WHERE PHOTOGRAPHY FAILS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9635, 6 October 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHERE PHOTOGRAPHY FAILS.

We are too apt to forget that photography is not, and never can become, a fine art. It is essentially a chemical and mechanical process. There are degrees of badness in photographs, as in piano-organs; but the most successful production of either camera or organ has nothing in common with art. Paradoxical though it may appear, the most artistic photographs are the worst. They are so manipulated, toned down, and " faked" by the hand of the operator, that, pleasing as they are to look up, it is impossible to regard them as the productions of pure photography. It cannot be denied that photography is one of the greatest and most useful invenions of the century. For such purposes as the reproduction of architectural details and complicated machinery it has long been indispensable, and of recent years it has become, through the introduction of certain processes, of the greatest value in illustrating our popular journals. Ib has only quite lately been brought into use for astronomical purposes, but already the results have been so great that there is no knowing what important discoveries may be made through its instrumentality. In short, ib is difficult to conceive how the world of to-day could go on without the photographic camera. Vet photography has its limitations, and it is well that we should keep these in mind. Its chief value consists in its accuracy ; its chief defect in its want of imagination. The camera has no brain, no soul, no individuality. The true painter is a poet; the camera is not. The camera gives us a picture of a scene as it is, in its most material sense; but the painter shows us how, to him, it appears to behow he sees it. Place six competent landscape painters in a row, and request them to each make a picture of the prospect beforo them. The result will bo six absolutely different pictures, each of which may be a faithful and recognisable representation of the same scene. Now substitute six cameras for the painters, and note the difference in the result. Having no individualities, these machines cannob idealise; the prints produced are as alike as six peas. The photographs, as serving some particular purpose, may be much more valuable to us than the paintings, bub they are not art. The reason why photographic portraits are often so very unsatisfactory is because a man is taken at his worst. Only very abstracted persons can face the camera with a natural pose and expression. You try to bo natural and at your ease, and to "look pleasant,"'and the attempt defeats itself. One of our leading portrait painters rarely asks his subjects to give him " sibtings" in the ordinary way. He pays them a visit of greater or less duration as may be necessary, and makes occasional studies and jottings for their portraits at such times as the face is lighted with natural good humour or animated with conversation, and when they are quite ignorant that his pencil is at work. The result has been some of the finest and most life-like portraits of the day. Photographs of landscapes are invariably flat, characterless, and uninteresting. This is nob owing to the absence of colour, for we know that drawings in black and white are frequently very beautiful and attractive. Indeed, it is doubtful whether we should gain anything whatever by colour photography, if it should ever be really invented. The fact is that until the camera ceases to be a mechanic and becomes an artist, photography cannot stir the emotions. The landscape painter is a seer ; he sees an infinity of things that are invisible to the rest of us, though we feel them to be there. He has imagination, and he idealises.

The great want of the age, to the supplying of which inventors might be encouraged to direct their efforts, is a camera with a soul.