CHAPTER XIV. 



THE LANTERN AS AN AID TO PHOTOGRAPHY. 



HEN a photographic aspirant first enters upon the 

 practice of what used to be known as the " black 

 art," but which now, thanks to the cleanliness of 

 dry plate work, no longer merits that stigma, his friends 

 and relatives all look anxiously for some tangible results 

 from his mysterious operations. To them a negative, 

 albeit it may show lovely gradations of tone, and 

 beauties of detail, which a master's eye would revel 

 in, is negative in a far wider sense than its producer 

 would be inclined to allow. A production in which 

 bright skies and white skins are black as night, is a 

 thing which cannot be understood or tolerated, and until a 

 print of that negative is produced, and sometimes alas ! 

 even then, the domestic critics are inclined to consider the 

 amateur worker a fraud. The painstaking photographer, 

 after he has succeeded in obtaining a few negatives, will be 

 anxious on this account, if not for his own satisfaction, to 

 print some positives from them. These will afterwards be 



