Art Books

The most important improvement in photographic processes that has been introduced since Maynard first made collodion, and Archer discovered its adaptability to the production of photographic negatives, is the gelatine bromide dry plate.Wet plate photography had reached its utmost point of adaptability to the demands of the times.A few men of marked ability, and the skill of long study and practice, had reached the point of highest excellence in working with collodion, and the great multitude were pressing on toward that designated height to which it was given to but few to attain.

This is a very practical guide, in which useful advice is given how to buy a camera, and how to use it. Any beginner would be able to learn from the instructions given how to take a photograph.

Uncle Albert collecting masses of data by comparing his own density with that of a block of granite. The thoroughness with which he entered into discouraging experimental work of this kind, even at an advanced age, is truly indicative of that rugged persistence which is the earmark of the sincere seeker after knowledge.Perhaps it is inevitable that one so sweepingly versatile as my Uncle Albert should have been a little garrulous.

We believe permanency is the Keystone of Photographic Success, and all brands of paper bearing our Trade-mark are manufactured on this principle. We hold our consumer's reputation and success identical with our own. We surround both with every safeguard known to chemical science and our own experience.

Practically every successful home portrait photographer is also a successful studio photographer, and many of these have found a simple and compact form of flash-light apparatus especially convenient for home portraiture as well as for dull-day studio sittings.

We believe permanency is the Keystone of Photographic Success, and all brands of paper bearing our Trade-mark are manufactured on this principle. We hold our consumer's reputation and success identical with our own. We surround both with every safeguard known to chemical science and our own experience

In thirty years in the photographic business there have been several revolutionary changes. Doubtless there will be many more. Whatever they may be our Policy shall be to furnish (without following every mere will-o'-the wisp) the very best of those goods which painstaking testing shall prove to be of benefit to our customers in the Simplification of Photographic Processes and the Advancement of the Art.

The Christmas business has been greater than ever before - more photographers have been advertising than ever before, and more people have been having pictures made. They have been reminded by almost every magazine they have looked over for Christmas suggestions that photographs make very desirable presents and that there is a photographer in their town. Naturally, the photographer who advertised got the bulk of this business.

A few clever photographers down there having taken prizes in the earlier of these competitions, their neighbors became interested and went after the perfectly good but by no means easy money. If as large a proportion of the best photographers in all the rest of the country would go into these competitions we would be obliged to engage our judges by the year.

The reason seems not far to seek. Philadelphia is interested. It furnished a tremendously large proportion of entries. A few clever photographers down there having taken prizes in the earlier of these competitions, their neighbors became interested and went after the perfectly good but by no means easy money. If as large a proportion of the best photographers in all the rest of the country would go into these competitions we would be obliged to engage our judges by the year.

The harshness of contrast may be materially subdued, but the result is not brilliancy. A greater number of tones cannot be produced because they are not in the negative. Yet the passable result secured in printing is allowed to pass and under-exposure becomes a habit.

There are still a few people who talk of the good old days, the good old methods, the good old quality, etc., and go right along following the line of least resistance instead of holding on to the good things of the old days that have not been bettered.

We will win the war, but the sooner we know what is required and the sooner we bend every effort to furnish the vital needs of our armies, just that soon can we say we are doing our bit. The longer the delay the greater will be the cost, not alone in dollars and cents, but in life and happiness.With billions in money our Government is unable to buy one of the vital necessities of modern warfare. With millions of men, ample food, clothing, guns and munitions, we are unable to equip one of the most important divisions of our army with the necessary material to intelligently and efficiently direct our guns and human fighting forces.

The past year has been a rather trying one for all kinds of business, yet you have weathered it and can see better buisness ahead. If accounts are to be relied upon, Christmas business was good. People have turned to photographs as a solution of their gift making problems because photographs are not expensive. There is a personal touch to the gift of a photograph - a sentiment that can not be measured in dollars and cents and that does not place an obligation upon the one who receives it.

But there is really more to the idea of setting the studio apart from commercial surroundings than merely to gain the conveniences that one can build into a studio designed specially for photographic work. There is greater privacy - there is more of the atmosphere of a home of refinement and there is more opportunity to make the studio and its surroundings beautiful, all of which materially adds to the advertising value of a so-called residence studio.

My first and pleasantest duty is to offer my heartiest thanks to the numerous correspondents who have honoured me with sympathetic letters of approval and with valuable criticisms. Judging from these kind letters, which have poured upon me in grateful showers, my book has filled a want in art literature. These letters, coming as they do from artists of all kinds, art-masters and photographers, many of whom are perfect strangers to me, have supplied me with suggestions and criticisms which I shall make use of in a later edition, if the public so will that there be one, and some of my correspondents I shall take the liberty of publicly thanking

n adding a volume on Photography to the Concise Knowledge Library, we have felt that we were dealing with a subject which can only be approached through the avenues of actual practice. This is true about photography, even from the historical point of view. In the beginning it was sponsored by the highest scientific authorities of the time, and leaders of science, from Faraday to Lord Rayleigh, have given of their best to bring it to its present state of perfection. And yet its fundamental processes have to be taken for granted. No chemist by taking thought could have evolved them; they were stumbled upon accidentally by empirics, and it has puzzled the scientific world ever since to explain them adequately

In this little work historical and theoretical data have been as far as possible omitted. My endeavor has been to supply an elementary practical manual of the various processes of Color Photography, and no method or formula has been given that has not been personally tested in practice. This has naturally limited the scope of the work to some extent, but it has not entailed the omission of any information of practical value.

The Pencil Points Library many readers of Pencil Points have suggested to us the need for a group of books dealing in a thoroughly practical and helpful way with subjects of interest to architects, draftsmen and students - a library embracing the varied interests that centre in the' drafting room

An exhaustive treatment of the subject of Architectural Drawing presents so many ramifications that, to cover them fully, several volumes of text and many expensive Plates are required. Almost without exception these books and portfolios each deal with but one phase of the subject and go into that at some length. For this reason the architectural student must have access to a rather voluminous library or else invest in a number of more or less expensive books.

At that exhibition, the practice and the materials, the familiar David-Roberts grey paper, the Harding pencil effects, the washes and colours, cold or glowing, that marked Ruskin the artist and master of drawing, were so arranged as to recall him almost in the very act.

Till up the big black prowler came To carry on his murdrous game, When yell and gun-bang filled the air, And Rover worries sheep nae mair; Yet to "Balass" by early day The honest shepherd took his way, And telld him that some dog had been Stravaigin through his flock at een, That as the captain was frae hame, He micht himsel get a the blame, And spiered and bade him answer plain Gif Rover had been aff the chain? For he atweel would have to say What ugly brute had been his way.