“Many persons would like to know, Mr. White, what are the criteria used by advanced workers like yourself in judging a photograph. Do you allow so many points for composition, for technique, for originality of conception, or for success in a difficult medium? Or do you say, ‘That picture pleases me, and I vote for it,’ without attempting to state in mathematical form the qualities of its success as a picture?”
“I would say that the first thing a man should do in judging pictures is to answer the appeal of the picture. I think a picture should have a message—that is, it should [pg 10] convey, not necessarily a story, but something of the feeling of the man who produced it. This is really a difficult question to answer. I would say, ‘That picture pleases me and I vote for it.’ That is to say, so many points for technique and so many points for pictorial quality would mean nothing to me. I would insist that a picture have an appeal, and then that it have good construction, and it should have quality. The printing medium, as I have said, doesn't make the picture, but the man who uses it.”
Motion Pictures and the Soft Focus Lens
“Probably photography's greatest activity at present is in the motion picture field. Have soft focus lenses been used for producing screen plays and with what result?”
“Soft focus lenses are being used in motion picture photography, but I am doubtful as to their success in the way they are being used at present—a somewhat haphazard way. You are too conscious of the soft focus lens and of the anastigmatic lens. That is, one part of the picture is made with a soft focus lens and one with an anastigmatic. I believe that the soft focus lens can be used, and will be used, in such a way as to give beautiful results on the screen.”
Is Photography to Remain a Black and White Art?
“What forecast, Mr.White, do you make of future developments in photography? Is it to remain a black and white art, or are photographs in natural colors to supersede the familiar photograph of the present day in our exhibitions and in our homes?”
“I think that the fundamental expression of photography is in black and white, and as we develop what I would call the definite photographic quality, black and white will maintain its present ascendency.”
“But don't you expect the art to develop in different directions from what it is today and what it has been in the past?”
“I think it will develop especially in a more marked sense of picture construction.”