New Britain herald., 1926-07-17

It is generally supposed that the
 worst feature of summer vacations
 is either mosquitoes or sunburn, but
 we believe that due deliberation will
 convince anyone with an open mind
 that neither of these is a little asl
 much of a nuisance as vacationa l photographs. Of course, there nav, i be some ard-boiled (to be taken livery literally persons just recover 1 ing from the effects of unwise ex- posture to the solar ultraviolet rays who may differ with us. so we win sum up the arguments in our favor. They are overwhelming.
 The difficulties of filming are bad enough. If there are many in the crowd carrying cameras someone must have everything explained 14i 1lmes before he can do it wrong N Another insists on snapping every Il thing in sight and uses up all hS, films in few minutes, after which, he tries to borrow or steal further rolls from the others. He is of course offset by the careful person who waits too long and has 10 snap a half-dozen exposures in as many seconds just as the sun goes down at the end of a too-cautious day. One camera must refuse to work. At least one film will unwind and be lightstruck.
 Just try and get group to pose, some one is missing, and by the time he is rounded up another has
 wandered off and is playing dead over behind the well. Amateur photographers are either so careless that they don't get anything or take so much pains in arranging every detail that the group posing is plac- ,ed ln highly sour humor, with the re- suit that the developed pictures would spoil any milk left within 50 feet of them. Somebody in the party must act the clown. of course, and make funny faces, although the rest admit that if he really wanted to assume 8 ludicrous expression, his natural me would be more than enough. Another simply will hide and refuse 10 show his face, and this lis counterbalanced by the vain glorious ass who spreads himself all over the foreground. But don't for get the worst of them all, the really original chap who makes that clever little crack, Look out, don't break the lens"
 And when the pictures are de- veloped and printed! What have you for your pains? Blurry groups of shadows. Dusky jungle scenes where you forgot there was too little light Perfect pictures spoiled by the fact that someone did a st. Vitus Charleston as the shutter snapped and was photographed as a cross between a fuzzy caterpillar and a hole in the wall. Beautiful lake scenes where you failed to hold the camera level and the expanse of ! water has become a quite effective waterfall with a skyline which combines with the side of the print | to make what would be a very good 45 degree angle for your son to use | in mechanical drawing next fall,
 Double exposures where you for got to turn the film, resulting in | mermaids rising from the ocean or divers plungfng into the middle of a baseball diamond. Horrible ex- pressions on everybody, drawing laughs from everybody-at each | other and groans from just as many-at themselves. Long series of landscape pictures which nobody can identify. One good one-how did 1t happen? Views taken facing the sun too much and with black snow therefore sprinkled over the prints. People caught in awkward postures
 II know I don't look like that. y Unbalanced groups. Nice landscapes somewhat ruined by someone who stepped right in front of the camera. And so on. And of course, for soma reason or other which you cannot explain. the picture which you took especial pains with and wanted most to come out perfectly proves to be a total blank.
 And yet, the next time you go to the theater you will have nerve enough to criticize the movies.