44 quotes
...picture-making is almost entirely a matter of good taste, and that is largely instinctive when the taste has been trained and cultivated.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
A painter, by the skilful use of color, can make idyllic pictures in which a figure or a group of figures is not the dominant thing in the picture, but for a photographer this is more difficult.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
...the accuracy of the lens is often regarded as infallible, whereas, from the artistic standpoint, a lens is less accurate than the trained eye.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
Platinum is undoubtedly the process for the pictorialist, for it will reproduce gradations and halftones more delicately and with a longer range than any other similar printing process, but it demands a good negative to do it justice.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
A photographer must have as sound a knowledge of picture-making as a painter, and he must have such control over his chosen medium that he can put personal expression and his own individuality into his pictures.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
Nature is interesting at all times, but, as a general rule, very harsh and glaring sunlight, when the sun is high in the heavens, should be avoided, because at such times there is an often an utter lack of relief, roundness and modeling in the trees and other objects.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
The artist, and more especially he who uses a camera, must enedeavor to be, not a mere recorder of external facts, but one who forms a vivid mental impression and tries to make us realize his impression.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
The emotions suggested by facts, not the facts themselves, are what concern the picture maker. This is where he is differentiated from those who seek to make only records and who are concerned only with facts.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
It must be understood that in picture-making the methods used by one photographer may be entirely unsuited to another. This must be so, or there would be little or no individuality in pictures by different artists.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
The function of composition is to make a picture interesting, and the disposition of the lines in the picture, the opposition of lines, and their placing in the picture-space will all help in giving the desired interest.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
The very word composition, defined as the "the act of composing; putting together; arranging in proper order," implies that the picture-maker must do something besides setting up his camera and letting it photograph just what happens before it.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
For outdoor work, landscape and marine pictures, a long-focus lens is usually more satisfactory, because with it we can more easily isolate and emphasize the principal object of interest, and make it large enough without having to get too close.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
A small but noticeable patch of contrasting light or dark tone would more correctly be described as an accent than as a mass, and it will be found that, as a rule, an accent is needed to prevent a picture from becoming monotonous and uninteresting.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
The eye is, practically, a long-focus lens. It covers only a comparatively narrow angle, and in order to see as much as can be included in a picture made with a short-focus lens we have to move the eyes a little and look at the various objects in succession.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
...shading is of great importance, and good shadows can best be secured when the sun is low, and when one side of all objects is more strongly lighted than the other.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
...but the fundamental element of picture-making is the cutting of the picture-space by lines or edges of tones, and this is what is known as "spacing".
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
...the composition in portraiture and figure studies may be constructive rather than selective, though it will be found that selective composition also plays an important part in portraiture.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
I am a firm upholder of and a strong believer in the merits of the straight print, not that I disapprove of hand work, but because I believe that hand work carried too far will tend to destroy the very quality that makes photography worth of being considered a fine art.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
Photography, properly controlled, can render tones better than any other medium of artistic expression, and personal control of exposure and development will be all that is necessary to get good tones and truthful gradations, for the camera, properly guided and then left to do its own job in its own way, will take care of the tones of a picture very well.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)
There is a tendency among "advanced" pictorialists to neglect the choice of an interesting subject and to trust to an effective pattern to make their pictures interesting. Such pictures are often interesting, but they are interesting more as studies in artistic technique than as pictures.
Pictorial Composition in Photography (1920)