Arthur Hammond Quotes

Practically speaking, the securing of true tones in a photograph depends entirely upon the exposure.

One of the most important qualities a picture can possess is simplicity. This is true not only of photographic pictures but also of drawings, paintings or etchings. By being simple a picture gains enormously in strength and effectiveness; it wears well; one can live with it and enjoy it without getting tired of it.

The artist, and more especially he who uses a camera, must enedeavor to be, not a mere recorder of external facts, but one who forms a vivid mental impression and tries to make us realize his impression.

To learn to see pictorially is the first essential duty of the would-be picture-maker.

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.

The function of composition is to make a picture interesting, and the disposition of the lines in the picture, the opposition of lines, and their placing in the picture-space will all help in giving the desired interest.

The areas of tones are called masses and, whatever the subject of picture may be, its success as a picture depends very largely on the effectiveness of the spacing and massing.

...shading is of great importance, and good shadows can best be secured when the sun is low, and when one side of all objects is more strongly lighted than the other.

The very word composition, defined as the "the act of composing; putting together; arranging in proper order," implies that the picture-maker must do something besides setting up his camera and letting it photograph just what happens before it.

...there is another kind of perspective that is of great importance in picture-making. This is known as aerial perspective, and this kind of perspective imparts "atmosphere" and depth to a picture, and gives a suggestion of space and distance in an outdoor view.

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.

The treatment of the subject is considered to be more important than the subject itself.

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

A. J. Anderson says: "Expose for the tones that are most desired."

...it is essential to have only one principal object of interest in a picture. Without it the picture is not completely satisfying, for the eye is apt to wander over the surface of the picture, seeking rest and finding none.