Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1906 (Heft 14))

II

The bugbear of the photographer with any art instinct is the undue importance which
non-essentials assume in a photographic plate.—Alice Boughton, in the Scrip.
Suppose the camera to be a perfect instrument; suppose it possible by means of it to represent
the appearance of things in common terms, so that in every man a photographic print would evoke
exactly the same feelings as the subject represented ; it is obvious that, besides being limited in various
ways by natural conditions, its undoctored products would, at best, be equivalent only to the first
step in the painter’s art.
Recognizing its limitations, the earliest pictorial photographers afflicted with artistic aspirations
were content to mimic their betters by such simple devices as dressing up a young woman in classical
raiment, posing her in a wood, and labeling the result “In Arcady.” Presently they perceived
that this would not do, that the essential difference between a photograph and a picture was evidently
less simple than they had supposed; and so they fell to aping the mannerisms and peculiarities of
particular painters; one adopting costumes affected by Burne-Jones, another procuring long-necked
models of a Rossetti type, a third contriving strong contrasts of light and shade in imitation of Rem-
brandt, a fourth parodying the twilight of Whistler’snocturnes, and so forth. Some went a step
further, and tried to heighten the picture-illusion by printing their photographs on canvas or some
surface resembling it in texture.
A few, however, more conscientious or more discerning than the rest, deprecated these fop-
peries, knowing full well that nothing worthy of the name of art was to be compassed by such
dishonest methods. And as they saw in the camera a ready means of literal reproduction, partially
controllable in expert hands, so the problem they undertook to solve was, how to reduce it to the
service of their tastes by correcting its bald and indiscreet statements of fact, and providing by
emphasis and suppression for those allowances made instinctively by every reasoning being in the
presence of visible things. In a word, they resolved to assert their freedom and, instead of imitating
the parasitic practices of the older pictorialists, to achieve effects approximating as nicely as the
medium would allow to their particular impressions of the world.
The exhibitors at 291 Fifth Avenue manifestly stand for pictorial photography in this sense,
and it is curious to remark the various means by which they endeavor to supply or conceal the
deficiencies of their instrument and to deal with the bugbear indicated in the text at the head of this
article. At first thought it might be supposed that the difficulties of the advanced photographer,
the manipulator of negatives and skilful eliminator of superfluities, would be least of all evident at
the outset, namely in the choice of subjects. But a little reflection will make it clear that the
pictorialist is necessarily obliged to anticipate the restrictions of his procedure from the first, and will
further show why it is that these restrictions are so frequently betrayed in the subject. Conscious
of the cold impartiality of the lens, and the very limited measure of his control over its workings,
the discreet photographer is willing enough to depend on the general and obvious interest of the
thing presented, and so it will be seen that many of the subjects here are what may be called eccentric;
subjects curious or remarkable in themselves, apart from any particular act of the photographers.
Consider the portraits. In this kind of work photography is very apt to be dull, unless the
model happens to be extraordinary or is made to appear so by violence of treatment. An example
of the former condition is to be found in one of Mr. Steichen’scontributions. When this print
was exhibited in London, the correspondent of Camera Work described it, in the extravagant lan-
guage common among critics of photography, as “simply magnificent., ’ But really in this case the
simple magnificence (if that is the proper word) is due much less to Mr. Steichen than to the
picturesque poser represented. When the photographers have to deal with a sitter not obviously
amusing or outré in appearance, they are constrained to fall back on various devices which are, to say
the least, meretricious. In this way they will convert a perfectly decent, common, undistinguished
figure into a hero or demigod of tragic or mystic mien, either by the skilful arrangement
of light and shadow or by the various refinements they have invented for the annihilation of
character.
Of course, the same process is common enough among portrait-painters, only in painting it is
not usual to hail the result as a masterpiece, unless, indeed, on the part of the sitter. The photogra-
phers, however, seem to be well satisfied if they succeed in making what they call a picture and are
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