Los Angeles herald., 1907-04-08

IF OLD Madam Daguerre had beeen
as quick to act as she was to sus-
pect, Louis Jacques Daguerre would
have died in an insane asylum, and the
world might have waited a century
longer for a means of preserving the
family likenesses on bits of paper OF
glass. Up to the early thirties M
Daguerre had behaved as any other
we'll balanced decorator and scene
painter should have behaved, and then
he began to experiment with liquids
and attempted to fasten sunshadows
on glass or copper sheets. He babbled
of wonderful day when he could make
portraits of his friends with neither
brush nor pencil. In great trepidation
Madam Daguerre hurried to the most
noted specialist in all France and,
weeping, told these symptoms. To the
savant's mind they spelled nothing else
but insanity, and in 1888 they set about
preparing Md. Daguerre for lifelong
visit to the asylum at Bicetre. But
just then the unsuspecting victim OF
this plot succeeded in fastening the
shadow on the copper plate, and the
art of photography was born.
1t Is q far cry from Daguerre with
his great, cumbersome camera propped
on the ground, taking a landscape that
required a brilliant sun and seven or
eight hours exposure, to the amateur
of today, who carries a complete outfit
in a square box under one arm and,
swinging 1t at will, can photograph any,
thing from an exploding battleship to
sparrow feeding a worm to her
brood. The progress of the art marks
one of the greatest strides in modern
science. Only the mc l of means could
have a daguerreotype or an ambrotype
made years ago. Today not only the
man of moderate means, but all his
children may have kodaks, and at the
expenditure of a few cents can pre-
serve indefinitely an interesting family
group or bit of familiar landscape.
Then It Was an Ordeal
When Daguerre and the men of his
day took pictures 1t was momentous
occasion, one to be entered into with
great solemnity. With head held fast
between two rigid iron fingers and with
eyes fixed on the upper right-hand
corner" of some object, the victim had
to sit for twenty minutes while SCI
ence, new to this work, was transfer
ring his reflection to the sensitive plate
hidden back of that cyclops eye which
bored him through and through No
wonder these quaint old time folk look
so sternly out of the little leather
frames. No wonder the faces are set
so somberly into futurity. The ordeal
was enough to produce such effects in
even the most lovable and winsome
faces.
The father of artistic photography in
America is Alfred Steiglitz of New
York, who has made the camera reveal
wonderful effects in light and shadow,
and in facial expression hitherto be-
lieved to be possible only to painters.
fo no y-ftc 10
poses that old time daguerreans, and
even painters, were unable to catch
and preserve. Special photographers
have arisen in this branch of the work,
and women have proved the most sue
cessful, Miss Adelaide Hanscom of
Berkeley, Cal, being the pioneer.
Taking Night Pictures
Many unusual feats of photography
have astonished the world in the past
few years. The famous one of the Flat
iron building in New York, taken at
night with several hours exposure is
perhaps the most famous in night pho
Biography, while the Washington arch
and the Statue of Liberty in New York
harbor have been taken at night with
magnesium flashlight. We now have
lenses fast enough to take the finish of
mile-aminute automobile races, ath-
letes In the act of pole vaulting and
fast mail trains sprinting at their best.
c. B. Schillings, a noted German
hunter and traveller, has added much
to the knowledge Of animal life by
photographing big game by fashlight
far back in the jungles Of Africa.
Herds of wild elephants, groups of
lions, zebras, hippopotami, crocodiles,
gazelles and smaller animals have all
been followed to their native heath and
photographed. The eyes of the animals
in his pictures often show the wild,
startled look that comes to those who
are suddenly surprised.
Woman and the Birds
Mrs. Gene Stratton- Porter is another
indefatigable worker with the camera
in the interest of science. Her studies
of birds have made her famous and
each picture has been secured at the
greatest personal inconvenience. When
she goes to photograph a nest of eggs
or birds she first gets acquainted with
the mother bird, sometimes taking
weeks to do it, but finally holds the
little creature in her hands and han
dies the eggs without fear of the fam
of certain shy swamp bird she drove
a distance Of fourteen miles every day
for a week, wading through O. deep
marsh and carrying her heavy camera
until the desired pose of the bird was
obtained. She has secured excellent
pictures of eagles and owls in their
own particular haunts, and spent many
weeks in a neighborhood getting ac-
quainted with a colony of vultures.
CoIors and x-Rays
The two greatest discoveries in this
are at the present day color photog-
raphy and the X-rays. 1t was known