: A proper smoothness of film is absolutely necessary. This
can be obtained only by using a sensitive color-mixture of proper thickness. The degree of this thickness is dependent upon the roughness of the paper. When the lines and ridges made by roughly smearing the mixture over the sheet of paper can be easily smoothed down with brush No. 2, it is of the proper thickness; but when these ridges resist or when no ridges are left after the smearing, the mixture is too thin. Avoid this last error, above all, by using thick gum stock which will allow you to thin down your sensitive color-mixture with bichromate solution and to secure a strong film, good half-tones and shorter exposure.
Secondly: Bear in mind that absolutely insoluble film can not possibly
give any depth in the shadows. Once dry, an overexposed picture, though it may have appeared quite beautiful while it was wet, will be gritty, dull and sombre, much uglier than an ordinary bromide print. It is indispensable that the exposure should be such as to let the developing-water permeate every shadow of the gum-picture right down to the paper. There ought always to be a slight tendency to running, a strong one if a water-color effect is intended. In the case of brush development proper, the exposure must be carried further, but never so far as positively to tan the film in the blacks. Of course a complete image will always be obtained by rubbing—whatever is the state of the film—but we are talking of pictures.
In fine, the practical gum-process theory is thus brought down to two important factors: proper thickness of sensitive mixture and proper length of exposure. It will be easily understood that both these factors are too
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[pgbrk] variable to be made the subject of a formula; the thickness of the mixture being governed by the nature of the paper to be coated, and the exposure by the ordinary photographic conditions, to which must be added for gum-bichromate the color of the film, its degree of thickness and the varying percentage of chromic salts in its composition.
Of course the use of ready-coated paper will do away with most of the uncertainties of the process, but this means uniformly prepared paper and consequent uniformity of quality and flavor in the results. Although I may be wrong, I do not think that any paper that will float on a bichromate bath without melting can be made with pure gum. On the other hand, in all the samples of commercially prepared paper I have experimented with I have detected the presence of gelatine in some form or other. When this is present one must bid farewell to all the water-color scale of effects, which I have always found it impossible to secure with pure gelatine, such as we find in the ozotype process, gum-gelatine or other such compounds. Pure gum, on the contrary, will allow of a wide range of effects, from the delicate washed-out quality of water-colors to the strong accents of etching or engraving. The danger of ready-made gum-bichromate paper lies in the extreme facility with which certain gloomy effects may be produced over and over again. The beginner may thus fall into a rut and thus add another inexperienced disciple to the school of low tone which, to be properly rendered, demands a profound knowledge of relative values that very few photographers possess.
From my own point of view I find that home-made paper, even with its greater uncertainties, is infinitely more interesting to work than the other. It is astonishing how differently the coating will behave under development, according to the grain, the texture and the thickness of the paper. The final effect differs in each case, and there is an inexhaustible supply of queer papers in the market, besides the well-known brands, most fascinating to experiment upon. By all means coat your own paper, and you will find ample reward for your pains. The consideration of expense also favors home-coating.
Another practice we hear but little about from gum experts, at least from its practical point of view, is double printing. It is generally represented as a sort of distinct process, invented by and peculiar to the Germans, but it may be used occasionally as a corrective without any of the complicated paraphernalia of the redoubtable “Gummidruck.” I have done this work myself, now and then, and have saved several underexposed prints that way. But these must be cleanly developed with pure whites, and without granular effect. The final picture will thus be composed of double-printed shadows and single-printed half-tones— a strong picture without harshness. Also the second coating may be applied locally, the uninteresting parts being left just as they are, half washed away and a quantity of fruitful combinations may thus be evolved. For brown or light sepia tones double printing is extremely helpful, for it is most difficult to get strong oily pictures with such transparent colors as Van Dyck brown, bistre, ochre and the series of yellows. In this
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[pgbrk] case it is safer to use single colors for each impression, the lighter tones underneath.
Finally, I have noticed in several gum treatises a half-true statement (just a question of “nuance,” but art is made of “nuances”) about redeveloping a dried print after soaking in a bath of diluted bisulphide of soda. It is quite correct that the film may be softened that way, even up to the point of abandoning its support altogether; but what one would be inclined to believe from the above vague statement, and what is not true, is that the different parts of the gum-picture have retained their original and varying resistance to friction. Instead of this the film hardens in an inverse ratio to the insolubility, the shadows being less resistant than the half-tones. It is important to remember this before taking up a brush. Moreover, I have always found it impossible to handle a print in this state with anything like the freedom allowed by ordinary development, without leaving most disagreeable traces of intervention, hard lines and scrapy effects. Wide, flat areas, skies or walls or neutral backgrounds may be lightened by careful rubbing with a very fine sponge or a pad of cotton-wool, but, even then, you will notice that the lighter tone is given by the abrasion of the tip of each individual grain of the paper, not by a general thinning of the film as in primary development. In fine, development may be renewed, but a redeveloped print will always be inferior, as to quality, to one that has been correctly developed at first. This is another fact in favor of my theory — that no after-treatment will produce a result equal to that of cold-water development of fresh paper.
