AND TREES 35 



ting or reflecting so much light on the shadow side as to 

 flatten the whole composition. It will soon be found that 

 troublesome interior shadows may be illuminated softly 

 by Ught reflected into them by a white cardboard, and 

 the great advantage of a double source of light (such as 

 is afforded by windows opposite or at right angles to 

 each other) will appear. As before noted, a brief flash of 

 brighter light into the shadows during a small part of the 

 total exposure will often give beautifully clear but not 

 hard detail in the darker parts. 



The time of exposure can only be 

 Exposure, learned by experience and the using of 

 plates. The larger size means longer 

 exposure, of course ; but how much longer depends so 

 entirely on purely local and incidental conditions that it 

 cannot be more than hinted at. I do not use an exposure 

 meter, but work with an exposure yarfor (see page 8), and 

 if one has done his fair share toward the prosperity of the 

 amiable dry-plate manufacturers, with a due exercise of 

 the bump of remembrance, he should be ready with a 

 factor for nearly every kind of weather and time of day. 

 Beware of the deceptive light of early morning and the 

 yet more deceptive yellow radiance of the waning day. 

 Both times need far longer exposure than at first seems 

 requisite, and the evening light, while beautifully soft and 

 often strongly orthochromatic, needs much time to act. 

 Also, note the tremendous activity of the chemical rays 

 from 10 A. M. to 2 p. M. of summer days, especially if hazy 

 clouds diffuse the light. 



Try two or three plates, at different exposures, on the 

 same subject, and thus obtain some needed experience at 

 the start. Our carnation subject will await us while we 

 take the holder into the dark-room and perform that ever- 

 mysterious incantation called development, which shall 

 bring out faithfully upon the creamy white surface of the 

 plate all the lines and shades of. the flowers, if our 

 exposure has been "normal." And here let me say a 

 word or two about development. "Normal" exposures 

 are, of course, always vastly preferred ; but alas, how few 

 they are ! The portrait photographer, working days and 

 weeks and months in the same studio and with the same 

 plates and the same light, upon the same human "mugs," 

 gets to be an automatic machine as to exposure, and he 

 has normal exposures all the time. But the amateur, 

 working once in a while, and with ever-varying materials • 

 and conditions, cannot have the machine-like regularity 

 of his professional brother, and must therefore use the 

 great resources of skilful development to rnake up fgr 



