DOI Heft:
No. 5 (August, 1893)
DOI Artikel:Townsend, Horace: Art in photography: an interview with Mr. Frederick Hollyer
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17188#0213
An Interview with Mr. Frederick Hoi Iyer
instance, might have been taken from half a hundred
' other points of view, and yet from a topographical
and mechanical standpoint have been as correct as
I here show it. To make it pleasing to my own
eye, however, I found there was only one spot
from which 1 could properly view it. Having
found this spot I had again to patiently wait until
the cloud and mist effects, with the London sun
just peeping through the murky veil, were as I
thought they should be. Not only this but selec-
tion came into play to tell me when the black
agent which I only imperfectly control, I cannot
introduce into my work that personal note which I
take it is but a synonym for the ' Art' of which
you speak. Of course I am aware that at one
moment and that perhaps the supreme moment,
the actual recording of the observed facts is taken
out of the photographer's hands. ■
" This is the moment of exposure. Consider on
the other hand though, at how many other points
the personal equation enters into our problem.
First there is the focussing (and though some
FROM AN UNTOUCHED PHOTOGRAPH liY FREDERICK HoLLYER
barge was in the right relative position to the rest
of the. picture and when other boats and floating
objects, which might have formed discordant
notes, were well out of the way. The result,
whether good or bad, is practically what I had
intended it to be from the very first, and is no
haphazard accident, but the expression of a
deliberate intention, gained by careful selection on
my part. At that point, of course, 1 stop, and the
rest of the work is done for me by the camera, but
1 might almost as well declare that the etcher was
a mere mechanical workman because the biting of
his line is done by the acid and not by himself, as
hold that because some portion, granted even that
it be the major portion, of my work is done by an
writers on photography have disagreed with me
here, I maintain that I am absolutely correct in
saying so); then there is the development; thirdly,
there is the manipulation of the print from the
developed negative. Don't for one moment under-
stand me to mean that that fatal crime of touching
and retouching negative or print is or has been
laid to my charge. On the contrary, no one can
have a greater abhorrence of such acts than I. I
consider it almost as criminal to form a picture by
the superposition of one negative upon another.
I am convinced that two photographers, equally
skilled in the mere mechanical processes of their
profession, can photograph the same subject from
the same point of view with the same camera, and
195
instance, might have been taken from half a hundred
' other points of view, and yet from a topographical
and mechanical standpoint have been as correct as
I here show it. To make it pleasing to my own
eye, however, I found there was only one spot
from which 1 could properly view it. Having
found this spot I had again to patiently wait until
the cloud and mist effects, with the London sun
just peeping through the murky veil, were as I
thought they should be. Not only this but selec-
tion came into play to tell me when the black
agent which I only imperfectly control, I cannot
introduce into my work that personal note which I
take it is but a synonym for the ' Art' of which
you speak. Of course I am aware that at one
moment and that perhaps the supreme moment,
the actual recording of the observed facts is taken
out of the photographer's hands. ■
" This is the moment of exposure. Consider on
the other hand though, at how many other points
the personal equation enters into our problem.
First there is the focussing (and though some
FROM AN UNTOUCHED PHOTOGRAPH liY FREDERICK HoLLYER
barge was in the right relative position to the rest
of the. picture and when other boats and floating
objects, which might have formed discordant
notes, were well out of the way. The result,
whether good or bad, is practically what I had
intended it to be from the very first, and is no
haphazard accident, but the expression of a
deliberate intention, gained by careful selection on
my part. At that point, of course, 1 stop, and the
rest of the work is done for me by the camera, but
1 might almost as well declare that the etcher was
a mere mechanical workman because the biting of
his line is done by the acid and not by himself, as
hold that because some portion, granted even that
it be the major portion, of my work is done by an
writers on photography have disagreed with me
here, I maintain that I am absolutely correct in
saying so); then there is the development; thirdly,
there is the manipulation of the print from the
developed negative. Don't for one moment under-
stand me to mean that that fatal crime of touching
and retouching negative or print is or has been
laid to my charge. On the contrary, no one can
have a greater abhorrence of such acts than I. I
consider it almost as criminal to form a picture by
the superposition of one negative upon another.
I am convinced that two photographers, equally
skilled in the mere mechanical processes of their
profession, can photograph the same subject from
the same point of view with the same camera, and
195