PhotoHistory

From: THE BARNET BOOK OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Pictorial Photography  (Part 3 of 4)

By: A. Horsley Hinton, 1898

The angle of view included by different lenses is an auxiliary not to be neglected, for by substituting a narrower angle lens, that is, one of longer focus, we may cut off or leave out undesirable objects which the shorter focus lens might include. Then again, when the print is finished we can after careful consideration cut off what would have been better left out, for it will be better to have a picture half the size well composed, than double the number of inches with a distracting and unsatisfactory arrangement of objects. Hence with many most successful workers it is no uncommon thing to take quite a small portion of a negative, and either print it as it is or else enlarge it up to the desired size, — but mere size will reckon as nothing as compared with pleasing composition.

If it is inexpedient to let the principal object or group of objects occupy the exact center of the picture, measured from left to right, it is equally so if the center be measured from top to bottom, and hence we may formulate the rule (to be broken perhaps later when we are strong enough to be independent of guiding) that the horizon should not be allowed to come midway between the top and the base of the picture.

Remembering now that, as set forth in the earlier part of this article, a picture should appeal to our feelings and stir our emotions, it may be pointed out that in most ordinary things, and certainly in the arts, the most powerful things are those which possess one dominant idea or feature, as in a piece of music the refrain keeps recurring, a preacher takes a text, in a story there is one hero, and so forth, and in point of composition following these guidelines is better than ignoring them.

It may not, however, always be easy for the beginner to determine what is the chief object which should occupy the central position, or which object or group to choose in a landscape.

This brings us to speak of another important matter, and that is the right disposition of lines which form the view or the selection of view so that the lines formed by the component parts shall fall in a desirable manner. The various objects in any view tend to form or suggest lines, which lines may all run the same way, or counterbalance each other, and not only so, but by their convergence they carry the eye to a spot near the main subject.

For the sake of training one’s perceptions look at any good pictures, and in your mind resolve them into line diagrams and see how these lines fall, and in considering any landscape or other subject to be photographed make up your mind as to what lines are suggested, and then select your point of view so that these lines balance or are symmetrical in arrangement, and also that they converge towards some point well within the picture, and near the center of it.

A subject might in part be well composed, but the composition is spoiled because of lines which seem to cut the picture in two, or in quarters. Choosing the same subject from a point of view may make a different and a more pleasing effect.

Lines which seem to separate us from the picture and cut off one part from another must be carefully avoided, and an endeavor to find something which will, as it were, lead the eye into the picture, should be diligently sought for, and indeed a subject, however it may interest us, must often be abandoned if it lacks those things which go to make pleasing composition, remembering as we should always do that in pictorial work the fact that objects are curious, or interesting, or pretty, has nothing to do with the case, but that they are only to be valued according as they act as media for expressing pleasing ideas, beautiful thoughts and sentiments, which they will not do if some part creates a feeling of unpleasing arrangement or design. If a scene does not compose well, we should as pictorial workers feel no desire to reproduce it. But you may say “Cannot we often by changing our point of view get an otherwise ill-composed subject to compose well?” Most decidedly, that is precisely what we should do, but it is no longer the same subject or view.

And now let me say that it is often surprising how much alteration may be made by changing our position. Changing viewpoint is one way to improve composition, but there are examples of the desirable change brought about by watching and waiting for a change in the position of light or the condition of a river’s tide.

Where the beginner most often fails is in taking things as they are without pausing to consider whether they might not be improved, and if so in what way, and then patiently searching to see if such better way can be found. Pictorial success will as often as not depend on the exercise of fastidious taste, which is satisfied with nothing but the very best, and not quite content even then.

A great deal more might usefully be said with reference to the composition of lines if space would permit, but this general reference may be given as a sort of summing up.

If the disposition of the lines constitutes such a perfectly symmetrical design that it is at once recognized as symmetrical, then it is wrong, because the artifice by which pleasing composition is attained is betrayed, and we feel the thing to be artificial. If, on the other hand, the lines fall so as to make the beholder conscious of their presence, as, for instance, cutting off a portion of the subject or presenting, a one-sided appearance, again it is wrong. In neither case should the lines or the objects suggesting them be felt at all until sought for, neither as being very right or very wrong.

In art it is a maxim that the means by which the thing is done should not proclaim itself, and hence it must apply to pictorial photography, which is an effort after the artistic. A composition should please without our quite knowing why, and without our being able to see the machinery, as it were, by which our pleasurable sensations are set in motion.

But whilst it is convenient to speak of lines in the landscape, it is only a manner of speaking, for, as we know very well, photography, unlike pen drawing, has to do with “tones,” that is, masses of light and shade. Now the general rules suggested as regards the arrangement of lines, apply in much the same way if we regard a picture (as we should do) as consisting of masses of light and shade.

If when standing before a picture we close the eyes and then suddenly open them, our attention is certain to be drawn to the highest light or the deepest shadow, and hence, as a general rule, whichever of these is the strongest to attract attention, that should be in or near the principal object (indeed it will make of itself the principal object), and should therefore be well removed from the margins of the picture.

But disposing of the highest light and deepest dark does not finish the matter. There is a certain relative degree of lightness and darkness between everything in nature. Moreover, colors have to be interpreted by certain degrees of light and shade according to the distance objects are away from us, and according to the amount of light falling on them.

Such relative lightness and darkness is called “tone.” The word used in this sense has nothing to do with “tone” as applied to the color of a print, which color we change by a process we call “toning,” — upon the correct rendering of relative tones so much of the effect of a picture depends, and so much of its emotional qualities.

Generally speaking, although there are often exceptions, the further an object is from us the grayer it seems. White becomes less white, and dark objects grow less dark, until in the distance both, under ordinary circumstances, come almost to the same “tone,” and we see the distance only as a gray hazy mass.

If for a subject we have a figure of a woman by a stream of water and we make an under-exposed negative of it, or develop the negative to too great a density, we shall very likely have a print in which the water and the woman’s apron and cap come very much whiter with regard to the rest of the subject than ever they appear in nature, whilst the distance will very likely come too dark. Here we show a disregard for the correct rendering of relative tones and the effect is hard and harsh, unlike nature. We must therefore endeavor, both in exposure and development and printing, to preserve relative tones exactly as they are in nature, and constant study and observation of nature should be carried on in order that the eye may be trained to know how things come relatively in nature, and so be able to decide at a glance if the photograph is good.

Ultimate success, by the way, often depends less on knowing what to take and how to take it than on a well-trained judgment which knows what is good or bad when we have taken it.

Whilst the mere lines or forms of objects may impart some amount of feeling and sentiment to a scene, inasmuch as there is restfulness and repose in the long horizontal lines of the river-side pastures, something rhythmical in the sinuous curves of the winding stream, or vigor and variety in the irregular forms of the rugged cliffs and so on, yet the ideas and feelings which the picture will promote depend more on the lights and shades, and the masses contrasting or merging each with each.

But Nature does not always present herself in pleasingly arranged masses, and is consequently at such times commonplace and unpicturesque in the literal sense of the word. At such times she will not attract the pictorial worker any more than she will when perchance the lines and groupings are unsuitable.

The landscape which basks under the full blaze of sun, glittering throughout every inch with a myriad twinkling lights and sharp details, awakens no feeling akin to those which probably everyone feels when in the twilight of evening — plane after plane recedes as one broad flat tint behind the other. Under the bright light of day we may wonder at the richness and plenty upon the earth, we may rejoice in that there are so many curious and pretty things to look at, but these are like the feelings inspired by reading a book on natural history, rather than the emotions created by the perusal of a poem, or listening to sweet music.