At all times be master of the mechanics of picture taking-when the moment of picturetaking arrives, you can't afford to fumble with your equipment! Train yourself to a routine. Before you press the button-hesitate-just for a moment-Think-Look-and compose, and remember that 50% of composing, consists of removing the unsuitable. " BE A GOOD REMOVER" Can you hold your camera steady enough at 1/30 second? Don't fool yourself! Take a shot of a still life at 1/30, hand-held, and one at the same shutter speed on a SOLID tripod. Enlarge both to 11x14" -and look and weep! But if you have to work with slow speeds, make use of all the known "dodges". Don't expect "contact-print" quality in your 8x10" enlargements from your small format, unless you are willing to take infinite pains -the smaller the size of your negative, the more care you have to take- but don't think that you can get careless because you work with a 4x5 camera! Unless you use an 8x10 camera you had better buy-beg-borrow-or steal a first class 8x10 contact print to hang up in front of your nose to show what "Photographic Quality" CAN be And then see how closely you can get to that "quality" with your enlargements! DON'T WORK IN THE DARK! exept when you are working pan emulsions. Even then, you should, at least once in your "photographic life", develop a film or a sheet by inspection. Enduring values of a photographic picture lie mostly in the choice of SUBJECT MATTER! WHAT you photograph is even more important than HOW you photograph it! The greatest masters of the lens can impress us, TEMPORARILY, with their great PHOTOTECHNICAL skills, but the photographs, that will have a LASTING appeal, are the ones that are the expression of a personal approach and interpretation of an interesting subject matter! Focus-focus-FOCUS!- by all means and always- FOCUS!! Grain in the emulsion of the negative is not so difficult to avoid. Particular care and cleanliness, and correct exposure (not to full), are as important as the right choice of a true fine grain developer. And if you have a fine grain negative, don't spoil it by printing on "fancy" paper surfaces. Rough papers will hide grain but also will hide definition. Halation-something that used to bother your father a lot when he tried to take a picture of anything that included a direct source of light. It made a great big halo around a simple oil lamp and sometimes the effect was rather interesting, but present-day nonhalation emulsions are free from that. Indifferent-something your picture should never be! It's OK to have a bad picture once in a while, but an indifferent picture is mortal sin. When you can't make up your mind whether one of your pictures is good or bad, tear it -quickly- into small pieces, very small pieces and throw them in the wind! Never -oh, never-try to "fiddle it up" with some fancy printing process, trying to make a masterpiece out of a bad picture! Jolly-have a good time-don't take photography too seriously, keep a free spirit and a joyous heart. That is the way to make good pictures. Kodachrome 35mm, Ektachrome, Ektacolor and Ansco Color-at present the most successful color emulsions available-are much better than the color taste of most users. Just because color films are fairly expensive does not mean that you have to include all colors available. Try to take any subject that appears to be 100% black and white. Try it, you will get a surprise! Light-Light-LIGHT- the Lifeblood of photography. The humblest subject has its glorious moment-in light! Light reveals,light hides, light conveys plasticity, light reveals texture -without light photography does not function. Don't take the first light you find -stick around- see what a motif looks like at sunrise -at noon -one hour before sunset-that's the way to make photography function. Don't take my word for it, try it. Moment-the right moment-THE moment! In action photography it is that moment which is the quintessence of a series of actions. A man-well have it your way, a girl-is it the moment she is poised on the edge of the board? Is it the moment she is in midair? Is it the moment her body touches the water? Which of these moments you choose is up to you. Just remember one thing-be sure that you're conscious of these facts-and you will do well! Negative-the heart of the photographic process-your best print can only be hair better than your negative. A lot can be done in printing if you know how, but given a good negative, the merest printing tyro can make circles around an experienced printer with a poor negative. Optics-don't worry too much about it-get the best optical equipment your pocketbook can afford-good lenses are not cheap. They are not easy to make. Do you know what goes in the making of a good lens? Mathematicians bent over their calculations for years, lensmakers, glassmakers and chemists. There are lenses that are cheap, and they are! But you should know the different characteristics of lenses of various focal lenghts. Don't try to make a short focal lens..do the work of a long focal lens and vica versa! Picture-What is a picture, and what is only a photograph? In plain language, a picture is a photograph, that tells you something! Tells you what your reactions were to the things in front of you. Many times a photographer's reaction is purely external. He may have seen somebody else's original reaction to life around him, and if he sees in life a similar "setup", he kids himself into believing that he "found" a picture. But all he saw was somebody else's interpretation of a picture idea. That is what accounts for the thousands of cousins to our original uncle. Don't be a cousin-BE AN UNCLE. Question-Most amateurs are better questioners than answerers! A question should never be a hook whereon to hang your own knowledge! Don't ask a question unless you are prepared to listen!! Reticulation-some horrible skin disease of your emulsion, which it will get if you expose your film to a considerable variation of temperature during development. A severe case of the disease looks like the skin of a rhinoceros, but the mild cases are really more dangerous-hardly visible-especially on small films, they are sometimes readily confused with lack of sharpness. Snapshot-many time-exposures are only snapshots, and many snapshots may be masterpieces of photography. Formerly the term snapshot actually referred to a short exposure 1/25 or less. But today many photographers use it as a term of apology when they say, "Oh, this is just a snapshot!" What they really mean to say, "Don't be too critical of this picture, I took it in a hurry, and therefore am not to be blamed for its shortcomings!" Don't be that kind of snapshooter. Make short exposures when needed, but let them all be well considered photographically. Don't make a snapshot synonymous with snap judgment! Time-Take plenty of time-even to capture the fleeting moment. Devote much time before the moment arrives to planning and preparing, so that you will be ready to do your best. If you find something worth photographing, don't be stingy with the amount of time you devote to planning the picture. Good pictures are made before the shutter is released. Underdevelopment of projection prints. The majority of amateur photographers invariably underexpose and/or underdevelop their prints. Why? To the beginner an overexposed and overdeveloped print seems to be a much greater calamity than an underexposed print, and it takes a long time for him to work up sufficient courage really to expose a print fully. Burn up a dozen prints and you will learn how to print in a short time. Vibration-the destroyer of good definition. No matter how great the resolving power of your lens, if it vibrates during exposure, your latent image will be unsharp. If you want the maximum of definition, use a steady tripod for all exposures slower than 1/100 second. You may be able to hold a large camera steady enough to use at 1/50 or even 1/25, but negatives intended for enlargements must be 100% sharp! Washing- wash your films and prints well, especially your prints. It takes more time to remove hypo from paper than from celluloid. Any method of washing that drains off the water from the bottom of the container is to be preferred. when you think they are well washed, wash them a little longer and be sure! X-XX-XXX-speed and more speed on the new emulsions that appear on the market faster than one can test them. These new fast emulsions are glorious contributions to photography. They convert your f/3.5 lens into f/2. You have to watch your grain a little more carefully, but most of these emulsions, if correctly exposed and developed, have a beautiful scale of gradation. They are soft-working. It is good practice to overexpose slightly and underdevelop in order to hold the grain down to a minimum. Y-Z the END-Let the end of your photographic activity always be a good print, and what is just as important, a beautifully mounted print. The best photograph lying curled up on the table untrimmed and unspotted looks like nothing at all, and you never know how good your picture is until you mount it! And keep your mounts plain-white and unadorned. Anonymous quotes on Photography - Savor and add one yourself...