File:The American annual of photography (1912) (14579270518).jpg

Identifier: americanannualof1912newy (find matches)
Title: The American annual of photography

"Toil, or, A Woman's Work" Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Photography
Publisher: New York : Tennant and Ward
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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s, but with the large variety ofenlarging apparatus and paper at ones service to-day, thisquestion should present no difficulties. Another point toconsider is that there are very few subjects where the originalproportion of the plate is the one best suited to the composi-tion of the subject. Careful and judicious trimming will oftenimprove a weak composition: an inch or two off a poor sky,a piece off of an uninteresting foreground, or a distractingobject trimmed off the side will often redeem and save aprint. I need hardly impress upon my readers the necessityof suitable skies. By this I do not mean strong clouds in everysubject; that fault is usually committed by the enthusiast onfirst commencing to insert clouds; often a plain tinted orshaded sky is the most appropriate, but in every case the sub-ject must be studied and a cloud or sky to suit the scene in-serted; that is, if no clouds exist in the original plate. Ifthere is the faintest trace of clouds it is far better to bring 210
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o c/i o o i them out by reducing the plate locally with ferricyanide, orprinting them up by shading the print during exposure, thanto insert fresh ones that are foreign to the scene. This isespecially so if enlarging is used where the difficulty ofputting clouds in is considerable. Next will come the ques-tion of what paper to use, and here a wide latitude exists forindividual fancy. Surface and color are the two points toconsider, bearing in mind the effect required and its suitabilityto the subject. Regarding the vexed question of how far hand work, localtreatment and the many other methods of obtaining effectsare justified, I will not venture to advise. Each must be alaw unto himself; much must, of course, depend on the skillof the photographer, for it will be evident that whatevermethod is used, the means that are adopted, must not be ap-parent in the result. If the critic in viewing the finishedresult is conscious of how the effect was obtained, then thework stands self-condemned

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