I have come to the end of these few notes and I find I have been using in this last paragraph, and indeed throughout my article, a word that to me means something quite definite, but that will be understood differently by different photographers. Quality—but what quality? Here comes the inevitable note of interrogation which follows all descriptions of those subtle things that make a splash of color and a spot of white ugly or beautiful. And it is the introduction of this new element, peculiar to art, in a photographic process like gum, that gives rise to the dangerous confusion these lines are timidly directed against.
The gum-bichromate process is indeed difficult to teach, for it is a question, not of “what you must do,” but of “how must you do it?” There is
a difference. Robert Demachy.
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[pgbrk] ON THE APPRECIATION OF VANITY.
VANITY OF vanities—all is vanity,” said the wise king, who was writing in a pessimistic mood on the morning after. But a re-revised edition now being prepared for the use of modern readers wisely has it “Vanity is the whole thing.”
Ah, yes, my ineffective friend, I know what you would say. You would remind me that the meek shall
inherit the earth. And doubtless the meek shall, ulti-
mately, come into their inheritance. But, meanwhile, the estate has been a long time in chancery and the decision of the court will hardly be handed down in our day.
Yet, dear fellow-students in the school of self-sufficiency, let us beware of dangerous generalizations. Let us mark well the quality of our vainness. “If I were not Alexander,” said an early exemplar of the strenuous life, “I would be Diogenes.” “Humph!” said the old gentleman, who was having his morning tub and who had a nice discrimination in vanities himself, “Humph! Would you mind moving out of my printing-light?” And the world, which hates a snob but loves a man with a proper estimate of his own value, has allowed that the philosopher had the better of the argument.
All, then, that swaggers is not vanity. There are grades and shades of
vanity. There are even nuances. And by this we see that true vanity is a fine art. To paraphrase an epigram of Zola’s, it is “a bit of egotism seen through a temperament.” Now, unfortunately, an epigram is like a formula for making gum-prints. It makes life seem too easy. Let us therefore be careful. And first let us see to it that it be our own egotism and seen through our own temperament. Hair, for instance, is an excellent, fine thing, and the basic raw material of much good vanity, yet without a temperament it is nothing. Else were the Sutherland Sisters secessionists! And seen through a borrowed temperament it is distorted, out of drawing, faked, and, by the same token, no true photography. So if long hair, be its sleekness never so sinuous, is plainly an exotic in the latitude of my head, and I have, ready to my use, an indigenous smile that is “childlike and bland,” why — me to the barber! Moreover, man can not live by hair alone. Hair, planted in soft places, merely runs to stalks. To bear fruit it needs a hard cranium and a rich sub-soil. Again, “If thy brother’s long hair offend thee, cut it off,” is poor advice and leads, at best, to negative results. Nor must we think to grow a longer shock on our own pates and thus gain honor among men. They will only say that the influence of Steichen is plainly to be traced in our development. In short, coat your own vanity. It is more work, but the results make conversation, and the stirring of the pool is still a condition precedent to success. Be careful, too, that your vanity be chemically neutral. A few drops of the green alkali of jealousy will destroy the purity of its high lights and flatten its effect.
Courage, then, brethren. It is true that vanity is impossible on an
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[pgbrk] empty stomach and a dangerous thing in an empty head, but properly fed and well mixed with brains it is a marketable asset. Consider the lessons of history. Lot, whose exceptional righteousness would never have kept his name alive, has ridden down the ages on the eclat of a meretricious lack of curiosity, and had Sampson had a due regard for his artistic qualifications Delilah might have gone hang. A Ions! Shall wisdom not be justified of her children ? Let us but have something to be vain about, and then be judiciously and picturesquely vain of something else and, like Monte Cristo, we may cry “The World is Mine!” J. B. Kerfoot
FOREIGN EXHIBITIONS AND THE PHOTO-SECESSION.—NOTES.
IF WE judge from the large number of requests for Photo-Secession collections received by the director of that organization, no fewer than one hundred and forty-seven having reached him during the last year, it would seem as though an epidemic of exhibitions in which pictorial photography played a more or less important role had broken forth with great virulence. The invitations have come from all parts of the world, and from societies ranging from village camera clubs to important international art-exhibitions, the most important having been received from Europe. Manifestly it was impossible to meet all demands, and while the Secession is but too willing to aid even the least of these, so long as no attempt is made to use the Secession as an advertising medium, yet it stands to reason that the more important art-exhibitions have first claim, the leading photographic exhibitions ranking next.
For many years Dresden, Germany, has been a recognized art-center. Its Internationale Grosse Kunst Ausstellung this year decided to open its portals to pictorial photography. The exhibition as a whole had to pass before the usual juries, but to the Photo-Secession had been accorded the distinction of choosing its own collection, thus having made it hors concours. Thirty-three pictures of the very highest merit were selected and duly shipped. The exhibition opened on May first, and closes on November first.
