PHOTOGRAPHY
AS A HOBBY by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Halifax Daily Echo
PHOTOGRAPHY AS A HOBBY:
Cynthia's Advice to Beginners
"Around the Table," Halifax Daily Echo,
Monday, May 12, 1902.
by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Amateur photographers have to suffer
a good deal of equally amateur joking, but when all is said
and done there is really no "hobby" which has
such a fascination or out of which more pleasure can be
extracted. Of course one must be in earnest about it and
not be a mere dabbler. There is nothing beautiful about
a weird snapshot of your friends or a slap-dash exposure
where the houses come out slanted at an angle that surpasses
the leaning tower of Pisa. But a really pretty bit of scenery,
nicely furnished and properly mounted, reminiscent of a
pleasant summer day's walk or outing is a thing of beauty
and a joy forever. Several friends of mine have recently
invested in cameras and have asked me for some advice regarding
the use and abuse of them. So I will give a few pointers
from experience.
In amateur photography, even more
than anything else, the golden rule is "carefulness."
You simply can't be careless if you would succeed in producing
photos worth having. The most trifling oversight will sometimes
spoil a good picture. If you make your exposures in a slap-dash
style, if your darkroom leaks light, if your hypo solution
is not kept religiously apart from your developer, if you
do or leave undone a hundred other things you will fail
to obtain good results.
In starting out, don't attempt too
much at first and recklessly expose half a dozen plates
before developing one. Make haste slowly. A 4 by 5 camera
is large enough for a beginner. Get all the supplies necessary,
for, of course, you will not be content to be a "button
pusher," but will do your own developing and finishing.
Above all, get a good darkroom lantern. Misplaced economy
here will result in worry and disappointment. In spite of
some opinions to the contrary, I think a beginner would
do well to commence with a slow brand of plates. Indeed
I like the slow plates best at any time. I consider that
they yield more artistic results.
In your darkroom have a place for
everything and keep everything rigidly in its place. Dust
your plates before putting them in the holders. A camel's
hair brush is used for this, but, if some time you can't
find it, draw the palm of your hand softly over the plate,
taking care that it-your hand-is quite dry. If you are ever
where you cannot gain access to a darkroom and yet want
to change plates, here is a plan I have followed with success.
Get into a windowless closet, sit on the floor and get somebody
to put right over your head a heavy quilt-a red one if possible.
Then have the door shut tightly and change your plate. In
summer this is a fearfully warm job, but it is better than
getting your plates light-struck.
Choose your view carefully with an
eye to light and shade effects. You will always get better
results by using a tripod and taking time exposures, although
of course this requires more skill. In regard to exposures
no cut-and-dried formulas are of any use. The time is regulated
by the strength of light and the kind of plates used. In
this you must simply learn by making mistakes. Do not take
pictures between eleven and three o'clock. The results are
never so good.
In developing don't under-develop.
A beginner is fatally apt to, getting alarmed when the picture
begins to fade and whisking it out of the solution. Leave
it until very dim and indistinct. Wash well before putting
in hypo. The use of an alum solution will prevent "frilling"-which
means that the film curls up around the edges of the plate.
In cold weather you will have no trouble with this. After
your plate is taken out of the hypo, soak it in water for
half an hour. If not in running water, change the water
six times. This is very important as the least bit of hypo
left on the film will eventually spoil it. Above all things,
be thorough. Don't be content with "good enough."
Aim at the best.
A pretty effect may sometimes be
obtained in a landscape picture by cutting out of white
paper a tiny new moon and pasting it properly on the glass
side of the negative. The result is a "summer moonlight
scene". You can take pictures by moonlight, by the
way. The exposure calls for hours instead of seconds. Generally
the result looks more or less like a foggy plate exposed
in the usual way, but very beautiful effects have been obtained
in this way. However, I do not advise beginners to attempt
it.
If you want to take a "winter
moonlight scene," here is how you go about it. Take
an ordinary negative of some landscape. Don't have leaf
trees in it. Evergreen trees and an old farm house or so
make the best picture for this. Place it in the printing
frame, film upward. On top of this place a fresh plate,
the two film sides together and back them with a bit of
black cloth for greater security. Then hold frame about
18 or 20 inches from gas jet and turn up gas quickly. Time
of exposure will vary from 2 to 20 seconds, according to
character of light, plate, and negative used. After exposure
develop the plate as usual. It is called a positive. Paste
a full moon in proper position on its back and print off.
The sky will come out black while the ground and trees will
be white with-apparently-snow. The effect will be very pretty.
I may add that your "positive" is also a magic
lantern slide.
Sometimes your camera will play you
very odd tricks. I have had some curious pictures result
from accidentally exposing the same plate twice. This is
how "ghost" pictures are made. Once I took a picture
of two girlfriends of mine standing side by side. Later
on I happened to re-expose the same plate on a landscape
view. The latter came out very well. The girls were also
there, wan, transparent figures with all the background
clearly visible through them. It was apparently a perfect
picture, which, of course, does not often result by chance.
Well, I hope you will get a great
deal of pleasure out of your cameras this summer. It will
be your own fault if you don't, be sure of that.
