Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1907 (Heft 20))

work trying to make possible the multiplication of the original, but so far
the experimental stage has not been passed. No print on paper will ever
present the colors as brilliantly as those seen on the transparencies. This is
due to the difference of reflected and transmitted light. The solution of
the problem is but a matter of time.
It was in the beginning of June that the plates in small quantities were
put on the market in Paris; a few plates had been sent to Germany to be
tested by scientific experts. Elsewhere none were to be had. Fortunately
for ourselves, Steichen and I were in Paris when Lumière was to demonstrate
his process for the first time. The following letter sent by me to the Editor
of Photography (London) speaks for itself: It is reprinted with the Editor's
comments:
“THE COLOR PROBLEM FOR PRACTICAL WORK SOLVED.
The characteristically outspoken letter from Mr. Stieglitz, which we print below, will be read with
interest by those who have seen some of the amusing deprecatory statements as to the real
meaning of the Autochrome advance.
Sir,—Your enthusiasm about the Lumière Autochrome plates and the
results to be obtained with them is well founded. I have read every word
Photography has published on the subject. Nothing you have written is an
exaggeration. No matter what you or anyone else may write on the subject
and in praise of the results, the pictures themselves are so startlingly true
that they surpass anyone’s keenest expectations.
I fear that those of your contemporaries who are decrying and belittling
what they have not seen, and seem to know nothing about, will in the near
future, have to do some crawling. For upwards of twenty years I have been
closely identified with color photography. I paid much good coin before I
came to the conclusion that color, so far as practical purposes were con-
cerned, would ever remain the perpetual motion problem of photography.
Over eighteen months ago I was informed from inside sources that
Lumière's had actually solved the problem; that in a short time everyone
could make color pictures as readily as he could snap films. I smiled
incredulously, although the name Lumière gave that smile an awkwardness,
Lumière and success and science thus far always having been intimately
identified. Good fortune willed it that early this June I was in Paris when
the first results were to be shown at the Photo-Club. Steichen and I were
to go there together. Steichen went; illness kept me at home. Anxiously
I awaited Steichen’s report. His " pretty good only ” satisfied my vanity of
knowing it all.
Steichen nevertheless bought some plates that morning, as he wished to
see what results he could obtain. Don’t we all know that in photography
the manufacturer rarely gets all there is in his own invention? Steichen
arrived breathlessly at my hotel to show me his first two pictures. Although
comparative failures, they convinced me at a glance that the color problem
for practical work had been solved, and that even the most fastidious must
be satisfied. These experiments were hastily followed up by others, and
in less than a week Steichen had a series of pictures which outdid anything