It may be worth our while to take just one more walk with the camera. There is that lonely lane, famous for its wild roses, and the river, and the mill, and more particularly the miller. New and useful experience is obtained from every picture you make, if you study the subject earnestly, and put all you know into the representation of it.
As it is near at hand, we will begin with the lane, and I know at least one subject there that is properly lighted at this time of the day. Climbing over a stile we come to a picturesque part of the lane where a small stream meanders along, while dotted across the stream is placed a row of stepping stones beautifully varied in their forms. These stones are to be the subject of, and give name to, our picture. The sun shines from the side, but slightly in front of us, casting the shadow of part of the hedge over the foreground, throwing up the stepping-stones—our subject—into brilliant light. The scene as we now see it is pretty, but it is not a picture, it is only good material for a picture. It is even badly composed. There are several parallel lines running in the direction of the stones. This must be corrected. We must have a figure, and the place for a figure is obvious. We have brought a model with us. On the way she has amused herself gathering ferns, and is carrying the great fronds over her shoulder. Get her to cross the stones, and call her to stop at the right spot and remain in the act of stepping. Try again and again until you are satisfied with the action of the figure. Don’t be afraid of giving trouble; she is here only to obey your command; you may obey hers when she changes her dress. In her present capacity she would take any trouble to help you, or she is not worthy of her office. Don’t you see how that dark hat she is wearing is lost in the dark hedge behind it? It is essential to make the figure stand well out from its background, therefore change the hat for a lighter one, which you will find in the basket of odds and ends of rustic costume we always carry with us. Now you will find that the figure has converted a scene not worth photographing for itself into a picture. The composition is corrected, the parallel lines are broken and are no longer prominent, the eye is centered on a principal object. I almost think you may exhibit this picture if you do not muff it in development. Expose an extra plate for fear of accidents.
Going up the lane we turn and find this scene. The scene is well composed itself in and the lines of pathway are so varied and picturesque that we won’t hide them by placing a figure in front of any part of them, although a small figure, some way down the lane, would be effective. However, we elect to have the figure rather nearer, for the sake of the blossoms. She shall be gathering wild roses, which will give us a title. Now when you are doing a thing it is as well to do it thoroughly, therefore I recommend you to gather some more branches of roses and add to the rather scanty supply growing in the place for our figure. The girl must appear to take interest in what she is doing. In this case the upper part of the dress would have been more effective if not so dark in color, but we have neglected to bring a lighter jacket.
We come to the mill just in time to catch the miller feeding his two calves, and they fall easy victims to our camera. A little way up the river is one of the artists painting, and another of the boys looking on. They happen to be in exactly the right place, so we will not disturb them. Say nothing to them. They will pretend not to notice what you are about—professional etiquette, I suppose—but they see what you are going to do, and will be quite still all the same. This suggests that some subjects must be shouted to, and others left to themselves.
Don’t omit to have a shot at that splendid group of cows cooling themselves in that quiet pool. Half of them in sunshine, the other half in shadow from the trees and bank, they make a fine effect of light and shade. Be quick, but don’t be in a hurry; there is nothing gained by going off your head. Above all, don’t be tempted to under-expose. In this subject there is great contrast of light and dark, and it is essential that the cows in shadow should be very well defined, to give transparency and depth to the shadow, and that the lights should not be chalky. This can only be secured by sufficient exposure. If you blow a dog whistle just before you are going to expose, you will find it will sufficiently attract the attention of the cows without making them move away. It may even have some effect on their whisking tails, which are always a nuisance.