As briefly noted in our previous issue, Bradford, England, similarly invited the Photo-Secession to participate in the International Art Exhibition with which its newly built art-galleries were opened. Thither were dispatched about fifty picked frames.
The course of true love of photography follows the same channels in Europe as in America, and many of the older photographic organizations have stagnated to such an extent that the more modern element has been
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[pgbrk] impelled to cut loose from hoary traditions. In Vienna the old-time Camera Club, long identified with the best interests of pictorial photography, for which it faithfully battled, has been elbowed aside by the recently founded Wiener Photo-Club. Such well-known members of the older organization as Kuhn and Henneberg, while still identified with the mother club, are giving their active support to the offspring. This spring the Photo-Club has held its first really important exhibition, to which the Photo-Secession was invited to contribute. As seems to have become generally the chronic custom, the invitation was sent at the half-past-eleventh hour, ordinarily too late to have met with acceptance, and had it not been that the fastest liner afloat, the “Kaiser Wilhelm II,” was to sail two days after the receipt of the invitation, the Secession could not have made timely connections, which indeed would have been regrettable. As it was it was able to send thirty-three pictures of equal merit to those sent to Dresden, thus assuring that the first American representation in Vienna since 1897 would uphold the reputation of modern American photography, which is well known in that art-center.
The Photo-Club of Paris is holding its regular annual salon as we go to press. The Secession is amply represented with seventy pictures by some thirty of its members.
The Hague, Holland, having also been infected with the exhibition microbe, the disease followed the usual course and the Photo-Secession was duly invited. The invitation called for two hundred pictures, which were promptly forwarded. This is the first really important photographic exhibition held in Holland. It is still open.
It is a pity that while one phase of American pictorial photography should be represented with such splendid adequacy throughout Europe that in our own St. Louis exhibition American pictorial photography of any note should be without representation. None regret this more than the Secession, but it has followed that course which to it seemed for the best interests of photography.
We believe that all American photographers who have the best interests of photography at heart will learn with pleasure that a probable outcome of Mr. Horsley Hinton’s visit to America will be that work intended for the London Photographic Salon may be submitted for approval to a Selection Committee in New York, on which all American Links are eligible to serve. At the time of going to press the details of this scheme are under discussion and will need to be finally confirmed by the main body of the Linked Ring at London, whereupon circulars will be issued immediately.
American photographers can not fail to appreciate the marked degree of confidence in the judgment of the American “Links” which is implied by this, the first, delegation of their powers on the part of the London Linked Ring.
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[pgbrk] OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE PICTURES in this number have all, with the exception of one, been reproduced from original gum-prints. The Hofmeisters ought to need no introduction, but to those not familiar with their work the article by Mr. Juhl will be of special interest.
The two pictures by M. Robert Demachy speak for themselves. From the father of gum-printing these prints, together with his article thereon, must prove of exceptional value to the student.
The name of Sadakichi Hartmann, art-critic and familiar contributor to our pages, must be well known to our readers, and Mr. Steichen’s portrait of him is peculiarly characteristic.
In thus presenting examples of “gum” technique by three masters in that medium, the readers of Camera Work will have an opportunity of judging of the elasticity and range of this fascinating printing-process.
The Ferry, Concarneau, by Mary Devens, was reproduced from her original ozotype. Miss Devens is undoubtedly the foremost exponent in this country of this medium, which is quite as effective and nearly as pliable as the gum-process.
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IS PHOTOGRAPHY A RECOGNIZED SCIENCE?
WHILE PHOTOGRAPHY is slowly receiving at the hands of the art-loving public the long-fought-for recognition as an individual medium of artistic expression, it has been the belief of many that its status as a science was unquestioned and unchallenged. Such, unfortunately, is not the fact—at least, so far as this country is concerned. Indeed, the advent of photography was hailed with delight in every field of scientific research, in every laboratory; by the scientist, by the manufacturer, by the business-man alike. All have been eager to avail themselves of its invaluable services. Discoveries were made by its agency, discoveries which photography alone has rendered possible. Whatever the field of research, whether pertaining to the infinitely small or to the infinitely great, to the realm of scientific speculation or to that of practical application, photography was called upon as a helpful ally.
It responded to an extent hardly to be overestimated. Unknown worlds were explored, problems were solved, horizons were extended, mysteries were probed, and, despite its accomplishments, what provisions have been made for it in our best institutions of learning? What provisions have been made for the advancement of that science? In the great quest for
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[pgbrk] truth it seems to have been forgotten, and time is but sparingly given to, money but grudgingly granted for, the study of its mysteries and possibilities.
The senior professor of physics at one of our leading Western universities rejoices in a salary of $7,500 a year. He has at his disposal a laboratory on which has been spent thousands of dollars; he gives all of his time to experimental work. He is at the head of and helped by a whole staff of assistant professors, the junior of whom gets $1,800 salary. In the departments of chemistry, natural history, philosophy, arts, etc., etc., the same conditions prevail, the salaries ranging from about $3,000 down to $1,800. Yet no provision whatever has been forthcoming for a laboratory devoted to photographic research. Tentative efforts to obtain an endowment fund for such a one proved fruitless. At last, after repeated attempts, a small laboratory was promised, such laboratory to be an annex to the department of chemistry or of physics; as in the opinion of the powers that be photography did not warrant a more important establishment. After much discussion the liberality of the university was touched to the tune of an $800 annual appropriation for salary. Not quite the wages of a New York policeman. What kind of man could be expected at that price? Is it surprising, then, that the chair (!) be still vacant?
