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… - Arthur Hammond

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.

Plates and films possess great latitude, it is true, but too short an exposure always has a tendency to cause a loss of atmosphere.

...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.