The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (June 1898)

The Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger. 93 recommended this place; what a disappoint| have considerable influence in deciding the ment, for there is absolutely nothing in it worth | quality of the picture. a plate.” Most of us have probably experienced this sort of feeling at some period or another of our early wanderings, which same locality may afterwards, when we have had more experience, be found to abound with suitable subjects; it may or may not, but there is no question about it that very frequently when a locality has been highly recommended by a non-photographer it will prove exceedingly disappointing to the photographer. There are two principal conditions that please the outsider, namely extensive prospects and | brilliant colour, either of which are very much discounted when transferred to the sensitive plate. Another thing, two persons rarely hold the same opinion about the details of a view, the most attractive form to one would not be so with the other, although both might approve it on the whole. Now it is these little. details that are so — important to the photographer, and upon which depends the success of his picture. As to colour it is reduced to monochrome, and distance, of itself, to general insipidity of effect. Experienced workers are sometimes misled by the varied and glowing colours of a landscape, which they fail to sufficiently ignore in the composition of the picture, so difficult it is to dissociate colour from form when the sensations created are so pleasurable. A landscape must be regarded as a monochrome in all respects, and the lights and shadows arranged with regard to it, whether we use orthochromatic plates and screen or not. of experience than anything else. examine the view through a coloured medium, The ability to do this is a matter more | If we. such as blue glass, we decidedly destroy the ; beauty of the scene, but get a better idea of how the colours will be translated into light and shade (q.e.d.). The constant habit of looking through a medium of this sort at what we intend to photograph, will help us to form more correct ideas when we do not use it until we may safely lay it on one side and trust to our. unaided judgment, having learnt that often the very form of many things rests on contrast of colour alone. or instance, when blue of different intensity forms the shadows and chrome-yellow the light, the disposition of these two shades may decide the form without reference to anything else, not that such decided colours would be very likely to exist in nature, but modifications of them do, and Correct judgment in this matter is one of the first things to learn, and the next is the amount of subject we should include in our negatives. The idea of most beginners is to get as much as possible on to their plates. A view from a mountain top or great elevation recommends itself at once as a grand view, but unless this grand view is qualified by a considerable {| amount of foreground the results will not give | satisfaction. | of wide angle lenses which are a decided trap The same may be said of the use for the unwary, and owe their popularity to the fact of the users wishing to get as much on their plates as possible, and it satisfies their desire, but certainly at their expense of artistic | work. My advice is to always work with as narrow-angled lenses as possible, the pictures will have more pleasant perspectives and be more artistic altogether. The wider the angle included, the more disproportionate will be the foreground and distance; the first will be abnormally magnified, and the latter dwarfed to insignificance. Of course there are times when a wide angle lens is necessary, but seldom or ever in ordinary landscape work. I fancy the most useful angle is when the focus of the lens is somewhat longer, say one-fifth, than the base line of the plate; as soon as we get the focus of the lens shorter than the plate, the wide angle effect begins to make itself felt, and our pictures lose that naturalistic effect that is so pleasing to an artistic eye, and assume a more commonplace appearance. With regard to distance, under any circumstances unless taken with a telephoto lens, it appears dwarfed. This effect is in a great measure owing to our eyes being educated, by paintings, wrongly to expect the distance to appear on a larger scale than it really does. We know the lens is correct, providing the picture is examined from a distance equal to its focus; soon as this is exceeded, then we get wrong impressions, and as we seldom look at a photograph at less than a foot distance, often more, it stands to reason it would be inconvenient, to say the least of it, to do so with pictures produced by the wide angle objectives whose focus is but a few inches. With regard to the effect of distance in a photograph, although unsatisfactory if taken alone, they are of great value in a subject consisting chiefly of foreground or near middle distance; the introduction of a little distance, however small