Amateur Photographer & Cinematographer (1933)

THE AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER &> CINEMATOGRAPHER EDITOR F.J. MORTIMER CONSULTING EDITOR R.CHILD BAYLEY INCORPORATING "THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHER" "FOCUS* "THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS" &l "PHOTOGRAPHY" Subscription Rates: United Kingdom !7/fa Canada //fa. Ol/ier Gantries 19/6 per ann. post free from tfepu&i/sDers Dorset //ouse Stamford Street Condon SCI WEDNESDAY, October iith, 1933. ATj the present time of the r\ year the officials of most photographic societies are in the course of arranging the com¬ ing winter’s programme. It has been suggested that the camera clubs are missing an opportunity to make snapshotters into serious pho¬ tographers. A glance down the “ Week’s Meetings ” announced in The Amateur Photographer indicates that the subjects of many lectures are not photographic, although the lecturers may be well-known photo¬ graphers. It is the custom of many clubs to admit associate members at a reduced fee for the winter pro¬ gramme. If the subjects have a definite photographic flavour it is possible that many of these mem¬ bers, who already have a nodding acquaintance with photography, will decide to enter more fully into photography as a hobby. Even in the case of a lecture of popular type it is possible to stress the delights of serious photographic work by the subjects shown, and to give a few technical hints. It is a fact that many members of the older school delight in a purely photo¬ graphic lecture, or demonstration, especially if the exponent is an acknowledged master. After all, the camera clubs are for the advance¬ ment of photography, and the photographic lecture should take a large share of the winter activities. Fire Precautions. Elsewhere this week we refer to safety precautions in dark-rooms. That the dangers of fire are apt to be disregarded by what we can only hope is a very small minority of photographic workers is shown by the report of a case investigated recently by one of the inspectors of factories attached to the Home Copyright — Registered as a Newspaper for transmission in the U.K. London Landscapes (No. 16). In Regent's, Park in Autumn. 326 Vol. LXXVI. No. 2 344 Office. The inspector visited a small workshop in a seaside town, where a busy trade was carried on in developing and printing holiday¬ makers’ films. The only exit was endangered by the proximity of a drying cabinet heated by gas. The cabinet was entirely without pro¬ vision for preventing the films, suspended from wires at the top, from dropping on to the gas-jets below. The flash-point of ordinary nitrate-base films, that is to say, the temperature at which the ma¬ terial will ignite and burn of its own accord, is i8o° Centigrade. For safety films, the figure is, of course, very much higher. The risk of fire is entirely eliminated, however, if care is taken to keep films from all possibility of contact with a naked flame. The manipulation and projection of cine films present a totally different problem. The large quantities of celluloid used, coupled with the heat generated by the friction of rapidly moving machinery, mean greatly enhanced dangers compared with those involved in ordinary photography. These risks, however, are generally ap¬ preciated by cine workers and need no reiteration by us. The Mirror held up to Nature. In a new American book on modern art, by Henry Rankin Poore, and dedicated to “ That saving majority — the normal mind,” it is declared that photography occupies with re¬ gard to painting the same position as talkies do to the drama, showing that by mechanical means a like result is obtainable. The author continues, a little ambiguously, “ We spurn colour photography in the same mood as we accept the talkies. We endure them both as econo¬ mical.” One remark intrigues us. 5