"Artists are supposed to pass their lives in earnest endeavour to express through the medium of paint or pencil, thoughts, feelings, or impressions which they cannot help expressing, and which cannot possibly be expressed by any other means. They make use of material means in order to arrive at this end. They tell their story - the story of a day, an impression of a character, a recollection of a moment, or-whatever, more or less clearly or well, as they are more or less capable of doing. They expose their work to the public, not for the sake of praise, but with a feeling and a hope that some human being may see in it the feeling that has passed through their own mind in their poor and necessarily crippled statement. The endeavour is honest and earnest, if almost always with a result weakened by over-conscientiousness or endeavour to be understood. . . . Your work is exhibited not with the intention of injuring any of the human race. It is a dumb, noiseless, silent story, told, as best it may be, by the author to those whom it may concern. And it does tell its story, not to evert,'body, but to somebody."

William Hunt.

Chapter I. The Camera And Tripod

The Camera. Choice Of Camera

The camera as used to-day is a modified form of the Camera Obscura adapted to the special end of taking photographs. It is essentially nothing but a light-tight box, to one end of which a lens can be adjusted, and to the other end of which the slide containing the sensitive plate can be applied and exposed, so that it receives no light, save that passing through the lens. There are many patterns and many minor differences in the construction of these boxes, some few of real value, but the majority the work of ingenious and speculating manufacturers, who hope by some novelty to increase the sale of their new patents. In all apparatus the student should choose the simplest and strongest, for in artistic work lightness per se is no object, nay, it may be harmful, as leading to over-production. In fact nothing should stand in the way of getting the best results, and though many of the cameras on the market are light and fitted with numerous devices which are said to simplify operations and help the worker, yet such is not really the case, and these thousand-and-one aids to work are apt to become deranged, and finally to embarrass the worker at some critical moment.

In choosing a camera, then, for landscape work, choose a square one, with a reversing frame, a double swing-back, and good leather bellows. Let the flange of the lens be fitted to a square front which can be easily removed and replaced, and let there be a rising front. It is advisable to have the camera brass-bound for the sake of its preservation, and if for use in tropical climates the bellows should be made of Russian leather, as the oil of birch with which the leather is cured is most distasteful to insects. In ordering a camera there are a few points which experience has led us to consider essential to comfort. One is that the part of the base-board of the camera which rests on the tripod head should be strengthened or made of much stouter material than is usually used. Another is that the thumb-screw should be of much larger diameter than is usually the case, and this should be borne in mind, even in the making of the smaller cameras, for on a windy day when the camera has a heavy lens on one end and a loaded double dark slide on the other, the vibration is often ruinous to the picture during exposure, while sudden gusts of wind may even crack the wood round the screw hole. It seems to us a thumb-screw at least half an inch in diameter should be used, unless the camera be made to fit into the tripod head, a method often adopted of recent years, and of course the best way of all. On more than one occasion we have nearly lost the camera altogether in the water when trying to screw it to the tripod when working from a boat on a tideway, but by having a part of the base-board made to fit into a wooden tripod head, this at times most difficult operation is rendered easy and certain.

Special considera tions in choosing a camera Baseboard. Thumbscrew.

Spirit levels.

Size Of Camera

The camera should always extend and close by means of a tail-screw, those opening by means of a rack and pinion are much more liable to get out of order. Of course this remark is not applicable to the smallest-sized cameras. Two small spirit-levels sunk into the tail-piece of the camera are invaluable; one will do if made of the right shape. In ordering a camera the two vital points to be considered are the size including the length of the bellows. The size of plate you intend working with determines the size of the camera. We have worked with all sized cameras, from quarter-plate up to one taking twenty-four by twenty-two inch plates, and it is only after long experience and much consideration that we venture to offer an opinion on the size to be chosen. For ordinary work, then, we recommend the half-plate size as the minimum, and the ten by eight inch size as the maximum.

Perhaps a whole-plate camera (8 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches)is on the whole as useful as any. The strength required to do a day's work with a twelve by ten inch camera is beyond any but a strong man. It is assumed, of course, that the pictures of the sizes cited are for albums, portfolios, or book illustrations. It must be remembered, however, that the size of a picture has nothing to do with its artistic value, an artistic quarter-plate picture is worth a hundred commonplace pictures forty by thirty inches in size. For producing large pictures for the wall, however, we consider the camera should be between fifteen by twelve inches and twenty-four by twenty-two inches; we cannot imagine anything larger than twenty-four by twenty-two inches for out-door work, and our memory goes back to a marsh road in Norfolk where we and two peasants had all we could do to carry a twenty-four by twenty-two inch camera when set up, from one marsh to another.