The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-04-21
A new PHOTOGRAPHIC FAD
The Camera Will Now Take Your
Profile in Silhouette.

The Gentle Art of "Cutting out''
Ones Friends with Scissors Has
Given Way to the Camera That
Pictures Faces just They Are.
The silhouette has come to life again,
after many years. The resurrected shad-
owgraph has halo o. novelty in that it
is the product Of the camera-the cruelty
frank camera that is more truthful than
the most honest and skilful of hands.
The day of scissors black paper, and
paste is as the day of spinning wheel and
duclling stool-gone.
The gentle art of cutting OUT one s
friends, in the silhouette sense, has yield
ed its place to a trick of the photographer
"a trick so simple that one can but Won
der that it remained so long undiscovered.
Perhaps the camera silhouette is a
shade less unique than the silhouette of
eye and hand, but this is the price of
modern mechanical methods.
Then, too, one might rather trust irreg-
ular features to the tender mercies and
erring hand of a friend than to the cold
candor of the camera, which may well
have terror for, say, the pretty pouting
miss. whose close cropped rose has sky
ward tilt, the overplump matron with
one, perhaps two, chns too many: or
him whose beak and chin are hurrying
to meet each other. Yet, if ones vanity
can be smothered or made way with in
some less violent fashion, these are points
that give piquancy to the silhouette.
Bereft of eyes, curve of lips, smooth
roundness of cheek, stray dimples. and
all those lines that speak to us from the
face of the common picture, the silhouette
must depend upon the pose for all the
character its fiat. black profile can boast.
Herein lies the art of the silhouette pho
tograph, for it is not wholly barren of
possibilities, says an exchange. Careful
posing reveals the grace of a shapely
throat, the beauty of a well rounded
shoulder, the nobility of an arched brow,
and shows truly for artistic good or ill,
the strength of nose and chin. The artful
poser may temper the truth of the sill
houette photograph by veering slightly
from direct profile and tipping the face
little out of plumb.
The camera silhouette has lost nothing
OF the sharpness of the old scissors and
paste variety, and has gained an occa-
slonal half-tone, which gives feeling and
depth to the picture.
These faint half-tones are particularly
effective in the white, or marble sill
houettes, which, while no more modern
than the sombre black. are in higher favor
now than in the earlier day. They have
the full grace of a statue.
In black. .ne full length silhouette is
decidedly posterish, virtue which in this
day and time leads on to favor A girl
with an air. dear picture hat and a
pretty foot can grasp her petticoat and
step into silhouette photograph in a
manner decidedly fetching.
The revival of the shadowgraph took
place in Chicago. whers it has come to
be fad of great and growing proportions.
And from Chicago the fad has crept grad
ualy, simultaneously, to the East and
West
The process used is one that requires
no hand work or blocking in, and for ra-
pidity II rivals the good old tintype which
is finished while you wait
II taxes gust about ten minutes from
tne time you smile and look pleasant I'M
I'll, presto' you may see yourselves as
others see you-for only the very vain
files.
There you are, a deep, black shadow
stealing across a ground all white or the
whitest of thin, white ghosts looming up
in the gloom.
1t is as If. daubed with India ink. YOU
had left your impress on a snowy sheet
which suddenly shrinks to cabinet size
Again, by the photographer sleight of
hand, you seem to be the one bright spot
in dark world-not an unpleasant thing
to think, nor yet hard one for some at
least.
a well-taken camera silhouette is as
easily recognizable as the ordinary photo
graph. Its eXactness and truth cannot be
questioned. and it may have the virtue of
being artistic as well as unique. The
half-tones of the white silhouette. which
are lost in reproduction. give a delicate
transparency which reminds one of
statue done in Parian marble. The life
of the fad is a subject for guessing.