These conditions, however, are typical, and are to be found everywhere in the United States. Abroad, the outlook is, happily, far different. Once more the light comes from the East. As far back as the early sixties a chair of photography was created at Berlin for Dr. H. W. Vogel. There the Politechnicum has a regular laboratory of photographic research, and the department as a whole comprises a most elaborate organization and embraces a whole staff of attendants. In Vienna, the K. K. Lehr- und Versuch-Anstalt, under the direction of Professor Eder, has a whole department exclusively devoted to photographic research work and to the teaching of that science in all its branches. In France and Switzerland similar conditions prevail. The most important universities have photographic departments and courses. In England, thanks to the repeated efforts of Sir W. J. W. Abney and a group of energetic coworkers, a chair of scientific research work has been recently created which is shortly to be inaugurated. Examples could be multiplied, but enough has been said, we trust, to make all sincere lovers of photography feel keenly the indifference and apathy displayed by our scientific institutions toward an established science. Poor photography! She plays at the hearth of learning the role of the needy relative whose help is very much appreciated, but whose company is not desired—she is relegated to the kitchen but forbidden entrance in the drawing-room.
Oh, for a Carnegie or a Rockefeller to set matters aright!
A. K. Boursault.
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[pgbrk] ABOUT FOCAL LENGTH.
ALTHOUGH RAPIDITY is a matter of importance when selecting a lens, especially for portrait-photog-raphy, it is secondary in ninety-five per cent, of all cases to the importance of the focal length.
This should not be understood to mean that it is indifferent whether a lens works at F.6 or at F.15, for such considerable differences always point to entirely different classes of objectives, but F.45 or F.55 or even F.63 or F.68 becomes a matter of less importance, than the question of the proper focal length for the purpose we have in view.
Differences in maximum openings of various lenses are only noticeable when using such maximum openings, which condition in actual practice is very rarely encountered, and furthermore the influences of different relative openings can be completely counterbalanced by corresponding modification of the duration of exposure.
Differences in focal lengths, on the contrary, can not be counterbalanced. A portrait made with a 12-inch lens may be equally as large as one made
with an 18-inch lens, but the size will be absolutely the only point in common
between two such pictures. Their general appearance, even though they be taken from the same relative points of view, will be quite different, owing to the different perspective produced by the different angles embraced by the two lenses when set to make equal-sized images. A further study of this subject will lead us to recognize the fact that the longer focal lengths will always produce the more satisfactory results, with regard to true perspective in portraiture as well as in landscape-work.
The perspective effect is due to the decreased scale at which objects situated in receding planes are depicted. Knowing that this scale is directly proportionate to the distance, it is a simple matter mathematically to compare the results produced by two lenses of different focal length when used to make images of the same size.
Let us assume for the purpose of this investigation that we have two 8x10 cameras pointed at the same person. One camera is equipped with a lens of 12-inch focus, the other with a lens of 18-inch focus, both cameras adjusted to make a bust which will properly suit an 8x10 plate and therefore one-third of life-size.
In order to reduce in proportion of 1 to 3, the lenses should be placed at four times their respective focal lengths from the sitter. Let us measure this from the eyes and place the 12-inch lens at 48 inches distance, and the 18-inch lens at 72 inches distance. The corresponding extensions of the cameras will be 46/3= 16, and 72/3=24 inches, respectively; which shows that the 12-inch lens has been racked out 4 inches and actually works as a 16-inch lens, and the 18-inch lens has been racked out 6 inches and works as a 24-inch lens. The proportion of reduction in the plane of the eyes will
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[pgbrk] thus be exactly as 1 to 3. Assuming the tip of the nose to be 2 inches nearer to each lens than the eyes, we find it 46 inches and 70 inches, respectively, from the 12-inch lens and from the 18-inch lens. It will consequently be projected on the plates in proportions of 46/16 = 2.875 by the smaller lens, and of 70/24 = 2.916 by the larger lens, equal to an increase in scale of 4.16 per cent, and of 2.79 per cent., respectively, as compared to the scale of reproduction of the plane of the eyes. Applying similar comparisons to the parts of the head which are further away from the lenses, the scale of reproduction will naturally become smaller in direct proportion of the increase of the distances. Assuming the back of the head to be 7 inches further away than the eyes, we get, as scales, ab+7/6 = 3-4375 and 2^z = 3.29, or 14.56 per cent, decrease in scale for the 12-inch lens, and 9.66 per cent, in the case of the 18-inch lens. When adding the percentage of increase in either case to that of the decrease, we will find the percentage of the total difference of scale with which each lens will have projected its image. This shows that the 12-inch lens varied 18.72 per cent., and the 18-inch lens, 12.45 Per cent. from the front to the back of the head. Such a considerable difference must of necessity lead to the conclusion that the longer lens is preferable and will produce a more natural perspective than the shorter one. Q. E. D. L. J. R. Holst.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC RAY-FILTER WHICH IS NOT A COLOR-SCREEN.
