Amateur Photographer & Cinematographer (1933)

Ihi amateur photographer p 6 CINEMATOGRAPHER o August 30th, 1933 VfilHh ffth® Every week an article will appear under this heading dealing with a topic of interest to the novice in photography. THE USUAL THING. NOTES C NOTIONS ^Jof the LESS ADVANCED WORKER AMONG the many unkind things r\ that may be said about a photograph is the assertion that it is “ the usual thing.” I have an idea that the phrase origi¬ nated in regard to professional and not amateur photography ; and those who remember the average professional work in the days of the cabinet and carte-de-visite will real¬ ise how bad the usual thing was. The effect of the expression on some people is to drive them to frantic efforts to do something unusual. This is often so disas¬ trously worse than the usual, that most of us yearn for the humdrum and commonplace to return. This week I have selected two photographs which I consider reason¬ ably fair examples of the usual thing, at any rate where seaside subjects are concerned. I took them myself, during an odd hour at Southsea, but there is nothing in them that could not be done just as well by a baby with a box Brownie. It must be remembered that the one with the hundreds of figures is the sort of thing that suffers severely in this form of reproduction. An original enlargement gives a really good idea of the scene as I saw it, and vividly reminds me of the wonderful colour, rather suggestive of brilliant confetti in bright sun¬ light. This crowded beach was taken from the other side of the pavilion shown in the first illustra¬ tion. There is an awkward empty comer in this one, as there might also have been had it been done by baby with the Brownie. People say (and let them say) that both these photographs, and others of their kind, are a waste of time. Picture postcards, perhaps a good deal better than these, are available. So they are. But I did not make the postcards, and I did make these prints. There is just that little difference that makes them a more powerful reminder of a pleasant sunny hour hereabouts. Of a four-day holiday I have a record of about fifty subjects, and I can lay my hand on my heart and declare that there is not an “ ex¬ hibition picture ’’among them. They are the usual thing, and that is all I expected them to be. Some of them are much more interesting than the two here, but if I can dig out half a dozen, all told, with some evident pictorial appeal I shall be rather surprised. Let me suggest, then, that the beginner should not feel discouraged or aggrieved if his snapshots are sneeringly described as just the same old thing. As long as he wanted to take them himself, and as long as they please him, and prob¬ ably a good many others as well, he can tell the sneering critics where they can go and what they can do to themselves when they get there. But I must now warn the beginner against a mistake he too often makes. He sees that multi-coloured crowd on the beach, snaps it from the pier, and in a flash the whole scene is recorded with wonderful detail and fidelity. With the aid of a magnifying glass he could examine a print, and find that scores of the figures are actually recognisable. Whereupon he makes his mistake — he enters the print in a competition. In any competition worth serious attention “ the usual thing ” is out of it — as it certainly ought to be. Go back for another moment to the two very ordinary subjects I have selected. There they were for hours at a time under the same conditions of lighting ; both easily accessible from convenient standpoints ; and neither of them demanding any particular consideration as to selec 196 14