G. B. Hollister.
As to Certain Soft Focus Lenses
See [Still Life]
Answering your question, Do you like to work with the Graflex with a Smith doublet, visual quality lens? I really believe it would be difficult to find a more satisfactory outfit. It is a companion always ready and willing to do everything that either comes your way or you go after. Working at F 4.5, the lens gives you the opportunity of getting the broadest effects in landscapes or the softest in portraits. As a rule these are not pleasing to most people when enlarged. I therefore usually work with the lens at F 6 or F 8, which gives a delightful image with distinct contours and a definite softness to the outlines, making beautiful enlargements which are sharp enough for bromoil or gum. And the Graflex is not so very heavy when a film pack or cut films are used. The image is always right side up and you see it in the full size. No one can question the efficiency of the shutter, and with practice you can hold the camera for a one-fifth second exposure. The only drawback to the outfit is in seeing things from the waist level, which makes the foreground difficult. Thinking of your picture as a pattern, however, it is better to be looking down from an elevation and with a nine-inch lens on a 4×5 box the immediate foreground is negligible. Everything considered, I believe there is no more satisfactory outfit than this combination.
“Still Life” was the result of a problem of construction in pastel with three colors, the vase green, the small box red, with the white string. It was later photographed as a study of colored objects, using a Standard Orthonon plate with a Cramer Isos III filter and a Struss lens at F 8. The lens was of fifteen-inch focal length on a 6½×8½ plate. The exposure was made in an ordinarily lighted room, but not strong light, and I think about four minutes was given. The print is on ivory black platinum. There was no retouching of any kind, and I think the print shows the value of using a color filter with an orthochromatic plate where colors are contrasted in the subject.
B. S. Horne.
Mr. Latimer Expresses His Views Somewhat at Length
In the olden days I used to lug around big cameras. I even went so far as to have 14×17 hand camera, made to take to sea with me to make large direct marines. In the days of the old Boston Camera Club it was called “the dog-house.” But I soon found out that it was “too much pork for a shilling.” Now I use small cameras and enlarge. My small cameras are mostly of the stereo-panoram variety, and [pg 13] a pocket Ansco, all fitted with fast lenses and with direct vision finders, which I consider much more practicable than the old style finders. For instance, I was on a steamer a few months ago, waiting to leave the dock, and a lot of gulls were flying around. I said to myself, “Here's a good opportunity to test my shutter and finder, and see if I can stop them,” so I used up one roll of film on them. I made direct hits and stops on every one.
My picture “In an Italian Village” was made with my Voigtlander 45×107 mm. stereo camera. I was on an auto trip in Italy; had nearly used up my three months allowed by the Italian Government, and had three days to get out or lose my deposit for duty on my car. I was on my way to the French frontier, and ran through this Italian village—Todi I think the name was. When I saw this picturesque old wall with some of the villagers, I said, “I've got to get this whether I lose my deposit or not.” So I stopped the car, got out my stereo, stood up in the car, leaned on the windshield, and shot before they woke up to what I was doing. Then what happened? The whole village seemed to want to get into the plate, and I had a mob instead of a picture. I made several more shots, but the first one was the best. In nine cases out of ten in like conditions I find the first shot the best. Shoot quick and don't give 'em time to pose. I suppose if I had trained movie models, though, it might be different. I've tried studio work, but I prefer the small camera and the quick snapshot. Luck counts, I admit, but when it is good, the snapshot seems to me more spontaneous than anything I can do in the studio.