der photographischen Optik (1891); J. T. Taylor, The Optics of Photography and Photographic Lenses (3rd ed, 1904); The “Photo-Miniature Series,” No. 1 (1899), Modern Lenses, No 26 (1901), Telephotography, No. 36 (1902), Lens Facts and Helps; No. 79 (1907), The Choice and Use of Photographic Lenses.
Hand Cameras, Shutters, Exposure Meters, &c.:Sir W.de W. Abney, Instantaneous Photography (1895), H. Boursault, Calcul du temps de pose en photographie (1896); W. B. Coventry, The Technics of the Hand Camera (1901), the working principles of lenses, shutters, &c, for instantaneous exposures are treated mathematically and practically; L. David, Die Moment-Photographie (1898); G. de Chapel d'Espinassoux, Trazté pratique de la determination du temps de pose (1890), Dr R. Krugener, Die Hand Camera und ihre Anwendung für die Moment-Photographie (1898); A. Londe, La Photographie instantanée, theorie et pratique (3rd ed., 1897); F. W. Pilditch, Drop-Shutter Photography (1896); A. de la Baume Pluvinel, Le Temps de pose (1890); A. Watkins, The Watkins Manual of Exposure and Development (4th ed, 1908). The Practical Photographer, No. 8 (1904), “Hand Camera Work.” The “Photo-Miniature Series,” No 3 (1899), Hand Camera Work; No. 37 (1902), Film Photography; No 56 (1903). The Hurter and Driffield System; No. 76 (1906), The Hand Camera; No. 77 (1907), Focal Plane Photography.
Colour Photography: Agenda Lumière, La Photographie des couleurs et les plagues autochromes (1909); G. E. Brown and C. W. Piper, Colour Photography with the Lumzére Autochrome Plates (1907); Baron A. von Hübl, Three Colour Photography, translated by H O Klein (1904); Theortie und Praxis der Farben Photographie mit Autochrom Platten (1908); G. L. Johnson, Photographic Optics and Colour Photography (1909); Dr E. König, Natural Colour Photography (trans. by E. J. Wall (1906); Die Autochrom Photographie und die verwandten Dreifarbenraster-verfahren (1908). (J . Wa)
III.—Pictorial Photography
Pictorial photography differs from other branches of photographic practice in the motive by which it is prompted. Employing the same methods and tools, it seeks to use photographic processes as a means of personal artistic expression. Thus in the early days of Fox Talbot's calotype, about 1846, David Octavius Hill, a successful Scottish painter, took up this method of portrayal, and, guided by an artist's knowledge and taste, and unfettered by photographic convention, which indeed had then scarcely begun to grow, produced portraits which for genuine pictorial quality have perhaps never been surpassed, especially if some allowance be made for the necessary imperfections of the “Talbotype” (see Plate II). Whether they were in their day typical examples of Talbotype with all the latest improvements, Hill probably never cared. When, again, a few years later, Sir William J. Newton, the eminent miniature painter, read a paper before the newly formed Photographic Society of Great Britain (now the Royal Photographic Society), his recommendation to depart from the custom of defining everything with excessive sharpness caused his address to be almost epoch-making. “I do not conceive it to be necessary or desirable,” he said, “for an artist to represent, or aim at, the attainment of every minute detail, but to endeavour at producing a broad and general effect. ... I do not consider that the whole of the subject should be what is called 'in focus', on the contrary, I have found in many instances that the object is better obtained by the whole subject being a little out of focus.” The doctrine has been persistently repeated ever since, but only within the last decade of the 19th century was the suppression or diffusion of focus received by photographers generally with anything better than ridicule or contempt, because it was unorthodox. O. G. Rejlander, Mrs Julia Margaret Cameron, H. P. Robinson, and others, by precept or practice, strove against such photographic conventions as had arisen out of those technical exigencies to which pictorial qualities were so often sacrificed. As late as 1868, in the Manual of Photographic Manipulation, by Lake Price, the old advice to arrange a group of persons in crescent form, so as to adapt the subject to the curve of the field of the lens, was repeated with the additional recommendation of plotting out on the ground beforehand the “curve of the focus” as a guide. As a defiance of this dictum, Rejlander, in 1869, produced a group of the members of the Solar Club in which some of the chief figures were set widely out of the “curve of the focus.” The mere technical difficulties of this performance with wet collodion plates, and in an ordinary upper room, need not be touched upon here, but it is to be noted as one of those triumphant departures from convention which have marked the progressive stages of pictorial photography. At about the same period, Mrs Cameron, carrying the recommendation of “a little out of focus” rather further, regardless of how her lens was intended to be used by its maker, secured the rendering dictated by her own taste and judgment, with the result that many of her portraits, such as those of Tennyson, Carlyle, &c., are still in their way unsurpassed. Contemporaneously, Adam Salomon, a talented sculptor, “sunned” down the too garish hights of his photographic prints, and strengthened the high lights by working on the back of the negative.
But, during the concluding quarter of the 19th century, probably the most powerful influence in pictorial photography was that of H. P. Robinson, who died in February 1901, and, but for a brief period about the year 1875, was one of the most prolific “picture makers.” Inspired by Rejlander, of whom he was a contemporary, Robinson will perhaps be best remembered by his earlier advocacy of combination printing. As early as 1855 Berwick and Annan exhibited a photograph which was the result of printing from more than one negative, a figure from one plate being cunningly introduced into a landscape print from another. Then came from Rejlander “The Two Ways of Life,” in which, with wonderful ingenuity, thirty different negatives were combined. Robinson followed, and between 1858 and 1887 exhibited numerous examples of combination-printing, one of the most popular and fairly typical examples being “Carolling” (see Plate II), which received a medal in the exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society in 1887.
Though in this combination-printing one may perhaps perceive the germ of incentive towards the production of special effects not seen in the original, yet the practice was not destined to become very popular, for even in the most capable hands there remains the difficulty, if not impossibility, of fitting a portion of one negative into a print from another and still preserving true relative tonality, and even true proportion. Skilfully produced, eminently popular in character though “Carolling” may be, such errors are not absent. Of this combination-printing Dr P. H. Emerson has said: “Cloud printing is the simplest form of combination-printing, and the only one admissible when we are considering artistic work. Rejlander, however, in the early days of photography, tried to make pictures by combination printing. This process is really what many of us practised in the nursery, that is, cutting out figures and pasting them into white spaces left for that purpose in the picture-book. With all the care in the world the very best artist living could not do this satisfactorily. Nature is so subtle that it is impossible to do this sort of patchwork and represent her. Even if the greater truths be registered, the lesser truths, still important, cannot be obtained, and the softness of outline is easily lost. The relation of the figure to the landscape can never be truly represented in this manner, for all subtle modelling of the contour of the figure is lost.”
Pictorial photography received a large accession of votaries in consequence of the greater facilities offered by the introduction of the gelatino-bromide, or dry-plate, process, which, although dating from 1880, did not notably affect photographic communities until some years afterwards; and although improvement in appliances and instruments had little to do with the advance of the pictorial side of photography, yet, indirectly at least, the dry-plate and the platinotype printing process have had an undoubted effect. The former gave enormously increased facility, and dispensed with tedious manipulations and chemical knowledge, while its increased light-sensitiveness decreased the limitations as to subjects and effects. The platinotype process was discovered in 1874-1880 by W. Willis, who employed his chemical skill and knowledge to give the world a printing process more likely than the hitherto prevalent silver papers to satisfy artistic requirements.
Up to 1882 but few outdoor photographers had ventured to run counter to the general dictum that photographs should only be taken during sunshine or good bright light, and unquestioning
