AUCKLAND PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8531, 3 April 1891, Page 6

AUCKLAND PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION.

To-night at eight o'clock will be opened in the Auckland Institute Building by His Excellency the Governor, the first annual exhibition of photographs under the auspices of the Auckland Photographic Club. Photographic exhibitions for years past have been artistic events of no little importance in Europe, and more recently in America, and it is a matter for congratulation that New Zealand is, if we mistake not, the first to lead the van on this side of the line. The fact of His Excellency the Governor and several of the officers of the fleet being expert and artistic photographers, has no doubt had something to do with this display of photographic vigour, and the visitor is at once struck by the very high order of merit obtained "both by professionals and amateurs. The power the photographer now has in the various methods he can employ in the rendering of his effects are now so varied that if a certain method of reproduction will not suit his subject, he has to his hand processes by which he is able to give the tone and texture to che print that will , exactly meet the case. The visitor should not fail to note the marvellous effects obtainable by bromide printing. In this work an engraving black tone is obtainable, and yet the heavy shadows remain clear and full of depth. This in itself is an achievement that not so very many years ago would have been almost an impossibility. If for this and nothing more, the ar? student might study some photographs to some purpose. At a casual glance we did not notice any exhibits of the photo-me-chanical work, but as the arrangement of the exhibits was nob complete, they may nob then have been displayed. The photomechanical work being done in Auckland bo-day is of a very high order of merit, and we sincerely trust that some of our local work will be shown; that the best illustrated newspapers and the most expensive books are illustrated by this means suffices to show the high estimate both publishers and the public have of the pictures produced. We intend during the currency of the exhibition, as occasion may offer, to point out some of the directions in which pure photography must fall short of other pictoral methods, but we certainly are of opinion that in other directions photography has a domain which at present is exclusively its own.