Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art.

by P. H. Emerson

Comments.

The falsity of the statement that photographs are always true—a statement that has been in vogue from the earliest photographic days—is then apparent. |False drawing producing false tonality.|It will now be obvious why some lenses make ponds of puddles, and otherwise falsify the landscape. This fact would have long ago been noticed had artists always seen the landscape from which the photograph had been taken. Another thing which a wide-angle lens, if wrongly used, does, is, in the case of a picture with clouds, to draw down and crowd together the clouds, and define them more sharply than the eye sees them, so that when the negative is printed they appear too strong in value, and the whole picture is thrown out of tone, and is therefore false and inartistic, even if the lens be correctly used; this fault is generally present in pictures taken with these lenses.

Lenses recommended.

It will be seen from our remarks, therefore, that the only lens we recommend for artistic work is Dallmeyer’s new rectilinear landscape lens. At least two of these should be obtained of different focal lengths, one of which is advertised to cover a plate a size larger than that used by the photographer, and the second to cover the same sized plate that he uses. In addition a rapid rectilinear lens as advertised to cover a plate of the same size as his camera, will be found very useful for quicker work. |Lenses for special purposes.| For special purposes, for example in photographing beetles, or fish, or flowers for scientific manuals, the finest lenses procurable must be used, and sharpness, brilliancy, &c., are vital qualities in such cases, for the work desired is diagrammatic and not artistic, but in these cases also the greatest care must be taken to use the lenses properly, so that the drawing is correctly rendered. Ignorant critics and enthusiastic partisans alike have claimed for photography, as its chief merit, “truthfulness.” As has been shown, a photograph may be very false indeed.

Composite photography.

Another chimera is that of “composite photography,” to which we shall again refer. When Mr. Galton tells us he uses an ordinary portrait lens for his work, and gives no other details, that is quite sufficient, in our opinion, to seriously impair the value of his “composites,” even were there no other considerations.

Portraits taken with rapid rectilinear lens.

The only really artistic series of photographic portraits we have ever seen, namely, those by Mrs. Cameron, were taken with the next best lens to that advocated, namely, a rapid rectilinear lens, but even they would have been improved by the use of the new lens. We have besides seen here and there really artistic portraits by others (but these were the result of chance, as no second picture was ever produced by the same worker), and they were taken by a rapid rectilinear lens. Mrs. Cameron, though not an artist, had knowledge enough to see that the portrait lenses of the day were undesirable for her work. And here it may be remarked that a great ignorance of optics is as harmful as wasting too much time upon its study. One industrial portrait photographer, who has very occasionally succeeded in producing an artistic picture, prides himself, we are told, on not knowing what lens he uses. Such a man can never be an artist, for he cannot know whether his work be true or false. To appreciate falseness in drawing requires considerable training. An average judge of photography might discover gross distortion of limbs, due to violent perspective; but how many would notice the false drawing in a face which is taken with a portrait lens?

Diaphragms.

Supplied with his lenses, the student will find “stops,” or diaphragms. The name, “stop,” suggests its use. By making the light pass through a contracted hole, the weak marginal rays are cut off, and the image is therefore made sharper all over, spherical aberration is reduced, and the depth of focus is increased. But though diaphragms are used to correct an error, yet the ignorant use of them is as great a source of error. One of the causes of sharply defined and false heavy shadows in the much-vaunted “sharp photographs” is due to focussing sharply, and “stopping down,” that is, to using a small diaphragm. This is the invariable practice of most photographers.