Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art.

by P. H. Emerson

When it comes, by the means of retouching, to straightening noses, removing double chins, eliminating squints, fattening cheeks, and smoothing skins, we descend to an abyss of charlatanism and jugglery, which we will not stop to discuss. That such things pay and please vain and stupid people, no one denies, but so do contortionists please a certain public, so do jugglers and tight-rope dancers, and such like, but all that is not art.

Doctoring negatives.

There are various practices of doctoring the negative by using paint and other mediums on the backs, or by grinding the backs of the negatives. These are, in our opinion, all unnecessary and harmful, the remarks on retouching apply equally well here. Such artifices may easily deceive and even please the uneducated, but the artist only sees them to despise and condemn them. The technique of photography is perfect, no such botchy aids are necessary, they take the place of the putty of the bad carpenter.

Spotting.

Of course, spotting does not come under the head of retouching. The spotter does not attempt to modify structure or tone, but merely to render an unavoidable and accidental “blemish” less patent. All spots should be filled with red paint mixed with a little gum and water, but care must be exercised in this operation, to put on only just enough paint to fill the hole.

Our parting injunction, then, to the photographer who would be an artist, is, avoid retouching in all its forms; it destroys texture and tone, and therefore the truth of the picture.

CHAPTER IX.
PRINTING.

The process.

Having his negative, the next thing our student will want to do is to print from it; but before doing so, it will be necessary to decide upon the process he will use.

This is a question of great moment, and one which will here be considered on purely artistic grounds. |Silver prints.| When first we began photography, we printed in all sorts of ways; but silver printing, on account chiefly of its unpleasant glaze, was soon discarded. |Platinotype.| Then we prepared some ordinary drawing paper, and printed on that, till one day we saw an album of views printed in platinotype. Their beauty acted like a charm, and straightway we took to platinotype. Still we felt that for portraiture, a red colour gave a truer impression. |Carbon.| So we tried carbon, and practised it when necessary. Even now, when we look back on those days, we remember the intense pleasure carbon printing gave us. |Platinotypes.| In the year 1882, when we first exhibited at Pall Mall, we sent four platinotype prints, and two silver prints. At that exhibition there were only three other exhibits in platinotype. Immediately after that exhibition we determined to give up all methods of printing except platinotype, and we have since steadily by example and precept advocated that process. When we were brought into contact with artists, and learned something of art, we knew the reason of what we had instinctively felt to be true. And now, after much experience and careful examination, in many cases in company with able artists, of all the printing papers and processes to-day employed, we emphatically assert that the platinotype process is facile princeps. We should maintain this, even if platinotypes were no more permanent than silver prints, but here again, as in all good things, simplicity of manipulation goes with excellency, for there is no doubt that platinotypes are permanent, they will last in good condition as long as the paper on which they are printed. This fact alone would finally place the process at the head of the list. Since the introduction of the platinotype process various papers have been introduced into the market, with unglazed surfaces, for which the quality of permanency has been claimed. Several of these are old methods re-dressed, as the gelatino-bromide and chloride papers. But are these papers permanent? At any rate they do not give any truer tonality than silver prints, and this is a fatal drawback. We have examined hundreds of prints on gelatino-bromide and chloride paper, and they all give false tonality as compared with platinotype. |Fading of prints.| The gelatino-bromide paper like all silver prints, whether matt or glazed, is false in tonality, the blacks are too black, and the whole picture lowered in tone. Then, again, as to the question of permanency, it is of course incontestable that silver prints fade, and as regards the gelatino-bromide paper, experiment has not proved it to be permanent. |Mr. Spiller on gelatino-bromide prints.| This is what a chemist, Mr. A. Spiller, says in the Year Book of Photography and Photographic News for 1888; writing on “Bromide versus albumenized paper,” he says, “From the above considerations it may fairly be conceded that under the same conditions a bromide print will most likely remain intact longer than an albumenized paper print; but more than this, I am afraid, with the evidence at present at hand, we are not in a position to state. In offering this, it must be understood, that only under equally favourable circumstances is the bromide process likely to yield results more permanent than that on albumenized paper, for just as a gelatine plate or silver print fades when the ‘hypo’ fixer has been imperfectly removed, so again in the bromide process, if insufficient washing after fixing be resorted to, the resulting photograph cannot be expected to last long.”