Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1908 (Heft 22))

Personally I have no medium that can give me color of such wonderful
luminosity as the Autochrome plate. One must go to stained glass for such
color resonance, as the palette and canvas are a dull and lifeless medium in
comparison. As I write these notes prints of the color plates from the
edition of those appearing with these pages in Camera Work, are before
me. The originals have not yet arrived, so I can not compare. The en-
gravings are remarkable; they are technically by far the best reproductions
that have been made from Autochromes up to the present; but their rela-
tionship to the originals, as regards color, vitality, and harmony, as I
remember them, is as—well, comparison fails completely! There is no
relationship. They are a thing apart. To-day, in making plates intended
for prints in any form, one will consider the final result, and work accord-
ingly—so the accompanying color pictures go into Camera Work merely
as an expression of good will. They are neither representative of Auto-
chrome photography, nor of color photography : they are a compromise-
an experiment. Eduard J. Steichen.
Paris, 1908.


OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.
THIS number of Camera Work contains but three illustrations,
and these are reproductions by the four-color half-tone process of
Lumière Autochromes, the originals of which were done by
Steichen, and are amongst the very earliest experiments in this new
color process. The edition is by the firm of Bruckmann, of Munich, Ger-
many, who are celebrated for the excellence of their color printing and work
generally. These plates represent Bruckmann’s first attempts in reproducing
from Lumière polychrome screen transparencies and, of necessity, fall short
of their anticipations and ours. We refer you to the Steichen article on
" Color Photography.”