Alfred Horsley Hinton: Quotes about light

“It should be a point for careful consideration, then, that with due consideration for perspective, lighting, etc., those clouds should be chosen for a landscape which, together with the landscape, will make a well-composed, well-balanced, and symmetrical whole.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Composition and clouds considered as an aid to expression, p. 104

Light

“… to put it into slightly different form, it is not the facts in nature that the good picture aims at portraying, but the effects of light and shade accompanied by a pleasing arrangement.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, How expression may be given to a picture, p. 34

Nature , Light

“The different degree of light interference between blue and red also affords a power which we may be glad to avail ourselves, in some cases using the red where a very marked degree of lightening is desired, or blue where only a trifling difference is needed.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Part II : Practical Pictorial Photography, Fidelity to nature and justifiable untruth, p. 21

Light

“…strictly speaking, tone is the relative lightness and darkness due to the effect of light governed by atmosphere, and has nothing to do with the relative lightness and darkness or relative value with which various colours appear when compared with each other.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Tone and atmoshphere, p. 47

Light , Appearance

“This is another matter that will need careful study, because the earth, having only one chief source of light, it follows that if clouds be printed into a landscape, both must show evidence of being lighted from the same direction.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Illumination of clouds and the direction of light, p. 101

Study , Light

“Probably every portrait photographer resorts to some such "dodge" for making a face lighter or other similar purpose, and he finds that the application of water-color paint in ever so thin a wash makes so much difference to the printing density that blue is commonly used as being a quick printing color, the effect of which is therefore not so great; an equally dense layer of blue and of red to any portion of a negative would print very differently, the red shutting off the light action much more powerfully than the blue.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Part II : Practical Pictorial Photography, Fidelity to nature and justifiable untruth, p. 20

Color , Light , Water , Painting

“As a general rule, therefore, the lights and shadows of clouds near the horizon are less vivid than in clouds higher up. Exceptions to this rough rule will be found when the source of light is near the horizon, as in sunset and sunrise, also when there is a gathering of local stormclouds which may hover over the distance as a dark pall, when there is fair weather and light, transparent clouds near to us.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Perspective of clouds, p. 100

Light , Weather

“The objection to the shiny, highly polished surface of albumen and gelatine papers is that, besides the fact that the surface reflects false and disturbing lights, the very polish and gloss has an artificial appearance which, from its very superfine character, irresistibly reminds us of its origin and nature.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Printing methods and their bearing on pictorial photography, p. 71

Nature , Light , Appearance , Falseness

“In rave cases, if the sun be behind the observer, the distant land may catch a powerful ray of sunlight, whilst the clouds overhanging it may remain in shadow, and hence light buildings, yellow cornfields, etc., may appear lighter than the distant clouds, but they at the same time gain in an appearance of nearness.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Perspective of clouds, p. 100

Light , Distant , Appearance , Time

“We are then brought to consider Platinotype, which, on the whole, may be regarded as the most suitable for general pictorial work. Its power of rendering relative tones and atmosphere is perhaps unequalled, whilst, although every one who has used it has sometimes wished that the undeveloped image were more visible, yet the pale, ghost-like print made by the light is very much better than nothing at all, and, indeed, may often be quite sufficient to guide us in our endeavours to control the action of light in a manner to be shortly described.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Printing methods and their bearing on pictorial photography, p. 72

Light

“The louder a sound is, the more we recognize it as being near, so the louder the "tone" of objects that is, the blacker or whiter the nearer they seem; and so if in our picture we wish to give a sense of distance, we must see that the darkest shadows and highest lights are in the foreground : and because we may not be able to materially alter things as the undiscriminating process gives them to us, we must seek for and select those scenes, those subjects, in which this arrangement of highest and deepest tones do come in the foreground, and then take care that our process renders them with fidelity, so that we may not lose the sense of their nearness or the feeling of greater distance of other planes which it is intended they shall give.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Tone and atmoshphere, p. 44-45

Feeling , Sense , Light

“There is a difference in printing greater depth to any portion with the negative and shading down without the negative. In the former case we get a deeper and stronger image, still preserving to a great extent the relative contrasts between the lights and shades in that portion. This is not always what we require. In order to concentrate attention upon that is, to emphasize, some particular spot, it may be desirable to shade down and flatten some portion.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Printing the picture and controlling its formation, p. 88

Light

“In selecting our subject then we have two things to consider. First, is it as good as the conditions will let it be - that is, have we chosen the point of view which, with the present conditions, shows at its best pictorially, and secondly, if taken from this point now, are the alterations we would like, weather or light, to make for us of such a kind that we can introduce them for ourselves when printing, and, if so, what are those alterations.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Part II : Practical Pictorial Photography, Some practical suggestions on the selection of the subject and a note on the subject of motive

Light , Weather

“… it may suggest whether a negative made by camera and lens is always an essential, or indeed if a negative at all is needed so long as we can produce a light-painted image at our will.”

Alfred Horsley Hinton

Source: Part II : Practical Pictorial Photography, Fidelity to nature and justifiable untruth, p. 24

Light , Painting