Identifier: americanannualof28newy (find matches)
Title: The American annual of photography
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Photography
Publisher: New York : Tennant and Ward
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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symmetry, light and dark,or as the Japanese call it, Notan, ere he can produce a reallybeautiful picture. The dictionary describes the meaning of the word compo-sition as that combination of several parts in which each ispresented in its due proportion. The difficulty in the caseof the tyro is: first, to determine what constitutes due propor-tion of each part, and second, to discover some means ofeliminating undesirable or superfluous features. The latteris easier for the painter than for the camera man, as with onesweep of the brush he can wipe out a mountain, or re-tint thesunset, or dodge some aggressive bill-board or telegraph pole.Not so with the camera. It has a far more limited power toeliminate or augment. It can only reproduce with mechanicalexactness whatever is presented to its glassy eye. The resulting wealth of detail is one of the big bears of theart photographer who has recourse to blurring, rough-surfacedpapers, the retouchers pencil, and other devices in order to i86
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THE ANCHORAGE. Illustrating Article Photo Composition from the Art School Standpoint, &y Wiliam S. Rice. destroy, or subdue all but the essential features. The essen-tial features which are a synonym for simplicity should be thekeynote for the student of photography who aspires to com-pose with his camera pictures based on the laws of art schoolcomposition. Select a central theme for your picture, and letall else be subordinate to it. Let me point out a little experience of an art student as acase of what not to do. A young artist went forth one day,so the story was told me, to paint haystacks in a greenmeadow. During the day a number of creatures passed withinview, all of whom she embodied in her composition. By night-fall she had immortalized on a 17 x 22-inch canvas three farm-hands, one crow, two children, one stray cow, one pair ofhorses, one puppy, one rooster, and four hens. When com-pleted the sketch suggested a zoological garden rather than ahay-field in July. And it was

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