FOCUSSING.
[Sidenote: Focussing.]
Having now seen the principles by which we must be governed, and the
apparatus required, we will briefly apply them.
[Sidenote: How to focalize.]
By focussing we understand, bringing the ground-glass into the plane
which coincides with the sharpest projection of the image; the position
of this plane varying of course according to the focal length of the
lens and the distance of the object from the lens. Presuming, then, that
the camera is in register, and set squarely before the object to be
photographed, as can be determined by the spirit-levels, let the student
proceed to focus his picture as sharply as he can _without any stop_. He
must be careful that the swing-backs are parallel to the front planes of
the camera.
[Sidenote: Mental attitude infocussing.]
Now the great habit to cultivate is to think in values and masses, that
is, you must, in your mind, by constant practice, analyze nature into
masses and values, and if you constantly practise this at the beginning,
you will find that it becomes a habit, and automatically, as you look at
a scene or a person, you will see on the ground-glass of your mind the
object translated into black and white masses, and you will notice their
relative values. This habit is absolutely necessary for artistic work,
for it is by this analysis that you will learn to know what is suitable
for pictorial art, and what is not; for if the masses and values in a
picture are not correctly expressed, nothing will ever put the picture
right. Our own experience has been that where this analysis has left an
impression of a few strong masses, the picture has always been stronger
when finished than otherwise. Now our student, having sharply focussed
his picture with open aperture, must take his head from beneath the
focussing cloth, and look steadily at his picture; fixing his eye on the
principal object in the picture, he should go through this mental
analysis, and at the same time note carefully how much detail he can
see, both in the field of direct and indirect vision; and his sole
object should be to render truly the impression thus obtained.
[Sidenote: How to “stop down.”] He should then look on the focussing
screen, and putting in his largest diaphragm, and using his swing-backs,
and altering the focussing as may be necessary, see how truly he can get
this impression, always remembering that the larger the diaphragm he
uses the better. For this reason he should always begin with an open
aperture, and work down to the smaller-sized diaphragm as needed. By
working in this way, he will soon see what marvellous power and command
he has over his translation, all by the judicious use of his focussing
screen, swing-backs, and diaphragm combined. In focussing he must
remember one thing,—never to focus so that it can be detected in the
picture where the sharper focussing ends, and the less sharp focussing
begins—as can be brought about by diaphragms. The sharpness should be
gradated gently. [Sidenote: Ground-glass picture false.] He must also
remember that the ground-glass picture is false and deceptive in its
brightness, due to obvious physical facts. This is a point of great
importance, which must not be forgotten when we are developing.
[Sidenote: Camera obscura.] The ground-glass picture, though greatly
admired by the Tramontane masters, and approved by Canaletto and Ribera,
as Count Algarotti assures us in one of his raptures on the camera
obscura, is not so natural and beautiful as it may appear from the toy
point of view,—it is not what the artist wants, any more than he wants
the pictures of an ordinary camera obscura, for if these pictures were
satisfying in an artistic sense, every one could, by erecting a camera
obscura, have the satisfaction of his desire, and there would soon be an
end to the pictorial arts, photography included; for no one who loved
this picture so dearly would want a camera to take photographs with, but
only one to look through. The deceptive luminosity of the ground-glass
picture must not be allowed to influence our normal mental analysis of
the natural scene. [Sidenote: Rule for focussing.] As we said before,
therefore, the principal object in the picture must be fairly sharp,
_just as sharp as the eye sees it, and no sharper_; but everything else,
and all other planes of the picture, must be subdued, so that the
resulting print shall give an impression to the eye as nearly identical
as possible to the impression given by the natural scene. But, at the
same time, it must be distinctly understood that so called “fuzziness”
must not be carried to the length of _destroying the structure_ of any
object, otherwise it becomes noticeable, and by attracting the eye
detracts from the general harmony, and is then just as harmful as
excessive sharpness would be. Experience has shown, that it is always
necessary to throw the principal object slightly (often only just
perceptibly) out of focus, to obtain a natural appearance, except when
there is much moisture in the air, as on a heavy mist-laden grey day,
when we have found that the principal object (out of doors) may be
focussed _quite sharply_, and yet appear natural, for the mist
scattering the light softens the contours of all objects. Nothing in
nature has a hard outline, but everything is seen against something
else, and its outlines fade gently into that something else, often so
subtilely that you cannot quite distinguish where one ends and the other
begins. In this mingled decision and indecision, this lost and found,
lies all the charm and mystery of nature. This is what the artist seeks,
and what the photographer, as a rule, strenuously avoids.
[Sidenote: Example.]
