Amateur Photographer & Cinematographer (1933)

THE AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER & cinematographer EDITOR F.J. MORTIMER CONSULTING EDITOR R.CH1LD BAYLEY WEDNESDAY, August 9TH, 1933. INCORPORATING "THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHER" "FOCUS" "THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS" &. "PHOTOGRAPHY" Sidxscnptfon Rales: United Kingdom !7fa Canada //fa. Other &untries/9/6 per ann. post free from the pu/d/shen Donet douse Stamford Street Condon SCI Copyright — Registered as a Newspaper for transmission in the U.K. WE have pleasure in informing our readers that we can now supply copies of the index for Volume LXXV, January to June, 1933. These cost 3d. each, or by post 4d. As has been the case for some years past, the index is sectional, dealing respec¬ tively with contributions (including correspondence and editorial articles), illustrations (except those incidental to text), and contributors of all kinds. We have also available, as usual, lettered cloth covers for binding the volume. These are sent through thepost for 4s. id. Index and cover can be obtained from our publishers, Messrs. Iliffe and Sons Ltd., Dorset House, Stamford Street, S.E.i. Hobbies. A novel feature of the recent annual meeting of the British Medi¬ cal Association was an exhibition devoted to doctors’ hobbies. It was very interesting to observe to what recreations the doctor turns when his day’s round is done and the surgery door is closed upon the last patient. The craze for col¬ lecting things is very evident. One doctor has collected bits of shell or bullets spent in the war, and turned them into sugar-basins or milk jugs or paper knives. Another has collected picture pot lids, be¬ longing to containers for pomade, potted meats, fish paste and so on. Others have busied themselves in the collection of stamps, tokens, coins, medals, decorations, charcoal drawings, mezzotints and pottery. Out of the fifty exhibitors only two proclaimed photography as their hobby ; but this must not be taken as indicating the proportion of members of the medical profession who follow the camera. The prob August in Town. , A snapshot taken in Trafalgar Square during the heat wave. Vol. LXXVI. No. 2335. ability is that most of them, on being appealed to to disclose their hobbies, did not think of photo¬ graphy itself as exactly a hobby, but rather as a means of getting the full value out of the real hobby. The hobby was known to the chivalry of ancient France as the “ hobin,” a small horse, trained to an easy gait, whose rider need never fear fatigue. Earnest workers in photography would describe their pursuit as too exacting to be a hobby, while those who merely take photographs for recording pur¬ poses would probably be more in¬ clined to regard the things they record as their hobby, than the means whereby they record them. The Blackboard. In our schooldays we all suffered miseries from the blackboard, and when a lecturer nowadays takes up the chalk we feel at the same dis¬ advantage. We were glad to wit¬ ness lately a demonstration of how blackboard sketches may be made more realistic. The demonstrator, a college professor, pointed out that the natural tendency is to use white chalk on the blackboard as if it were ordinary pencil, and this results in what is really equivalent to a photographic negative, as puzzling and disappointing as a negative can be, unless one has a clue to its interpretation. The solution to the problem is to realise that when using a pencil on white paper the draughts¬ man is really filling in the shadows, whereas when he is drawing upon a blackboard with white chalk it is the illuminated parts which should be marked, the blackboard itself automatically forming the shadows. This professor considered that writ¬ ten outline drawings used in class work could be much improved by I2T 5 /