We are again in luck. Here comes material that must suggest a grand picture for our final effort to-day. Let us call up all our forces. The miller’s donkeys are coming up to be loaded with great bags of flour for his boy to deliver to some of the villagers. The miller is always our friend, and will do anything to oblige us, so that we don’t take up too much of his time. Range the two donkeys up to the mill-door, put some bags and the boy on one, and let the miller be loading the other. See that he does it with vigor. What more natural than that a couple of passing girls should stop to observe the interesting operation and have a chat? We have two models with us, who are soon in their places. It so happens that the gamekeeper who accompanies us to carry our camera and plates is coming up the river; stop him in the act of walking before he gets up to the group. His dark figure is in the right place to carry the eye into the landscape, where in the distant meadow among the trees on the other side of the river I see some cattle, but, I fear they will come too much out of focus to be of much use. Your models now all know their duty, and the only doubtful part of the problem is, will the donkeys be still? It is of very little use trying to attract the attention of these animals, so your only chance is, in fact, to take your chance, and several plates.
In this case the figures are larger than is usual in landscape, and, perhaps, not large enough to make what would be called a figure subject. It may be either, or anything you like to call it, so that it makes a picture. There is much diversity of opinion as to what is a landscape. I once took a medal for genre with a picture that contained only three small figures in a large landscape. This was at an exhibition where the exhibits were strictly divided into classes, and the selection must have been left to the porters.
I don’t know that it would serve any good purpose to go through other scenes with you at present. Every picture you do should be the outcome, first, of a deliberate purpose; secondly, of the operator availing himself of every accident. These latter differ with every subject. I should like to impress upon you before we part that the world is full of beauty. This is an evident platitude, but it is not so evident that there is beauty in almost everything; it depends on how you look at it. It does not follow that every beautiful thing would make a picture. A great deal that is beautiful in nature is far from adapted to pictorial treatment. I remember you once said to me that a good deal of this so-called beauty was not visible to you. That was probable; you had not learnt to see. You also posed me by asking me what beauty I could see in chimney-pots.
At the time I really had no reply. I could not defend chimney-pots, but it happens I have since had a grand opportunity of studying these useful, but not very attractive objects. Perhaps I may be allowed to relate the personal experience, possibly more interesting to myself than to others, when I found that a little mist, aided by as much imagination as is within nearly anybody’s reach, give beauty—even grandeur—to the much maligned chimney-pots. It depends on how you look at it. Anybody who likes to think so has a good look out, even if his view is only, like Dick Swiveller’s, an uninterrupted view of “Over the way.”
It was my unhappy fortune in the early part of 1886, to have to lie on my back for some weeks, after a remarkable exploit in vivisection of which I was the victim, in an upper room at the back of a large house in one of the London squares. There was a large plate-glass window overlooking a spacious court, in which were some low buildings with flat roofs of lead, the back of some old dilapidated houses, and a splendid collection of chimney-pots, amongst which the chirpy London sparrows held carnival. As many a London photographer will remember, there was scarcely a day in town during January and February of that year that was not foggy, the nature of the fog varying from a delicate silvery gray mist on some days, through drizzle, sleet, Scotch-mist, pea-soup, to “the blanket of the dark” of Macbeth, and the absolute darkness of “collied night” on other days. Thus thinly or thickly obscured, the view underwent every variety of picturesque change. The chimneys sometimes became towers and castles; the otherwise ugly and ignoble backs and roofs of houses, rocks, and mountains—the scenery of the Rhine without the river; and when the lead roofs beneath were wet with rain, it was not difficult to imagine the scene where—
The castled craigs of Drachenfels
Frown o’er the wide and winding Rhine.
Sometimes the rare gleams of the low sun struggled through the houses and illuminated the mist, then the backyard became a scene of enchantment, and when a touch of delirium came on, as it would now and then, the cloud-capp’d towers and gorgeous palaces of Shakespeare were nothing to compare with the mystic view. There is much pictorial virtue in mist; even fog may be beautiful, in the right place.
I have seen that backyard since on a clear summer day, and all the beauty had vanished with the mystery of the fog and mist. Perhaps, also, I was in better health.
Corot, the most poetical of the French landscape painters, is said to have seen a great deal to like in a London fog, and I know nothing to surpass in fairy-like beauty a still, misty, silver-gray day in the country, with a dash of sunshine on the foreground.