As this loss of outline increases with the greyness produced by
atmosphere, it follows that it is greater on grey days and in the
distance; and less on bright, sunshiny days. For this reason, therefore,
the student must be very careful on bright days about his focussing, for
on such days there is often no mist to assist him, but still he must
keep the _planes separate_, or he has no picture. Let us imagine an
example: A decaying wooden landing-stage stands beneath some weeping
willows at the edge of a lake. From the landing-stage a path leads
through a garden to a thatched cottage one hundred yards distant; behind
the cottage is an avenue of tall poplars. On the landing-stage stands a
beautiful sun-bronzed village girl in a plain print dress: she is
leaning against the willow and is looking dreamily at the water. We row
by on the lake, and are struck by the picture, but above all by the
dazzling native beauty of the peasant girl: our eyes are fixed on the
ruddy face and we can look at nothing else. If we are cool enough to
analyze the picture, what is it we see directly and sharply? The girl’s
beautiful head, and nothing else. We are conscious of the willow-tree,
conscious of the light dress and the decaying timbers of the
landing-stage, conscious of the cottage, away in the middle distance,
and conscious of the poplars telling blue and misty over the cottage
roof; conscious, too, are we of the water lapping round the
landing-stage;—we feel all these, but we see clearly and definitely only
the charming face. Thus it is always in nature, and thus it should be in
a picture. Let us, however, still keep to our scene, and imagine now
that the whole shifts, as does scenery on a stage; gradually the girl’s
dress and the bark and leaves of the willow grow sharp, the cottage
moves up and is quite sharp, so that the girl’s form looks cut out upon
it, the poplars in the distance are sharp, and the water closes up and
the ripples on its surface and the lilies are all sharp. And where is
the picture? Gone! The girl is there, but she is a mere patch in all the
sharp detail. Our eyes keep roving from the bark to the willow leaves
and on from the cottage thatch to the ripple on the water, _there is no
rest_, all the picture has been jammed into one plane, and all the
interest equally divided. Now this is exactly what happens when a deep
focussing lens and small diaphragms are used, the operator (for no
artist would do this) tries to make everything sharp from corner to
corner. Let the student choose a subject such as we have suggested, and
put what we have imagined into practice, and he will see the result. Yet
this “sharp” ideal is the childish view taken of nature by the
uneducated in art matters, and they call their productions true,
whereas, they are just about as artistically false as can be. For this
reason, too, it must be remembered that the foreground is not always to
be rendered sharply. If our principal object is in the middle distance,
let us say, for example, some cottages on the border of a lake; our
foreground, consisting we will suppose of aquatic plants, must be kept
down, and purposely made unimportant. This is done chiefly by the
focussing and stopping.
[Sidenote: Mrs. Cameron’s portraits.]
Among the few satisfactory portraits we have seen are, as we have
already said, those by the late Mrs. Cameron. In all of these, that
fatal sharpness has been avoided; her focussing was carefully attended
to. [Sidenote: Newton.] The well-known miniature painter, Sir W. J.
Newton, one of the first vice-presidents of the Photographic Society of
Great Britain, distinctly advised that all portraits should be thrown a
“little out of focus.” The falsity of focussing a head sharply is shown
by the fact that by doing so freckles and pimples, which are not noticed
by the eye, stand out most obtrusively, indeed a case is on record,
where an eruption of small-pox was detected in its earliest stage by the
lens, while nothing at all could be detected by the eye, though this was
but partly due to the lens. This false focussing has brought in its
train another huge falsity—retouching—of which we shall speak more fully
hereafter.
[Sidenote: Scientific diagrams.]
Sharp focussing, too, by making objects tell too strongly, throws them
out of tone, and so ruins the picture. When sharpness is obtained by
stopping down, the diaphragm cuts off light, injures normal brilliancy,
exaggerates shadows, and so throws the picture out of tone. Of course,
if the object in view is to produce a diagram for scientific purposes,
such, for instance, as photographs of flowers for a work on botany, or
of fish for a work on ichthyology, or of butterflies for a work on
entomology, the most brilliant illumination possible should be aimed at,
and the focussing should be microscopically sharp, for such works are
required to show the _structure_ as well as the form. But, above all,
the drawing should be correct, and this is obtainable only by the
correct use of lenses, which, as we have pointed out, has not always
been the case. If, on the other hand, the operator wishes to produce
_pictures_ of flowers, butterflies, fruit, fish, &c., the same rules
hold good as for any other _picture_. [Sidenote: Fantin’s flowers.] As
an example of the treatment of flowers, the student will do well to
study Mr. Fantin’s paintings of flowers. We have never yet seen flowers,
fruit, or still life artistically rendered by photography, though we
have seen some diagrams to all appearances perfect, but in which the
drawing must have been a little false. We have seen it stated by
craftsmen who have produced diagrams of microscopic and other objects,
that they were untouched (and rightly so), and that, _therefore_, these
diagrams were artistic and true to nature. Of course, from what has been
already said, it is obvious they were not necessarily true to nature
(though, perhaps, none the less useful for that), and the statement that
they were “artistic” arises of course from a total misconception as to
what that word means.
Here, then, we must quit this subject, and we hope that we have
impressed upon the student the fundamental necessity for exercising much
thought and judgment and care in focussing, stopping down, and using the
swing-backs, for these three all work together, and are quite as
important as the questions of exposure and development.
Of course there is no absolute state of “sharpest focus,” but when we
use the word “sharp” we mean the sharpest focus obtainable by any
existing photographic lens when used in the ordinary way.