The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (June 1903)

94 THE OPTICAL macic LANTERN JOURNAL these regions, and with the changed conditions which, largely owing to the noble and selfsacrificing efforts of Livingstone’s Mission now exists.. Schools, colleges, hospitals, have been founded and are flourishing, though taking a sadly large toll of white men’s lives. It is interesting to know that on the site of the old slave market in Zanzibar, a handsome Anglican cathedral now stands. Yorkshire Photographie Union : Presentation at Keighley.—On Saturday afternoon, May 23rd, upwards of a hundred members of the Yorkshire Photographic Union met at the Mansion, Victoria Park, Keighley, where the exhibition of photographs is being held, for the purpose of making a presentation of a rose-bowl and dinner service dishes to Myr. Perey Lund, first president of the union, as a token of their appreciation of his many years of work in the interests of photography and of the Yorkshire Union. ee. 2 More ‘‘ Specialization.”’ By SterHen BRETTON. Sy EADING with interest Mr. J. Page Croft’s j ef article this month, which by the way, as : regards that portion of it, lines 18 to 33 exactly fits my case, has suggested to me that lanternists might very materially help each other by sending to you for insertion in the Optical (Magic) Lantern Journal (let us drop the word magic, it savours too much of “ Professor Pepper's’? days) reports of Goop lectures which their business frequently calls upon them to do the operating for, the disadvantage of course in this arrangement is that the operator cannot insidiously do a little advertising of himself, for instance, after telling you all about what I have ‘shown, and given my impressions of the lecture and lecturer I couldn’t very well say :—‘ Mr. Stephen Bretton showed the pictures in a splendid manner far better than ever they have been showed before ’’—in the first place I’m too modest, and the second, no one would believe it—still, if for the pure love of the thing operators can be found who will not mind undertaking the little task I somehow think the result would be mutually satisfactory. I'll begin this month myself just to show the sort of thing I mean— if others of my lantern friends will fdllow suit, we shall all profit. I have in my mind friend Garbutt, of Leeds; he of the Gilchrist Lectures, see what magnificent material he has so fre quently at his hands, such as I sincerely wish I as frequently had at mine—so much for the Preface, now for Chapter I. :— On Monday, 27th April, Mr. George Bedford, Head Master of the Torquay School of Science and Art, gave a most interesting lecture at the Natural History Museum (Torquay) on Pin-hole Photography. Mr. Bedford, in the course of his interesting lecture, remarked that nearly everyone was more or less a photographer nowadays. and that most photographers had at least heard of: pin-hole photography, but that there were very few, comparatively, who had ever taken, or even seen, a pin-hole photograph. It was, of course, generally known, continued the lecturer, that if a mintte-hole was made in the side of an otherwise light-tight box, the light reflected from an object, and passing through the hole would form an image on the side of the box opposite, and that, consequently, if a sensitive plate was placed so as to receive the image, a photograph would be taken. The prevalent idea, however, seemed to be that although it might be possible to get in this way something which might be called a photograph, a blurred and fuzzy caricature of a subject was all that could be obtained, and that for anything approaching clearness of definition a lens was an absolute necessity. The lecturer demonstrated that this was a mistake by showing between 40 and 50 pin-hole photographs, which although not having the sharp hard definition of detail obtained in the ordinary way by a lens, were yet sharp enough to satisfy all pictorial requirements in this respect, and possessed a suggestion of atmosphere, a roundness of modelling, and a general breadth of effect which, as a rule, the lens failed to produce. The one great thing in favour of pin-hole photography was the simplicity of its apparatus. A pin-hole camera was essentially merely a light-tight box, having in one side a small plate of very thin metal, with a pin-hole (or rather a needle-hole) bored in it, some means of holding a sensitive plate opposite the hole, and some arrangement for covering and uncovering the pin-hole as required. This portion of the lecture was illustrated by the exhibition of several home-made pin-hole cameras, whose working was explained by the lecturer. By the aid of diagrams the different etfects produced on the rays of light’ passing through a lens and a pin-hole respectively were illustrated, showing several advantages claimed for the pinhole over the lens, such as the absence of distortion and spherical aberration, the image being:absolutely rectiliner (straight lines in the subject coming out as straight lines in the photograph),