29 



Kenfc. Mr. Lander remarked upon tlie abarpneas 

 of the pupil in discovering this flower, which had 

 never been seen in that locality before. The Hon. 

 Secretary called attention to a notice he had re- 

 ceived from the Evolution Committee of the Royal 

 Society asking for information concerning the 

 melanism or darkening, that is to be noted near 

 large towns.in several of their light coloured moths. 



Mr. Ogden then delivered an address intitled 

 " Hints on the Pictorial Composition of Photo- 

 graphs," in the course of which he said, 



Having begged, borrowed, or stolen a camera, 

 ■we find ourselves surrounded by nature in many 

 forms. Our first step ie to select what we will ex- 

 pose our plate upon, and this implies selection as 

 the first step in photography. As selection is not a 

 principle but the result of the application — con- 

 sciously or unconsciously — of many principles, it 

 would be better to defer any consideration of it 

 until later, and find something simpler to begin 

 with. Let us take moveable objects first. Of any 

 number of objects to be photographed there is one 

 more important than the rest, because of its size, 

 flhape, or the associations connected with it, and 

 the efforttogive this its proper place calls into play, 

 I believe, the first principle of all composition, 

 namely, proportion. An arrangement of our group 

 then, which gives the most important object its 

 proper place, will be such as secures tfominancc for 

 the object in question ; once this is obtained, 

 ever) body seems quite satisfied, and the result 

 to a certain extent is voted good composition. 

 The reason for this satisfaction is engrained in our 

 nature, for whether in families, schools, cities or 

 countries, as soon as the principle of dominance — 

 call it supremacy if you like — is settled, we feel 

 satisfied. Of course, like the world at large, com- 

 position lequires other things as well as dominance, 

 but I think this is the first principle of composition, 

 as it is the first principle of good government. 

 Now let us see what we can do with it. Of any 

 number of articles — even supposing them equal to 

 one another — if we place them equidistant they are 

 equally important, and we are not satisfied. 

 nnnn now place them in groups of different 

 Fizes, f\ n Q fj and we feel more satisfied be- 

 cause some distinction has been made and the 

 question of dominance settled. 



Of the second kind of material, suppose an 

 arcade of equal arches photographed in front, 

 then move so as to photograph obliquely, and we 

 make the nearest arch dominant ; the same 

 principle must be observed in figures or animals, 

 that is, some figure or group must be clearly 

 dominant or we cannot feel satisfied. We attain 

 this end by various means, by size, placing them 

 nearer the spectator, by isolation, by placing on a 

 different level, and many other ways, which you 

 will quickly recognise on looking at figure or 

 animal subjects. Besides dominance of form, 

 there is dominance of tone, and as this is still a 

 matter of proporr ion it is quite as important as 

 the other. 1 must tell you what is meant by tone. 

 If you take two spots, one the deepest black you 

 can obtain by a photographic process, and one 

 your white paper, you have in white the highest, 

 and in black the lowest tone, possible to you ; 

 anything between these two is of higher or lower 



tone aa it approaches light or dark respectively 

 to know what tone is, and to discriminate between 

 tones, are quite different matters, but as you 

 must be able to do both to make any headway in 

 obtaining proportion of tone, I will offer a few 

 suggestions foi your guidance. If two or more 

 tones are used and you wish to tell which is the 

 highest or lowest, or between, if not certain on 

 looking at them attentively, try the experiment 

 in any case of difficulty, of partly closing your 

 eyes, this is almost infallible. And now to obtain 

 practice in this faculty, or shall I say, to educate 

 yourselves in discriminating ; you will do well to 

 acquire a habit of judging for your own satisfac- 

 tion of any difference in tone between objects or 

 persons wherever you may happen to be. Tou 

 may resent having such a study as this imposed 

 upon you, but do not forget that unless you learn 

 to recognise when the tones of apiotureareright, 

 you will not know when your own picture is 

 right. I think I ought to say here that when 

 trying to invent something to say to you about 

 tone, I found some good examples ready-made in a 

 valuable little book, by A. Horsley Hintou ; it is of 

 the Amateur Photographer Library and entitled 

 Practical Pictorial Photography, No. 17, price Is. 

 His remarks are so good that I here follow them 

 pretty closely. As one example of tone study, 

 notice the relative lightness and darkness of aface 

 and hands when compared with white collar and 

 cuffs. If you can, get two men with their collars 

 and cuffs and place one in light and the other in 

 shade and notice how both in light and shade, 

 the collar is lighter than the face, also the collar 

 of the man in shade is lower in tone than that of 

 the man in light. 



Now examine the usual portrait turned out 

 at so much or so little per dozen by a man with 

 no artistic training, and you will probably find 

 the relative degree of tone between flesh and white 

 linen to be together false, the consequence to an 

 educated eye being that the whole thing looks 

 unnaturally white and chalky. A very striking 

 example of how photograhers allow the camera 

 to render false tone, is seen in skies of nearly all 

 photographs. If you look at a white cottage 

 or other white objects in full sunlight against 

 a cloudless blue fcky, you will find the light sky 

 darker in tone, and yet pbotogrpahers have 

 been content to give us white skies and white 

 cottages. The proper thing to do here is to con- 

 trol the printing so as to get the right effect. As 

 showing how exceedincjly ignorant most of us are 

 as to relative tone, say we wish to draw a figure 

 wearing a black coat and in the open air, we 

 should at once begin by making his coat black, 

 because we preconceived it to be so, but look at 

 such a figure in reality and you find the folds and 

 creases in the coat appear as dark lines, hence the 

 body of the coat cannot be black. Then take a 

 piece of black velvet and place it in strong sunlight, 

 placing at the same time a u-hite cloth somewhere 

 near, but iu shade, and I think you will find the 

 white is darker than the black. Now suppose a 

 piece of white paper lying in the road and to 

 lepresent it we should probably make it white, 

 but presently the sun shines out and instantly the 

 paper is much biighter and whiter ; obviously 



