Evening star., 1948-07-18
BY Alexander }. Wedderburn
cvsater Of Photography
Ths SmishsonIon institution

Ihs SmithsenIan Institution
There undoubtedly have beer
times when you have regretfully
discarded some otherwise first-class
negative because it was lacking in
one important detail. Perhaps q
bald, cloudless sky was the trouble
or it may have been that your pic
ture needed some object to balance
the composition. In either case you
might have made good use Of your
negative had you resorted to the
darkroom expedient known as mont
age. You are probably familiar
with the montage effects that are
used in motion picture photography
but such manipulation is not en-
tirely limited to Hollywood movie
makers.
Some Of the best salon prize win
ners have stemmed from negatives
that were sadly lacking in one or
more Of the points that salon judges
and art critics take for granted as
an integral part of any good COM
position. The cameraman, unlike
the painter, must work with all Of
the objects in q scene to obtain q
particular view. The painter may
leave out certain bad features OF
add other items that are not act
ually present to improve his COM
position. With few exceptions, the
photographer will have to take his
picture "as is" and make his addi-
tions or deletions later on in the
darkroom because the lens is not
selective and records a scene exactly
as it Is.
There are several mechanical
means at your disposal for improv-
ing upon nature which do not call
for any particular artistic" skill
There Is the montage, where two OF
more negatives are used to make
single print; there is the collage
where cutouts from one print are
pasted on another and the COM
posite print rephotographed, and
there are several methods for alter
ing prints and negatives by means
of retouching, use Of an artists
stump, etc.
Montage Is Easiest.
Photomontage is the easiest and
most commonly used method of i'm
proving photographs that are lack
ing in some detail. The simplest
form of photographs is accom-
piished with just two negatives. The
first will be the one that. misses
being good because of lacking de-
tail; the other will be the negative
that will supply the desired effect
For example you may shoot a pic
ture of some beautiful landscape
and then discover in the darkroom
that you had forgotten to use fl
ter. There is your beautiful land
scape just as you saw it through the
finder-except that the towering
cloud masses that gave the scene
the final touch of perfection were
not picked up on the fllm because
you forgot the filter.
Do you give up in despair and
throw away the negative? Certainly
not. Instead, If you have been a
good planner and anticipated just
such an occurrence you will have a
large collection of cloud negatives to
fall back on. Now it is true that
just any cloud negative will not be
pe suitable. You will need to go
through your collection until you
find the one that is nearest to the
clolA EFF fects that obtained at the
TIM your shot was mad Over a
period OF a year you should be able
to take pictures of many types Of
cloud formations ns-neeatiyes that
wiit16set ainiet any situation whers
you need clouds to AL = bald sky.
You will also find it advisable to
take pictures of various other items
such as tree branches, interesting
road curves, ETC., which although
not in themselves good pictures,
nevertheless will add to and improve
other photographs that are lacking
in just those details.