IN INQUIRY about mounts for color-screens, recently made in a Fifth Avenue photo-supply shop, led the shopkeeper, after some hesitation, to “guess” that it was a “ray-filter” holder that was wanted. I have been in the habit of regarding the terms as interchangeable; but the object of this communication is to call attention to the merits of a ray-filter which is not a color-screen, because it has no color.
Such a ray-filter is made by coating plate-glass with a rather thick film of hard gelatine and then soaking it for a sufficiently long time in a saturated aqueous solution of esculin. When perfectly dry this screen, although showing none of the fluorescence and light-scattering properties of the aqueous solution of esculin, and although “uncolored” is, under some circumstances, more efficient for improving the rendering in photography than light color-screens made with some dyes which have been recommended for the purpose. The reason for this is that the most “antichromatic” rays of the photographic spectrum, the ultra-violet, are completely suppressed by esculin, but pretty freely transmitted by some of the yellow dyes. This is so far true that even with some of the orthochromatic plates in the market, a white screen of esculin may be as efficient as a moderately deep screen of chrysoidine or uranine,
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[pgbrk] while with ordinary plates the rendering is improved by the esculin and injured by the chrysoidine or uranine.
To demonstrate the qualitative difference between a “white” ray-filter of esculin and a moderately deep orange-yellow color-screen of uranine, I made a photograph of a portion of New York from across the Hudson, on an ordinary plate, part of which was covered by an esculin screen and part by a uranine screen. The foreground came alike in both sections, but the distance was rendered considerably brighter and clearer under the esculin screen than under the uranine, thus proving the superiority of the blue over the ultra-violet rays for definition of distant objects in a landscape, and also that the efficiency of a color-screen may not be judged by visual examination alone.
Even the yellow dyes most approved for color-screen making, the brilliant yellow first used and recommended by me, and tartrazine, recommended by Dr. Miethe for light color-screens, show absorption in the blue of the spectrum, which is disproportionate to that in the ultra-violet, and may therefore be advantageously supplemented with something like my dry esculin screen.
It should be said, in conclusion, that it is possible to get so much
esculin into a thick film of gelatine that it becomes a color-screen, although
an extremely pale one, only the spectrum violet rays between G and H
being perceptibly absorbed. Such a screen is not only “quicker,” but more
efficient in landscape-photography than ordinary yellow screens two or three
shades darker.
Frederic E. Ives.
THINGS WORTH LOOKING INTO.
THE FINDER ot your hand-camera in the St. Louis Exhibition grounds where the Eastman Kodak
Company succeeded in obtaining free admission for all hand-cameras up to and including 4x5.
The enlarged home of the Graflex and Graphic.
There is no admission-fee, and visitors are always
welcome.
The pen-pictures by Joseph T. Keiley, appearing in Photography (published in London, 3 St. Bride Street), of some of the best-known American pictorial photographers. These articles are upon novel lines, and are illustrated with characteristic examples of the work of those photographers of whom they treat. Mr. R. Child Bayley, Editor of Photography, has spared no effort to
lay before his readers an adequate conception of the personality and
achievements of these American workers.
The two splendid numbers of the Photo-Miniature, the one devoted to the Hurter and Driffield system of exposure and development, and the
St. Louis and the Kodak.
The home of the Graphic
Pen-pictures by Joseph T. Keiley
Newer numbers of the Photo-Miniature
45
[pgbrk] Lens Catalogues
New portrait-lens
Other catalogues
Unusual quality
Diffusion of focus
That red label
Bindings for Camera Work
other to Mr. Hinton’s method of platinum-printing. We congratulate Mr. Tennant upon these really valuable additions to photographic literature.
The catalogues issued by Goerz, Bausch and Lomb Optical Company, Meyrowitz (Zeiss), Voigtlaender and Son Optical Company, and the Cooke people. Those desirous of remaining fully up-to-date in lens matters must not fail to get these catalogues and study them carefully.
The new portrait-lenses just introduced by Bausch and Lomb. A special lens for special purposes. Beautifully finished and does all claimed for it.
The 1904 Eastman, the Anthony and Scovill, and the Gennert. Each speaks for itself.
The different products of the Farbenfabriken of Elberfeld Company. Their unusual quality is gaining them hosts of friends.
That diffusion of focus is sometimes most important and oftentimes impossible to get right with the ordinary lens. The Dallmeyer-Bergheim (Anthony and Scovill) and the Smith (Smith and Pinkham) are specially built for these requirements. Take a peep into them—it will cost you but a few minutes of your hours of spare time.
That dear old bottle with the red label—Schering’s Pyro, an old-timer, but ever fresh and active.
The portfolios, bindings, back numbers of Camera Work. Write to us. Information gladly given.
