52 PHOTOGRAPHING FLOWERS 



the thing to enforce the value of the main feature. In 

 this, as in all other photographic work, intelligent, ana 

 not arbitrary or didactic art training, is of enormous 

 value, and constant study of the conditions, without ex- 

 posing plates, will tend toward continuous success when 

 exposures are made. 



Trees in blossom are delightful to look at, and not easy 

 to photograph. The apple blossom melts so easily and 

 indistinguishably into the white sky ! Here again comes 

 into play judgment and a ray-filter, clouds and the right 

 direction. 



Fruit trees in fruit are almost hopeless. The brilliant 

 red cherry is, alas, a flat black photographically. Sepa- 

 rate twigs of berry-bearing fruits, however, are often 

 charmingly photographed in the studio, with decorative 

 intent. Occasionally one can find a branch of a fruiting 

 tree in such position as to get it against the sky, and then 

 a good thing may result. 



The four branches of our subject, treated in the fore- 

 going pages, are intimately interwoven, and I can only 

 hope that the hints presented may smooth the path of 

 some nature-lovers who may take up the delightful work. 

 „ . . It is but natural, despite any satisfac- 



Keproducing ^^^^ ^jjj^ monochromatic results, to de- 

 color ^jj.g ^Q ggg reproduced and hold the act- 

 ual colors of nature. Particularly is this desire apparent 

 when the colors, tints, shadings and mottlings of flowers 

 are considered, or when one thinks of how the shading 

 glories of the greens of nature make supremely attrac- 

 tive the brighter hues that are contrasted with them in a 

 rose, a peony, an iris or a canna. 



That practically efficient color photography is sure to 

 be accomplished admits of no doubt. That it has not 

 been worked out in any such relative completeness as 

 that included in "black-and-white" photography is also 

 certain, up to the date of this revision. 



But colors have been captured on the photographic 

 plate, and held there in faithful purity, by the marvelous 

 autochrome process perfected through the patient and 

 painstaking work of the Messrs. Lumifere. An auto- 

 chrome, well made, holds every tint, shade, color and 

 luster of the object photographed, in a transparency, 

 appreciable in all its perfection only as seen by trans- 

 mitted light, reflected from a white cloud. It has not 

 been practicably duplicated or printed on paper, and is 

 therefore an original record only. It is here mentionec} 

 as a. record rather than as a present facility. 



