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PHOTOGRAPHY FOR NATURALISTS. 



a fairly large scale with panels, and it is possible that a 

 negative of fish or reptile may be secured sufficiently 

 isolated, and sufficiently suggestive of a type, to stand 

 repetition in a small frieze. It is not to be expected 

 that pleasing results will attend the photographer's first 

 efforts. Decorative work by photography will probably 

 require as much study and perseverance, and will 

 produce as many failures, as pictorial work. If, as is 

 assumed in certain quarters, pictorial work has reached 

 its limits, the possibilities of decorative photography 

 would seem to be worth investigating. 

 Among the thousands who dabble in 

 the pictorial, there must be many who 

 have abandoned the hope of attaining 

 to a high standard of excellence. 

 There must be many also to whom 

 even the highest standard, hitherto 

 attained in pictorial work, seems unsatisfactory. It could 

 be no disadvantage to photography if a large percentage 

 of both classes abandoned the cult of the pictorial for the 

 cult of fact. Whatever might be the artistic result there 

 would be no question as to the increased utility of their 

 efforts. It is in the recording of what does not endure, 

 of fleeting expressions and momentary gestures, of 

 crumbling relics and mortal forms, that the future of 

 photography assuredly lies. It is in this, in its artistic 

 application to science rather than its scientific applica- 

 tion to art, that the value of photography will be 

 recognised by succeeding generations. 



