Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1904 (Heft 5))

A DISSERTATION ON INSTRUCTION.

¶PERHAPS ONE of the greatest drawbacks to photography — but I
believe I have said that before. Candidly, I can not keep track of the
number of times I have said it; but the fact of the matter is that there
are so many stumbling-blocks in the way of photography and each one
considered separately seems so particularly aggravating, that I am very apt
to view each one as the greatest enemy — until I think of the others. But
this one that occurs to me now is the most ridiculous ineptitude displayed
by the writers of technical photographic instruction. I have more than
once asked why some one with a head that grew something other than hair
did not write a general book of photographic instruction; but the same
has not come within the field of my mental binoculars up to this date.
There seem to be two favorite courses of procedure for writing instructions:
one is to assume that the reader is a technician of such rare attainments
that it is only necessary to give meagre outlines of highly technical
phenomena and they will be absorbed intuitively, and the other is to go
into such minor detail as to create the impression the writer intended the
thing for a lot of blithering idiots. When a writer says one should use “ a
little semi-aqueous and alcoholic solution of purified inspissated ox-gall,”
the tottering seeker of photographic knowledge is dazed to a frazzle, and
when another one tells him “a good way to find what field the camera
covers is to remove ground glass and lens, reverse camera, and look through
bellows” he is surely justified in calling for help. And then we can not
pass the long and learned discussions, as to whether it is best to use 372¾
grains of sulphite of soda or 371⅖ grains, and the blithe and easy
comparison of the respective merits of imported and domestic Castile soap
as a lubricant for burnishing silver prints. These are not only entertaining
but highly instructive to the absolute amateur, particularly when the writer
winds up by saying, “ from my own experience I was unable to judge with
any degree of certainty the superiority of one over the other, but I am sure
the reader can profitably pursue experiments along this line.”
¶ At a recent convention of physicians, one doctor wanted to read a paper
on the function of the appendix as an adjunct to the circulatory system, and
when they asked him on what experiments and observations he based his
theory he said, “None. I just thought of it.” Now that is the way with
most of this photographic instruction. Some fellow just thinks of it and so
he writes it out and has no trouble finding a journal to publish it, providing
they do not have to pay for it. The other day I met a fellow who once
wrote an article on gum-bichromate printing. With all the caution of a
savant he weighed the questions of papers and sizing, the gums and
sensitizing solution and pigment. And with the deft hand of an adept he
carried the reader through the intricacies of printing and developing and
manipulation. Well, when I talked to him the other day the conversation
drifted to gum prints. He remarked that it was a very unsatisfactory
process and that he had never been able to work it successfully.

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