Just the day for photography! The wind is still; not a breath shivers the delicate leaves of the Lombardy poplars; the sky is not quite cloudless, for numbers of small clouds float lazily over the blue, affording varieties of lighting, either all sunlight, all shade, or, by careful waiting and observation, a little of each—often useful when softness and sparkle are wanted in the same picture. I don’t think I can do better than imagine you are with me. It may be, like a legal fiction, most convenient; besides, you know the scenery. Fill your slides, look over your camera to see that everything is in order, for however sure you may be that everything is right, it is always best to have an inspection before marching. To forget a screw, if you have a loose one, and only discover your loss when you are miles from home, and the view before you is “perfect,” is to promote, possibly suicide, certainly profanity. There are some things better left at home if you unfortunately possess them. One of them is any kind of actinometer. I never knew anything but harm from this instrument when used to help to judge exposure. Another perfectly useless worry can be got out of “exposure tables.” It takes all the “go” out of a picture if you have to do a sum in arithmetic when you ought to be concentrating all your heart, and mind, and soul on your subject. Knowledge of exposure must come by experience to be of use. No calculations based on length of focus and stop are of any service to a practical photographer. All other things being equal—which they never are—they would be an infallible guide, but otherwise they are misleading. After the plate has been exposed, and the excitement is over, it would be useful to make a few notes for further guidance—such as kind of lens, stop, and length of time, also of the light and nature of the scene.
Besides the apparatus there is another very important help to picture making, which is seldom thought of—some models. It does not matter much what kind they are, whether old men, young girls, or children, or mixed; the one thing of the utmost importance is that they shall be appropriate to the scene, for there must be no suggestion of sham about the finished results.
The illustration, which was done on a day that turned out unfit for good work with the camera, shows some of my models. A painter is making use of one of them, while two others are watching the artist, and another is reading in the foreground. One of the many disappointments which happen frequently to the photographer is to go out fully prepared to do a good day’s work, and to see the quality of the light collapse as he walks to his ground.
We will have a lofty beginning to-day. Let us go to the top of the mountain—Moel-y-plas—a hillock you called it, with your transatlantic contempt for little things, but it is 1,442 ft. 8 in. high, according to the minutely exact calculation of the Ordnance Survey, and at least affords us that sense of standing on a round world spoken of by the author of “Adam Bede” as one of the out-door delights she most cared for. Shall we find a picture here? The hill is glorious with purple heather just coming into flower; green ferns and bracken, mingled with the orange and brown of last year’s decay—new life springing from death. As we ascend, we startle a brood of grouse, which goes whirring down the valley. We need not mind them now; next month their turn may come. The land dips into valleys all around us; to the north the lovely vale of Clwyd, beyond which, afar off, is a glimpse of the pale gray sea; to the south, the Llanarmon valley running for miles in the direction of Chester; and to the west, the grand range of mountains known as Snowdonia. We are standing on the oldest bit of Britain, from the geological formation down to the Druids. The scene calls up memories on which every Welshman loves to dwell. There rise up before us in mental vision, Llewellyn and his dog, Owain Glyndwr, and King Arthur and his round table; but this is not what we are here for. The question of the moment is, Where are we to point our camera? I cannot see anything that will afford a good subject. A magnificent view is before us, “palpitating with actuality,” but it is beyond our reach. It would be impossible to give any adequate representation of those distant hills—they would be dwarfed into insignificance, and, if relied on to come on the same plate as the foreground, over-exposed to the verge of blankness. The foreground is too insignificant in itself to make a picture, and the view, as a view, consists of the valleys and mountains. So we must remember the limitations of our art, and give up the impossible; but don’t pack up the camera, for here comes our picture. He[re] is a group of children, five of them, gathering bilberries. We will give up the mountains for the present, and make a picture of the children. We will send one of our young lady models to make friends with them and rub off the edge of their shyness. That she is dressed in shabby clothes will be in her favor; the children will be more natural and familiar with her. We will select a spot where the undergrowth is not too dense, but broken up with plain patches of turf or bare earth. You have already made up your mind roughly how the group shall be arranged, and have placed the camera approximately on the right spot, and focused, pulling out the top of the swing-back before focusing, so as to get greater depth of definition from foreground to distance. The more exact focusing may be left until the group is nearly ready.
Two children to the left of the picture, three to the right, and, to make a principal point, the trained model, not quite in the middle of the picture, but a little to the left of the centre, and nearer the camera than the others. Let the principal figure be standing with her left arm outstretched over a large basket, looking to the ground on the left, as if searching for berries. She, knowing what is expected of her, will not stand in an awkward attitude, resting evenly on both feet, but you may rely on her, when you have given her the leading idea, to carry it out instantly. The sun is shining to the right front of the camera, throwing out the figure dark against the distant mountains, but touched with a brilliant edging of sunlight. Take care in exposing to lift the cap as if it were hinged to the top of the hood of the lens, for it will then act as a sunshade. If the least touch of sunlight rests on the glass during exposure, the plate will be hopelessly fogged. It is with the children that the trouble comes. This, however, we get over with a little patience, taking care that each figure appears to be as unconscious of the camera as possible. Now expose two or perhaps three seconds.… That stupid child looked up, just as you took off the cap, to see why you were keeping her waiting so long. Quick! another plate before she is aware you mean another. That is the picture. It is often the second shot that brings down the bird.
To succeed with a picture of this kind requires quickness of decision, and the faculty of seeing at once what ought to be done, and promptly acting on that insight. The photographer also must be able, without hesitating or waiting for words, to say, or oftener to shout, the right thing at the right time to the models. In fact, the life of the picture depends on your doing absolutely the right thing in several directions on the spur of the moment. This facility can only be attained by long practice, good knowledge of composition and light and shade, and keen observation of effect.
In the scene described above, the figures predominate over the landscape. We will now reverse the effect, and the landscape shall be of the most importance. We won’t give up the mountain now we have taken the trouble to climb so high. Let us see if we can get a good picture by taking it on two plates instead of one. Some people say that combination printing is not quite orthodox, but whether it is so or not, let us break away sometimes. It is awfully dull to be always correct. It is not easy to an active mind to be satisfied with “the priceless merit of being commonplace.” The difficulties of the subject before us are these: we have a near foreground of comparatively dark and non-actinic character, a blue sky, with some small strongly defined clouds, a distance composed of gray-blue mountains, and middle distance; this latter part of the scene, however, is a long way off. The problem is how to combine these apparently incompatible elements, giving the least prominence to the foreground. No lens would get the foreground and distance together with anything like a passable focus, and no dodging of the exposure would afford both the widely different times they would require. These difficulties are easily surmounted by combination printing. Get the immediate foreground on the plate with an exposure of, say, ten seconds (for you will use a small stop), and all the other part of the picture on another plate, with an exposure, say, of one second. These exposures are only approximate. It would be better in practice, in taking the distance, to move the camera forward a little, so as to take in more than is required. This will facilitate the joining. I have fully described the various methods of combination printing which may be of use to the landscape photographer in “Silver Printing.” and it would scarcely be worth while to go over the subject again.