36 THE WOMBAT. 



Then again, it must not be forgotten that there is an 

 essential and most important difference between the eye and 

 the camera. The retina of the eye being concave and 

 practically equidistant at all parts from the pupil, the resulting 

 image is not distorted as it is on the negative plate in the 

 camera, even with " rectilinear" lenses. 



The photographic film being flat the marginal rays, or 

 pencils are necessarily longer than the axial or central rays, 

 therefore the image on the photographic film does not coincide 

 with that on the concave retina of the eye. 



Again, owing to the materials and processes necessarily 

 employed in photography, the tones produced are always 

 more or less metallic in effect, and in addition, notwithstand- 

 ing isochromatic plates and screens, the colour values are 

 incorrect, and the critical eye is therefore unsatisfied ; and 

 further, if the subject be a landscape, or any object in motion 

 we have either an unsightly and perhaps unintelligible blurr, 

 or a harsh and weird rigidity. The last mentioned alternative 

 defect would be present in colour-photography quite as much 

 as with present processes, although the natural tints would 

 somewhat relieve the suggestion of petrifaction. 



These are reasons, and they might be amplified, why, in 

 my opinion, photography cannot vie in certain important 

 respects with its sister arts of painting and sketching by hand. 

 But it possesses certain great advantages, and these are (a) 

 almost unlimited facility and rapidity of operation as regards 

 the taking of a picture, and consequent economy of time and 

 approximate precision of form and detail, (b) comparative 

 simplicity and ease of manipulation, and (c) great economy 

 and accuracy in portraiture. 



" Ars longa vita brevis est" or, as Longfellow puts it in 

 slightly different form, "Art is long and time is fleeting," and 

 in either of these epigrammatic propositions we have pithily 

 presented the best plea for photography as against art in the 

 usual sense. "Art "is long, both as regards its study and 

 practice, andas we frequently say "Life is too short" for most of 

 us to indulge in it to any extent, or to make such an extensive 

 use of it as we can of photography, so we fall back upon the 

 latter, and with all its artistic shortcomings a most useful and 

 fascinating thing it is. 



It appears to me that a great many photographers, both 

 professional and amateur, have very hazy notions as to the 

 possibilities of photography, the consequence being misdirected 

 and futile effort : it is for this reason I have proceeded as 

 hitherto. 



Photography then, in my opinion, is by no means a rival 

 as a picture-making art to that of the brush and pencil, but is 

 simply a convenient substitute and a useful aid in obtaining 