46
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[pgbrk] PLATES
I. Sadakichi Hartmann.
By Eduard J. Steichen.
II. The Ferry, Concarneau.
By Mary Devens.
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[pgbrk] AN APPEAL TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS.
TEMPORARY CHANGE OF ADDRESS.
The erroneous impression has gone abroad that the edition of Camera Work is limited and that only the favored few are admitted to our subscription-list. From so many sources has this reached us that we are compelled to take this means of impressing upon our friends that not only can we furnish copies to all intending subscribers, but that we need as many new subscribers as possible in order to insure the continuance and improvement of the magazine upon the highest planes.
If each of our friends will take sufficient individual interest to secure further subscribers for us, he will not only aid us in a task from which our sole remuneration is the knowledge that we are increasing the genuine interest in the possibilities of photography, but he will help in securing a still greater appreciation of what photography has already done and is capable of achieving.
It must be remembered that Camera Work was begun chiefly in order to afford the public and the photographers themselves an opportunity of studying the modern examples of pictorial photography and to secure that recognition to which they are indubitably entitled. In order to accomplish these ends it is absolutely necessary that the magazine’s influence be constantly extended.
We are giving our readers our very best efforts and we hope that we are entitled to their heartiest cooperation in an enterprise in which they must be fully as interested as ourselves.
Alfred Stieglitz.
[pgbrk] N. B.—The next number of Camera Work, the last of the 1904 series, will be issued a few weeks late, as the Editor has been compelled to take a long-needed rest in Europe and does not wish the magazine to appear without his personal supervision. Communications addressed to Mr. Alfred Stieglitz, 1111 Madison Avenue, New York, and received during his absence will receive proper attention. All personal communications will be forwarded and duly answered. Note temporary change of address.
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<div type="advertisements"><ab>
[pgbrk] Your plate-camera will use KODOID PLATES without any special holders, kits, or fitting.
Non-halation. Pronounced in their ortho-chromatic quality. Lie flat. Dry flat. One-fourth the weight of glass plates. Better.
All dealers.
EASTMAN KODAK CO.
Rochester, N. Y.
[pgbrk] THE PHOTOCHROME ENGRAVING COMPANY
Half-tones and Color-plates
162-166 Leonard St., New York
FLEMING and CARNRICK
Printing in Black and Colors from Original Designs
520 West Broadway, New York
Telephone 3580 Spring
SEYMOUR COMPANY
Fine Book and
Pamphlet Papers
76 DUANE St. New York
[pgbrk] When purchasing a developer please be particular to specify
SCHERING’S
The oldest and most favorably known brand
PUT UP WITH LABELS AND SEALS AS PER FACSIMILES HERE GIVEN
one; ounce
GALLIC Acin
RESUBLIMED
From E.SCHERING,
MANUFACTURING CHEMIST, BERLIN,GERMANY.
The Standard of the Fourth—
Last — Edition of the German Pharmacopoeia
Registered.
See that you get the Genuine “SCHERING’S” Excelled by None
FOR SALE BY ALL DEALERS
SPECIAL NOTICE
The United States Express
Company
Through its agents in London, Paris, Berlin, and all principal cities in Great Britain and on the Continent, gives Special Attention to the Purchase and Forwarding of Photographic Apparatus and Materials from “Abroad.”
NO EXTRA CHARGE FOR PURCHASES. RATES ARE QUITE REASONABLE. QUICK DESPATCH THROUGH CUSTOM HOUSE
Address inquiries to the Manager of the Foreign Department or to any Agent of the Company.
H. T. LOCKWOOD, Manager Foreign Department, 49 Broadway, New York C. H. CROSBY, Vice-President and General Manager
[pgbrk] What's What in Photography
A DEVELOPER THAT is proof against fog, can be used for everything, does not stain, is not poisonous, that’s
Edinol
A CHEMICAL THAT can be used in every photographic manipulation — developing, fixing, intensifying, reducing, toning, and printing,
that's Acetonesulphite
AN INTENSIFIER, reducer, and toner that works in one solution, keeps indefinitely, can be used repeatedly, that’s
Intensifier-Bayer
A FLASHLIGHT POWDER that gives the maximum light with the minimum smoke and noise, can not be exploded accidently, gives a soft, penetrating light, requires no extra paraphernalia, and is quick and sure, that’s
A FIXING-SALT that is twice as quick as hypo, does not tan the gelatine, is easily washed out, remains clear until exhausted, that’s
Firing Salt-Bayer
SELLING AGENTS FOR THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
Farbenfabriken of Ellerfeld Co.
40 STONE STREET, NEW YORK
Trade also supplied by
EDWARD H. BUEHLER, 134 Lake Street, Chicago, 111.; OCCIDENTAL SUPPLY CO., 131 Second Street, San Francisco, Cal.; DOMINION DYEWOOD and CHEMICAL CO., Toronto, Ont., Can. For sale by all dealers in photographic supplies and wholesale druggists.
