Very fine portraits and groups can be taken out of doors. In taking such pictures, it is admissible to dictate the dress of the model, and to arrange tea-parties, sporting, athletic, and other groups. But if the student intends to make them artistic, he must be very particular with his types, and see above all things that the sentiment is true. For example, it is a fine parody on nature to photograph a gaunt and self-conscious girl in æsthetic clothing, for dress it cannot be called, with a tennis-bat in her hand. For a tennis picture, fine girls, physically well-formed, should be chosen.
Background.
Next the student should choose a simple background, which with the dress and flesh tints form a harmony or fine study in tone. The model’s dress should be very simple and well-fitting, such dresses as were worn by Botticelli’s women (dresses quite unlike the modern æsthetic gowns), being very artistic for women, while flannel shirts or simple white trousers will look well on the men. All monstrosities and exaggerations of fashion should be avoided, such as flowers, chatelaines, wasp-waists, high heels, and dress improvers. |Materials for dresses.| The best material for dresses for pictures is a coarse, limp, self-coloured muslin (butter-cloth is excellent for the purpose). |Jewellery.| All jewellery should be eschewed, the only decoration of this kind that photographs simply and well is perhaps a string of pearls, which looks charming.
The work must be true in sentiment, and the student must choose an appropriate treatment of the subject. The portrait being out of doors, we must be made to feel that fact; thus, a girl resting from tennis, a girl in a riding-habit, or better still on horseback, would be very appropriate. The background must be carefully selected to be in keeping with the figure, and to help to tell the story fully and emphatically, and yet it must be kept subdued.
Groups.
Groups are very difficult to treat artistically, and our never-failing rule is to limit as much as possible the number of people in the group. |Treatment of model.| Having now chosen his model and arranged other matters, the student must remember to let his model stand or sit, as he or she likes, and all suggestions for the pose should come from the model; this is a fundamental principle of naturalism. A great friend of ours, a well-known sculptor, assures us he would not dare to pose a model according to any preconceived idea, but he watches the model pose in different ways, and when he sees a striking and beautiful attitude be seizes on that and makes a rapid sketch of it. That is the only true way for the photographer to work, he must have the camera ready, focussed and arranged, and when he sees his model in an unconscious and beautiful pose, he must snap his shutter. It is thus very evident how important is art-knowledge and insight for all good photographic work, and it is thus evident how a man who is sympathetic and of a refined temperament will show his individuality in his work.
Commercial Groups.
With commercial groups of bands, football teams, &c., the student has nothing to do, and let him never be induced to photograph anything which he does not think will make a picture. He must have patience also, when waiting for nature’s suggestions; we have waited a whole morning, rubber ball in hand, for a suitable grouping of colts, but we finally got one of the best things we ever produced. If our photographer be a smoker, let him light his pipe and take it easy, talking meanwhile to the model; at length his chance will come, but it may only come once, and then he must not hesitate or the picture may be lost in a moment. It is preferable that all out-door portraits should be taken on a grey day, or in the shade if the sun be shining.
There is a wide field open to wealthy photographers for producing really good pictures of their friends at country houses. But the student must remember that to produce a perfect picture takes a long time and can only be achieved by long and patient practice, coupled with artistic ability. The hurried representations of shooting, boating, and family groups, which are so often produced by industrial photographers, are artistically beneath contempt. They are mere statements of facts, and as much akin to art as the directions in a cookery-book are akin to literature. Photography up to a certain point, and in a haphazard way, is so easily learned now-a-days that there is absolutely no merit in producing such work. Such photographs are only the confessions of untrained and commonplace minds.