The San Francisco call., 1897-01-03

the very charming tortoise-shell pin that
graces the apex of the golden hair that
does not hang down her back to the very
tip OF them the picture-tiny shoe that
peeps from beneath the skirt which is
nothing if not la mode.
Now to have the tip of that shoe which
projects from beneath the skirt of dis
proportionate size would be shocking
indeed. So the photographer carefully
adjust bis microscopic lens and the pic
ture is taken. The projecting foot is tiny
or at least it appears 50.
Then there are the hands. 1t unfortu-
nately happens that the young woman
who looks at life from the window of
$400, 600 residence often has much larger
hands than the girl who sells her what
she chooses at the great store. Nature is
very queer that way and the respect that
size ought TO feel for the persons of the 400
is not always in evidence. But the photog-
rapher is more diplomatic than nature.
Unlike that good dame, il he be a fashion
able he must of necessity please his
fashionable patrons.
The shopkeeper or professional man who
makes his customer look her prettiest, or
rather prettier than she is, is the one who
best pleases and So when the photogra-
pher with his microscopic lens makes the
abnormal hand of his customer look as
charming as Cinderella's foot in the
famous slipper. he has achieved finan-
cial and artistic success.
| No one, as stated, knows just who
learned OF this clever plan to make what
seems to be real photograph gross fat
terry of nature. 1t cannot be called a
/ Yankee trick. English DANES and damo-
sells were, so far as known, the initial bene-
fciaries of the new art, as it is now called,
and there are unkind people who say that
it is one of those inventions that is con-
ceiyed by an English brain because of
the dire necessity therefore. However,
this is unklnd and cannot be proved, at
least not offhand in newspaper article.
However that may be, it is exceedingly
fashionable in England a. the present
moment, and people who know say that
more than half the swell femininity
which daily disports itself on Rotten Row
patronizes photographers who keep micro
| scope lenses in stock.
| Over in Paris, where no woman who
thinks anything of herself admits that
either her hands or her feet are other than
exactly of the right proportion. the pho
tographer's microscopic lens has met with
distinct failure.
| In the United States, and particularly
in New York, where the fad has taken a
very firm hold, society has indorsed the
microscopic lens. Dame Fashion, accord
ing to our own Interpretation OF her ideas,
says there is no reason on earth why we
| should not make ourselves appear as
beautiful as possible. Art and nature are
always supposed to go hand in hand, and
in the case of the photographers pictures
they are certainly doing just that thing.
1t is claimed that every photographer
! has to slightly alter the photographs of
his patrons, provided those patrons are
wealthy and the photographer is fashion
able. 1t does not do to let us see ourselves
always as others see us. Never portrait
maker is there who does not appreciate
this fact The most popular fashionable
photographers is he who, like the late
Sarony, always shows OF us the very best
that nature put forward and then helps
US out with a little art
The photographer calls the aid he gives
to nature retouching. In our hearts we
know better. We all know that not one
of US who has his photogr aph taken would
accept it from the photographer if every
blemish that the truthful plate shows
were allowed TO remain. Not a bit OF it.
We may say that we are not vain, and
that we must have our photograph "nat-
ural." Just the same, we are vain, and
we wish to look unnatural.
T.. 3 3,of
secret OF the photographer revealed in this
article so popular. 1t is the catering to
human vanity that makes the picture
maker a leader among his fellows. He
must be an artist and one of the most
notable of the notabies in Vanity Fair.
In London alone there are 2500 feather
curriers', 1900 artlficial-fower makers and