[pgbrk] Carl Zeiss, jena
OPTICAL WORKS
Berlin, Frankfort a / M., Hamburg, London, Vienna, St. Petersburg
PALMOS-
Hand Cameras
With focal-plane shutter, and fitted with
ZEISS-LENSES
Protar, Planar, Unar, Tessar.
Price-list free. The handsome Zeiss catalogue de luxe for 15 cents to cover postage.
General Agent for the United States
E. B. MEYRO WITZ, Optician
104 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET, NEW YORK
ALSO AT 125 WEST FORTY-SECOND STREET AND 650 MADISON AVENUE
TESSAR, PROTAR, PLANAR, and UNAR are, besides by ourselves, only made and supplied by the following firms, who have obtained the right of manufacture: The Bausch and Lomb Optical
Co., Rochester, N. Y. (U. S. A.), and New York City (U. S. A.); E. Koristka, 2 Via G. Revere, Milan; E. Krauss, 21 and 23 Rue Albouy, Paris; Ross, Ltd., Ill New Bond Street, London, W.
[pgbrk] Photographing children at home and snapping out of doors in dark and dreary winter weather necessitates the use of a very rapid lens. There is none quite as good for the purpose as
THE GOERZ
Series I B. f 4.5-f 5.5
which also has no superior for photographing rapidly moving objects like racehorses, athletes, express trains, etc., when the strong light of spring and summer makes this class of photography so attractive and tempting.
For Particulars and Catalogue, address
C. P. GOERZ OPTICAL WORKS 52 Union Square, New York
[pgbrk] SUBSTANTIAL RECOGNITION
HAS BEEN ACCORDED THE
ANSCO FILM
IT HAS been proven by
many and repeated tests that the Ansco Film has no equal in latitude of exposure and development. The chemical purity of the film-support ensures exceptional keeping-qualities. Under adverse conditions Ansco Film will yield the highest percentage of good negatives.
ANSCO FILMS
are adapted for use in film-cameras made under the Houston Patent, namely:
Ansco, Kodak, Weno, Hawk-Eye, and Buck-Eye cameras.
Daylight
Development
ANSCO FILM is only brand of film which is ready prepared
for development in the McCurdy Developing-box, lately advertised under the registered trade-mark “ Kodak.” All other brands must be prepared by the user, at the expense of his time and patience, and at the risk of fogging the film.
The Ansco Film is ready prepared under a patented method, United States patent No. 727,283, dated May 5, 1903, which permits both ends of the film to be attached to the black paper without the chance of the film buckling and bunching in the camera.
THE ANTHONY AND SCOVILL COMPANY
122-124 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK
[pgbrk] The SEED
NON-HALATION ORTHO PLATE
PORTRAIT AND LANDSCAPE
A HIGH-GRADE PLATE, ABSOLUTELY UNIFORM IN QUALITY
THE SEED Non-halation Ortho Plates are daily gaining new adherents. Given a trial no other
brand will again satisfy.
These claims are substantiated in the following:
“For three years I have used the Seed Non-halation Ortho Portrait-plate for virtually all my serious work, including so-called snapshots. In my opinion it is the most perfect all-around plate in the American market to-day. For that reason—together with its absolute reliability—I am using it as the standard by which I test all other plates.
Alfred Stieglitz.”
New York, Nov. I, ’03.
[pgbrk] Copyright, 1903, by J. C. Heinment
SURE SUCCESS follows the right use of a Cooke anastigmat for landscapes and sea pictures, for copying and enlarging, for quick portraits, and for all work demanding fine definition with large apertures, from horseracing to church interiors. Write us. We’ll tell you which lens to choose and why.
JaylorJaylor. J'lopsot'l, Lid
ST. JAMES BUILDING.
BROADWAY AND 26T.M STREET.
LEICESTER.ENG. NEW YORK. LONDON.ENG.
THE COLORADO SHORT LINE.
W. E. HOYT, G. E. P. Agent, 335 Broadway, New York
Colorado, Utah
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ADDRESS COMPANY^ AGENTS MT*
MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILWAY
Missouri Pacific Railway
Observation cafe
Electric-
lighted
trains
[pgbrk] Established Telephone
187 3 2.5 33 Madison Square
MAKER OF FINE FRAMES
and^Rep reductions F?amed with Artistic Judgment 3 East Twenty-eighth Street, New York
LINING-BEVELERS are intended to do that perfect work on a Photo-engraved plate that the brain can conceive, but the hand can not execute. They will carry out the idea of the artist in framing or making a finished border that completes the lines of the picture.
Those made by JOHN ROYLE and SONS of Paterson, N. J., are perfected machines in every respect, and will do this work most reliably and in almost endless variety.
If you are interested in Photo-engraving or kindred work, send to them for full information.
HELIAR
Short Focus
Extra Rapid
For Portrait and Instantaneous Work
For information and catalogue write to
VOIGTLAENDER and SON OPTICAL CO.
137 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET, NEW YORK
[pgbrk] Tourist Graflex
The camera to ask for The camera to buy
Your dealer will show you one if you insist
Or, write to
The Folmer and Schwing Mfg. Co.
