The Barnet Book of Photography: A Collection of Practical Articles

by Various

Fig. 20.

Now let it be distinctly understood that detail, its omission or suppression, and its introduction or sharp delineation, is not a question of lens focus only, or even chiefly, but it is largely a question of light. Imagine the photograph, fig. 19, with the greater part of the detail taken out so that the quay, the houses, the shore, etc. were just broad masses of lighter or darker tone, should we not then get a composition which would be less disturbing, more compact, more concentrated in interest? Is not this the case in fig. 20, in which detail is almost entirely absent? And yet detail could not have been truthfully introduced in this photograph, because with the light in the position it is, and in the misty evening air, no detail was there to reproduce; it was the fact that objects ranged themselves in masses one against the other, leaving room for imagination and creating ideas that determined its selection and its consequent portrayal.

In many cases a clear and sharp delineation of details will perhaps be desirable, not, however, for the sake of showing detail, but just so far as the production of the effect may require; on the other hand, just the full amount of detail that a lens will give is by no means always wanted.

Lenses were not invented for pictorial purposes, and therefore there is no reason for concluding that what the lens gives is necessarily right, for remember that we started with the distinct understanding that we were merely applying to a certain purpose just so much of the photographic process as we considered we needed; because I have the means of travelling at sixty miles an hour there is no reason why I should not apply the same means of locomotion to coaching a pedestrian at a tenth of that speed if I choose. It may be said that in the two photographs referred to the comparison is not a fair one, because so much depends on the sky. Granted that much in the second example does depend on the sky, which is an essential part of the picture, and indeed one cause of its very existence, but in the other (fig. 19) the presence of clouds would not improve the pictorial faults to which reference has been made. As a mere record or portrayal of Old Woodbridge Quay, the absence of clouds is as much a characteristic of its particular species, as the clouds in the second one are inseparable from its existence.

So, but little more than half hinting at the principles involved in the due suppression of unnecessary details, and the elimination of undesirable objects in order to obtain breadth, and having said but little as to the preservation of correct relative values or tones, I must pass on.

Every corner of nature's broad expanse is, as it were, enveloped in atmosphere, and invisible as we are commonly in the habit of considering it to be, it affects to a greater or less degree everything we see, and the visible atmosphere is often responsible for some of nature's most beautiful and most appealing aspects. Obviously then we cannot afford to leave out so important a contributory to picturesque effect, and it is on this account rather than on account of sharp or un-sharp detail that the question of stops and lens apertures comes in.

Look at the image of a landscape on a moderately hazy day, as it appears on the ground-glass focussing screen of your camera, using the lens at full aperture—then quickly insert f/32, and notice the difference. Not alone have objects near at hand and more remote become more sharply or more equally defined, but you may also notice that objects are more brilliant, and that a sense of atmosphere has been cut out.

Compare if you will two photographs, the one made respectively with full aperture of f/6 or f/8 and the other made with f/32 or f/45, and provided that in the first case we have not actual blurring to the extent of destroying form and structure, does not the first remind you more of nature? I do not say it is so instructive, so surprising, so dainty, or of such exquisite finish, but is it not more reminiscent of the effects we remember to have seen and felt in nature. It is not the function of this article to say to what optical laws this difference is due, and yet the student may expect to receive something by way of practical working instructions.

My recommendation is then to use a single landscape lens or the single combination of a doublet, and in starting to use the full aperture.