Omaha daily bee., 1896-12-27
Observation-Disclosures
AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY. 1


or course every one, or nearly every one,
who goes voyaging to far countries nowadays
takes camera with him. and brings back
a pictorial note book or Photographic sketch
book of his wanderings through strange
countries and of the peoples and sights he
has seen. Nothing that he can bring home
will be a source OF greater pleasure to him
than these Photographic notes. Whatever
their shortcomings may be, they will carry
him back to the scenes OF his wanderings
as no other trophies or written notes could
do, and when he is telling his Tales of a
Traveller" the pages Of his Photographic note
book will be a priceless boon both to re-
counter and auditors. Not every one can
make this sort of note book
Many are prevented from going beyond
seas by reason of business cares or by lack
of the wherewithal, and many of us are
never able to cross more than half of our
own country. But who does not now and
then take a short journey If of but an after
moons duration? And he who will take his
camera for notes along the way on his lit
tie trips and on the life journey which these
little trips help to make up and uses 1t with
as much judgment as possible will find him
self in time the possessor of Photographic
note book or series of note books which
".
replaced
WHAT MONEY CANNOT BUY.
A photographer of the Coliseum in Rome.
the Niagara Falls of America or any other
noted place can be purchased at any picture
store; but where can one buy photograph
of the quiet pool under the willows where
he learned to swim, or of the "old oaken
bucket" from which he slaked his thirst
that hot day in the country? Who is there
among us who cannot see pictures with his
minds eye for a negative of which he would
gladly exchange dozens of those he has )?
Who that owns camera does not wish he
had owned ii years before when the haunts
Of his boyhood, the familiar places of his
young manhood that are so changed or so
lar away now, could have been so easily
taken? The view from ones window may
seem very commonplace now, but when the
new street has been cut through or the old
buildings that were familiar have given
place to something new or he leaves those
haunts and moves to a distant city he would
be glad to have a print OF them. And when
the woods wherein he gathered walnuts
have been surveyed, plated and recorded
into an addition to the city, or a street or
railway has been built across the place !
where the boys used to skate, negatives of
those places would be numbered among his I!
treasures What Runnymede and Stratford |
are to the English race what Plymouth |
Rock and Bunker Hill are to our branch of |
member thereof. The place or building that !
association has halowed for the individual |
is usually one for which the world at large |
cares too little to insure its preservation or |
representation on paper or canvas and each |
one of us must attend to his own sacred |
spots if he would have visual memories of
them.
USELESS TO BEWAIL.
1t is as useless to bewail lost opportuni-
ties as spilled milk, they are gone and come
not back to us but perhaps the remem-
brance OF them may help us to recognize
and improve the opportunities of the pres
ent ere they have slipped away to Join the
lost ones of the past and increase the long
series of mental pictures that tantaliZe
every camerst because they can never be
anything else to him. Let us not neglect
picture making, for by that we may make
ourselves artists instead of artisans, and
neither let us neglect, while the oppor-
tunty is afforded, to make brief records of
some of the homely things that surround
us, some of the familiar scenes that are ac-
cessible today, but may be so unattanable
tomorrow, and that twenty years hence we
would like to see, or to have our children
see, as they are today.
We often hear an amateur photographer
say after witnessing good work done by
others that he would like to do the same
but where is he to find the "subject?" Who
wants you to find the subject" Mr. ANA
teur? 1t is already found. What use is there
in doing what has already been done? Why
not go into the field and make something
new, something original? You do not gain
anything by always copying what some one
else has done. To make a good picture re-
qures some thought of your own Some
times it takes many plates on the same
subject to get the desired result and such
result Is obtained only by working. DO not