The word caricature (pronounced care'-i-ca-ture) means a portrait in which some part of it is distorted so that it produces a comical effect.

Now there are a lot of ways to make photographic caricatures but one of the best is to use what is called a special foreground. This foreground is a sheet of cardboard or a piece of muslin stretched on a frame about 1 1/2 feet wide and 2 1/2 feet long.

Draw on the cardboard or muslin any kind of a funny little body such as an anemic fellow in a bathing suit, or a lank athlete rowing in a tub, or a gilded youth riding a donkey; and finally cut out a place around his collar for the neck of the sitter. Seat your subject and have him hold the foreground as shown at C in Fig. 62 so that his head comes just above the collar of the picture and then take a photograph of him.

Fig. 62c. how caricatures are made

If now the background - that is the ground back of the sitter - and the foreground - namely the one painted on the cardboard - are of the same shade you can trim the print so that it will look exactly as if your friend was in the Orient on his way to Mecca. (If you will keep this picture for 20 years the fellow who sat for it will gladly pay you a hundred dollars for it.)