Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-05-02
RECEPTION TO OPEN
EXHIBIT OF PHOTOS
Capital Camera Club Studies
on View at the C0rCoran
Gallery This Evening.
PLACE IN ART REGARDED
NOW AS BEING ASSURED
Compositions Held to Give Evidence
of Degree to Which Character
Can Be Impaired to Films.

That photography has become an art no
one can doubt who visits the twenty
first annual exhibition of the Capital
Camera Club. which opens this evening
with reception in the hemicycle of the.
Corcoran Art Gallery.
The fact that the trustees of this in
stitution invited the members to exhibit
their pictorial photographs in a hall of
the Corcoran Art Gallery is held to place
the camera club among the recognized
art associations of America.
The Jury of selection was composed
If Richard y. Brooke T.. c. Messer,
Mathilde Mendon Leisenring. Thomas w.
Smllie and De Lancey Gill;
Artists Touch Apparent.
OF course. it is admitted photography
can never usurp the place of painting, nor
is il intended TO supplant either drawing
etching, but il can hold very credi-
table position of its own among the sis
ter arts, for while it is the camera that
mechanically reproduces the scene
model it is the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES who
selects, not only the subject. but the ex-
act time and position when the best re-
production can be obtained o. that par
ticular feeling or quality in the subject
that he desires to represent
Having obtained the most favorable
composition possible. he then works up,
tones down or entirely eliminates certain
parts. In this way the machine-made
photograph assumes his personal vision
to such a degree that if two men. for ex-
ample, photograph a bit of woods, when
their pictures are finished, unless there be
some special landmarks. il would not be
difficult to persuade the public that the
two are different SCENES greatly will
the mechanical copies made by the
camera be modified by the personalities
of the artists
That a plate can be so sensitive as to
reproduce fireworks at night. il is pointed
out. helps one to comprehend how il is
possible for a lens TO seemingly respond
to the moods of the owner. to desert the
realm OF mere mechanical perfection and
enter the higher sphere of art, the mis-
sion of which is to transmit the emotions,
the feelings of man to become his mes
dunn of expression.
Love of Nature in Evidence.
Claude Monet said that there could be
no recipe for art. that it mattered little
whether picture We're painted in a stu
oio or out in the sunlight, if the artist
possessed genius il would be master
piece. The art lies in the man, not in
the medium, il is held. and the photogra
nher who is an enthusiastic lover of ma
ture who is keenly sensitive 10 beauty,
will reproduce these qualities in his work
a. is clearly shown in many OF the
..croups'' on exhibition in the hemicycle
Looking at W. &. Babsock's quiet land
scape one is NOT only conscious of the
beauty of these scenes, but OF the pleas
ure which this artist experienced in their
contemplation. The Work of Rudolph
F,ickemeyer possesses this quality 10 "a
high degree One almost knows the char
act.r OF the man after a careful study
Of the nineteen photographs which COM
pose his group. They are SO different in
subject, in treatment, and Yet so closely
OF kin in their highly setsitized express
sion of emotion. In this peculiar power
of communicating his personality through
his work he shares the artistic attain
ments of some of our great painters.
There are many little gems of a SIM
liar nature scattered through the exhi-
bition. but one needs many hours of in
innate observation To discover all their
charm. Take the fascinating group of
, cIoud studies by II. G. Mann of Norfolk,
Va Evidently he loves the open, broad
eNpanses of sky, the study of atmospheric
eilects.
Looks Unlike a Photograph
In the Distant View of Franconian
Range" by +. g. Parke. have !,
.spiendd representation of distant noun
tains finely composed INTO a picture
that holds well together, as does that
lovely suggestion of sunrise over the
ocean by Charles a: Huff with its great
banks of clouds floating upward 1t is
hard to believe that this is photograph
the masses of light and shade are so
perfectly controlled and adjusted