407 Broome Street, New York City
Write for our New Catalogue
[pgbrk] A KEY TO THE SECRET
HOW OFTEN have you not admired the charm of soft focus in one of the modern pictorial photographs and asked yourself: “Wonder how he got that focus? There’s nothing fuzzy about it—it seems sharp and still it isn’t.”
THE DALLMEYER-BERGHEIM
LENS
is the key to the secret.
No pictorialist’s outfit complete without it. It yields effects unobtainable with any other lens.
Made in three sizes, varying in price from forty to ninety-six dollars. For full particulars send to
The Anthony-Scovill Company
Sole American Agents
122-124 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y.
[pgbrk] VELVET VELOX
A new Velox paper with a semi-gloss surface that adds lustre and life to the shadows. Its breadth of gradation adapts it to use with almost any negative.
Furnished in single or double weight and as Post Cards.
ALL DEALERS.
Nepera Division,
EASTMAN KODAK CO.,
Rochester, N. Y.
[pgbrk] pictures flDourtteb mith*
HIGGINS' PHOTO MOUNTER
Have an excellence peculiarly their own. The best results are only produced by the best methods and means —the best results in Photograph, Poster, and other mounting can only be attained by using the best mounting paste—
HIGGINS' PHOTO MOUNTER
(Excellent novel brush with each jar.)
At Dealers in Photo Supplies, Artists’ Materials and Stationery.
A 3-oz. jar prepaid by mail for thirty cts. or circulars free from
CHAS. M. HIGGINS and CO., Mfrs.
NEW YORK—CHICAGO—LONDON Main Office, 271 Ninth St. \ Brooklyn, Factory, 240-244 Eighth St. J N. Y., U.S.A.
[pgbrk] 60 Prize Pictures
reproduced as nearly as possible in the original colors of the photographs, in half-tone, bound in an elegant Souvenir Portfolio of 64 pages, on heavy plate paper, with Ten Papers on Ten Phases of Photography, by ten of the most prominent photographers,
25 Cents
These 60 pictures received the Judges’
Awards in our $3,000.00 Competition just closed. They are the pick of the thousands of prints from every part of of the world and represent the highest attainments in every line of photography. Every one interested in photography should not fail to have this elegant portfolio, as, aside from its artistic value and the pleasure of owning such a collection of pictures, it is a symposium of good lighting, good composition, good pictorial photography.
It contains no advertising matter. We simply want our friends to see the work the best photographers are doing with our lenses in all parts of the world.
Send 25 cents, Stamps or Coin
Bausch and Lomb Optical Co.
Rochester, N. Y.
[pgbrk] ORIGINAL
Photogravures
(NOW READY) THE WORK OF Alfred Stieglitz
A LIMITED EDITION of forty Japan proofs, numbered and signed, of each of the following pictures: Spring—The Child The Hand of Man Decorative Panel—Goats Along the Seine
Spring Showers—The Street-cleaner The Street—Design for a Poster The size of these plates is approximately 10x12 inches and the proof proportionately larger.
Price per proof, fifteen dollars. Price per set, sixty dollars. Orders for the set will be given preference.
There will be no other edition.
ADDRESS
CAMERA WORK
1111 Madison Avenue, New York
[pgbrk] To those who know
how to do things
Me will pa£ well for information, In plain language, on practical photo* graphic subjects, suitable for use in Ube pboto* /IDiniature series. Bbtresst witb par* ticulars
tennant and Ward
287 ffourtb Bve.,1Flew lorft
LENSES
for
artistic workers
WE MAKE a special line of Semi-achromatic Photographic Objectives which, when properly used, produce the most artistic results. Our products are endorsed by the leading artistic workers in photography.
Two sizes kept in stock.
Price, 6j4x%/4 or 8xio, $20.
Other sizes and special lenses made to order.
PINKHAM and SMITH
Opticians and Photographic Supplies
288 Boylston St., Boston, Mass.
FOR CAMERA TVORK
and all Work pertaining to the Camera a full line of up-to-date apparatus and fresh supplies is carried by
The Obrig Camera Co.
A. C. WILMERDING
W. E. WILMERDING
165 and 167 Broadway, New York
Just below Cortlandt St. Telephone : 4704 Cortlandt
Kodaks Premos Enlargements Lantern-slides
Graphics Pocos Printing Framing
Centuries Reflex Developing Stereopticons
Catalogue for 1904 gratis. Send name for our little photo-paper, “Down Town Topics. Goods delivered in
New York free of charge.
[pgbrk] Manhattan Photogravure Company
Formerly Photogravure Department of
The Photochrome Engraving Company
140-142 West Twenty-seventh Street New York City
Telephone Call, 2193 Madison Square
Mr. L. H. Schubart begs to announce to his friends and patrons that he will continue the making and printing of Photogravure plates under the above name.
[pgbrk]
[pgbrk] The 1904 Eastman
from Rochester, the home of the Kodak. Free at the dealers or by mail.
Eastman Kodak Company
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