Arthur Hammond Quotes

Where light falls on an object and is reflected back to the eye, we see a highlight; where it strikes at an angle and is reflected back other than directly to the eye we see halftones; where no direct light falls on the object we have shadows: and these highlights, halftones and shadows are modified by light reflected into them by other objects and by other parts of the same object.

...the accuracy of the lens is often regarded as infallible, whereas, from the artistic standpoint, a lens is less accurate than the trained eye.

The emotions suggested by facts, not the facts themselves, are what concern the picture maker. This is where he is differentiated from those who seek to make only records and who are concerned only with facts.

The eye is, practically, a long-focus lens. It covers only a comparatively narrow angle, and in order to see as much as can be included in a picture made with a short-focus lens we have to move the eyes a little and look at the various objects in succession.

There is a tendency among "advanced" pictorialists to neglect the choice of an interesting subject and to trust to an effective pattern to make their pictures interesting. Such pictures are often interesting, but they are interesting more as studies in artistic technique than as pictures.

The laws of principality and unity, harmony and balance, must always be observed. The picture should tell one story, and only one.

A small but noticeable patch of contrasting light or dark tone would more correctly be described as an accent than as a mass, and it will be found that, as a rule, an accent is needed to prevent a picture from becoming monotonous and uninteresting.

A photograph can be made with an uncorrected lens, or with no lens at all by making an exposure through a fine needle-hole in a thin metal disc, and the result may be a picture showing the characteristic virtue of photography, the rendering of infinitely delicate gradations of tone. This is where photography stands alone, and this is the distinguishing quality which has given it a place among the fine arts.

Nature is interesting at all times, but, as a general rule, very harsh and glaring sunlight, when the sun is high in the heavens, should be avoided, because at such times there is an often an utter lack of relief, roundness and modeling in the trees and other objects.

A photographer must have as sound a knowledge of picture-making as a painter, and he must have such control over his chosen medium that he can put personal expression and his own individuality into his pictures.

...I would recommend the photographer to regard the focusing-screen of his camera as a space to be divided into a pleasing pattern, rather than as a glass on which a reduced facsimile of a scene or view or a miniature likeness of a person can be seen.

Lines have expression, and by the use of lines alone we can suggest impressions.

An ordinary photographic plate or film is abnormally sensitive to the light rays at the violet end of the spectrum and is strongly affected by the ultra-violet rays, which are invisible though they are present in sunlight, but it is practically insensitive to red and to the colors at the red end of the spectrum. Therefore, an ordinary plate sees red as black and is affected only very little by orange and yellow, so that those colors appear very dark while, on the other hand, being so sensitive to blue and violet, these colors are made to appear too light. That is why we can use a red light in the darkroom, as the plate is affected, practically, not at all by red light.

Platinum is undoubtedly the process for the pictorialist, for it will reproduce gradations and halftones more delicately and with a longer range than any other similar printing process, but it demands a good negative to do it justice.

Too many lines and too many objects of equal importance in a picture will cause confusion, discomfort and eye-strain.