DOI Artikel:
J. [John] B. [Barrett] Kerfoot, The Rubáiyát of Kodak McFilm [poem]
DOI Artikel:Sadakichi Hartmann, The Broken Plates
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.30316#0041
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17
Into this mixture then (and why not knowing)
You put your plate and start it to-and-froing;
And out of it again, when it is cooked
(Not knowing whether), start the thing hypoing.
18
Waste not your Plates, nor in the vain pursuit
Of Tone and Quality and Light dispute;
Better be happy at ten cents a Roll
Than sadden after very Sour Fruit.
19
The moving Shutter clicks, and all is done ;
Nor can your Pyro, Metol, or Quinone
Avail to change the Focus half a turn,
Nor your Retouching alter half a tone.
20
Perplext no more by Salon nor by Show,
Artistic Tangles to the Critics throw.
Snap ! For you know not what you want, nor why;
Snap! For you know not what you'll get, nor how.
J. B. Kerfoot.
THE BROKEN PLATES.
THERE WAS a time when also I hoped to become one of the leading
artistic photographers. But the quest for fame or recognition of any
sort is futile. Its realization depends on so many minor circumstances
utterly beyond human control. At least it has been so with me.
My father was a painter of some reputation; from him I have inherited
my artistic instincts, a keen sense of appreciation. But being by nature a
dreamer—the foretaste of the future always robs the dish before me of its
savour—I had neither the patience nor the perseverance to undergo a severe
training of hand and eye. I drifted into photography largely in the hope
that its mechanism might supply what I had failed to acquire. I soon learnt
that I was seriously mistaken; the action of mechanism and accident which
plays such a capricious part in photography had, however, a strange fascination
for me. The contention of the artist that nothing artistic could be produced
by the camera filled me with indignation, and I courageously set to work.
Years of voluntary toil followed ; I was determined to conquer. Yet the
world, which looked so beautiful in my waking dreams, seemed dull and cold
on paper. The spontaneity of my pictorial vision was invariably lost in the
translation. Only once I came very near to my ideal. But the failure, due
to an ungovernable accident, shattered all my hopes of ever realizing it.
35
Into this mixture then (and why not knowing)
You put your plate and start it to-and-froing;
And out of it again, when it is cooked
(Not knowing whether), start the thing hypoing.
18
Waste not your Plates, nor in the vain pursuit
Of Tone and Quality and Light dispute;
Better be happy at ten cents a Roll
Than sadden after very Sour Fruit.
19
The moving Shutter clicks, and all is done ;
Nor can your Pyro, Metol, or Quinone
Avail to change the Focus half a turn,
Nor your Retouching alter half a tone.
20
Perplext no more by Salon nor by Show,
Artistic Tangles to the Critics throw.
Snap ! For you know not what you want, nor why;
Snap! For you know not what you'll get, nor how.
J. B. Kerfoot.
THE BROKEN PLATES.
THERE WAS a time when also I hoped to become one of the leading
artistic photographers. But the quest for fame or recognition of any
sort is futile. Its realization depends on so many minor circumstances
utterly beyond human control. At least it has been so with me.
My father was a painter of some reputation; from him I have inherited
my artistic instincts, a keen sense of appreciation. But being by nature a
dreamer—the foretaste of the future always robs the dish before me of its
savour—I had neither the patience nor the perseverance to undergo a severe
training of hand and eye. I drifted into photography largely in the hope
that its mechanism might supply what I had failed to acquire. I soon learnt
that I was seriously mistaken; the action of mechanism and accident which
plays such a capricious part in photography had, however, a strange fascination
for me. The contention of the artist that nothing artistic could be produced
by the camera filled me with indignation, and I courageously set to work.
Years of voluntary toil followed ; I was determined to conquer. Yet the
world, which looked so beautiful in my waking dreams, seemed dull and cold
on paper. The spontaneity of my pictorial vision was invariably lost in the
translation. Only once I came very near to my ideal. But the failure, due
to an ungovernable accident, shattered all my hopes of ever realizing it.
35
