Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1907 (Heft 18))

a "photographic character " only. Let pure photography go to the annual
exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society. That society is in duty bound
to support and to foster the " qualities of the medium.” A. M. *
In spite of the shock it may give to our national pride, we are bound
to admit that England was the first to free pictorial photography from the
bonds of deep-rooted and long-continued convention. And now, to-day,
it is from indications of a new profession of faith gathered from English
photographic journals that we foresee the imminent danger of a backward
tendency in the very country which first started the movement in advance.
The first manifestations of this retrograde tendency seemed to assert
themselves last year; they are this year accentuated in a sufficiently acute
manner to interest our French readers, for if the development of the malady
pursues its normal course it would seem that pictorial photography on the
other side of the channel is within measurable distance of a return to the
practice and heresies of the days of albumenized paper. The bacilli which
are the cause of the threatened disease are represented by the terms “ photo-
graphic character” and “qualities of the medium.” These are not new
microbes, but dormant germs awakened by criticism which find in certain
lower organisms a favorable soil for their cultivation. In two words — a
consensus of feeling which appears to be becoming universal amongst people
who write tends to confine us henceforth within what they call, without
further explanation—and Heaven knows we should be grateful for one —
the Limits of Photography; so that a print purely artistic in its nature can
not be admirable unless it distinctly offers us the photographic character and
the qualities of the medium carried to their highest degree of perfection.
More than this, all the efforts of the photographer are to be directed to the
perfecting of these special photographic qualities; that is to say, rapidity in
seizing and registering the subject, range and delicacy of half-tones (drawing
doesn't count), and the most careful avoidance of any approach in resemblance
to a work of art in another system of monochrome, such as etching, dry-
point, wash drawing, or lithography. “ Photographic character” and " quali-
ties of the medium” become the battle-cry, the " St. George for Merry
England” of the artist in photography.
This is the sort of thing repeated in pompous tones and in almost
identical terms by different critics who seem to be writing to order. No
doubt such sentiments will be readily adopted by those photographers who
have not the capacity of emulating Steichen in his strong effects, Puyo in his
colored gums, or Frank Eugene in his clever use of the etching needle. It
[* On receiving the translation of M. Demachy’s article from our esteemed contributor who modestly hides himself
under the very thin veil of disguise “ A. M.,” we communicated with the brilliant French amateur, and being quite in
sympathy with the views he then expressed with reference to the undesirability of a prolonged discussion, we wish it
understood that having been fortunate enough to secure the views of Messrs. Shaw, Evans, and Sutcliffe, we do not
propose to carry the controversy further. We were glad last week to be able to publish a preliminary article from the
pen of M. Demachy, as to a great extent it prepared the ground for this week’s interesting batch of contributions. It is
such articles as these, that ever and again the Amateur Photographer has had the privilege of publishing, which we
think justify our reminding our more advanced readers that whilst appealing to our more elementary readers we are never
consistently unmindful of those who have long since passed their novitiate — one may have to play to the gallery all night
in order to get in one or two bons-mots for the stalls. — Ed. A. P.]

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