The Art Of Photography. A. - Art Division

In this division the aim of the work is to give aesthetic pleasure alone, and the artist's only wish is to produce works of art. Such work can be judged only by trained artists, and the aims and scope of such work can be fully appreciated only by trained artists. Photographers who qualify themselves by an art training, and their works alone, belong to this class. They alone are artists. Included in this class would be original artists, first-rate photo-etchers, and typo-blockmakers, whose aim is to reproduce in facsimile all the artistic quality of original works of art. Such photographers should have an artistic training without fail, as all the best have had.

B. - Science Division

In this division the aim of the work is to investigate the phenomena of nature, and by experiment to make new discoveries, and corroborate or falsify old experiments. The workers in this great and valuable department of photography may be divided intoa. Scientific experimentalists in all branches of science.

b. Chemists and spectrum-analysts.

c. Astronomers.

d. Microscopists.

e. Engineers.

f. Military and naval photographers.

g. Meteorologists. h. Biologists.

i. Geographers. j. Geologists.

k. Medical men.

l. Physicists. m. Anthropologists.

These sub-divisions include all that vast host of trained scientific men who are photographers in connection with their work. Their aim is the advancement of science.

C. - Industrial Division

This class includes that great majority of the photographic world - the craftsmen. These men have learned the methods of their craft, and go on from day to day meeting the industrial requirements of the age, producing good useful work, and often filling their pockets at the same time. Their aim is utilitarian, but in some branches they may at the same time aim to give an aesthetic pleasure by their productions, but this is always subordinated to the utility of the work. When they aim at giving this aesthetic pleasure as well, they become art-craftsmen.

Amongst these craftsmen are included photographers who will take any one or anything if paid to do so, such forming what is known as "professional photographers."

All reproducers of pictures, patterns, etc, by photomechanical processes, in which the aim is not solely aesthetic pleasure, as in reproducing topographic views. All plate makers. Transparency, opal, lantern-slide, and stereoscopic slide makers. All facsimile photographers; photographers of pictures, statuary, etc. All makers of invisible photographs, magic cigar photographs. All operators who work under the guidance of artists or scientists for pay, they not having artistic and scientific training themselves, as in the preparation of lantern slides for a biologist. All enlargers, operators, spotters, printers, retouchers, mounters, etc. Producers of porcelain pictures. Producers of facsimile type blocks and copper plates, with no artistic aim, et id genus omne. All photographs produced for amusement by the untrained in art or science. All photographers who produce pattern photographs, "bits" of scenery, and animals for draughtsmen to work from.

It will thus be clear to the student that all these photographers serve useful purposes and each is invaluable in his way, but we repeat the aim of the three groups of photographers is very different and quite distinct, as distinct as in draughtmanship are the etchings of Rembrandt, the scientific drawings of Huxley, and the pattern plates of a store catalogue. All are useful in their place, and who shall dare to say which is more useful than the other; but all are distinct, and can in no way be compared with one another or classed together any more than can the poems of Mr. Swinburne, the text of Professor Tyndalls "Light," and the Blue-books. All can be good in their way, but the aims and methods of the one must not be confounded with the aims and methods of the other, and we fear that such is the case in the photographic world at present.

"Amateur" And "Professional " Photographers

There is one obstacle which we must clear from the student's path in this introduction, and that is the confusion of the terms "professional" and "amateur," as used in the photographic world; for in this world it must be understood that these terms are used as in no other world. Briefly, photographers mean by "professional" one who gains his living by photography, and an "amateur" means one who does not practise photography for his living. The folly of this is obvious, for by this definition the greatest English scientific photographer, Captain Abney, is an "amateur," and the sands photographer at Margate is a "professional."

This anomalous definition of the two classes has led journalists into strange errors and mistakes. We remember one journal, which prides itself upon its accuracy, breaking into satirical writing because the judges at a certain photographic exhibition were to be " amateurs." Of course the journalist who wrote that article used "amateur" in the ordinary English sense, and hence his amusement; but, as we have shown, he made a great error in fact.

In reality professional photographers are those who have studied one branch of photography thoroughly, and are masters of all its resources, and no others. It is no question of £ s. d., this "professional" and " amateur " question, but a question of knowledge and capacity. An amateur is a dabbler without aim, without thorough knowledge, and often without capacity, no matter how many of his productions he may sell. We think, then, the words "professional" and "amateur" should be abolished from the photographic world, until that day shall arise when there is a central training and examining body, that shall have the power of making real professional photographers, when all possessing a diploma would be professionals and all others amateurs.