Arthur Hammond Quotes

...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.

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

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.

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.

...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.

For outdoor work, landscape and marine pictures, a long-focus lens is usually more satisfactory, because with it we can more easily isolate and emphasize the principal object of interest, and make it large enough without having to get too close.

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.

A painter, by the skilful use of color, can make idyllic pictures in which a figure or a group of figures is not the dominant thing in the picture, but for a photographer this is more difficult.

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

It will be found, as a general rule, that a point about one-third of the width of the picture-space from the top or bottom of the picture, and about one-third from one side, will be a strong position for such an accent. These points may be found by imagining that your picture-space is divided both vertically and horizontally into three equal strips by lines that will cross each other at four points. Each of these four intersection points will be a strong position, and an accent at any one of these points will be well placed in the picture-space. It will not matter at all what the shape of the picture may be, whether it be an upright or a horizontal rectangle, or a square, these four points, each of them one-third of the width of the picture-space from top or bottom and one side, will be strong points.

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.

Photography, properly controlled, can render tones better than any other medium of artistic expression, and personal control of exposure and development will be all that is necessary to get good tones and truthful gradations, for the camera, properly guided and then left to do its own job in its own way, will take care of the tones of a picture very well.

I am a firm upholder of and a strong believer in the merits of the straight print, not that I disapprove of hand work, but because I believe that hand work carried too far will tend to destroy the very quality that makes photography worth of being considered a fine art.

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