since our last Annual was published. Among them should be mentioned those of the veterans Alfred Stieglitz and Rudolph Eickemeyer in the Anderson Galleries in New York—and it is a significant testimony to the lure of our art that these masters of it have “come back”; those of Dr. H. B. Goodwin, of Stockholm, at the Brown-Robertson Gallery, and E. O. Hoppe, of England, at Wanamaker's, in New York; that of Clarence H. White, of New York, at the Art Center; the joint exhibition of prints of W. E. Macnaughtan and William A. Alcock, of Brooklyn, at the New York Camera Club, and of F. J. Mortimer and Alexander Keighley of England at the same place; and by Mrs. Antoinette B. Hervey, Miss Sophie Lauffer, Nicholas Muray, and F. O. Libby, with numerous others, that show the popularity of this method of placing good work before the public. Such exhibitions should be encouraged, for not only do they stimulate the exhibitor to show worthy work, but they are in the nature of spurs to the activity of every serious worker who has the privilege of seeing them.

As to processes that are in favor, the bromoil and the bromoil transfer still continue to attract a host of workers. European workers seem still to have access to better and cheaper materials for this work than we in America, as is evidenced by the number and quality of the prints that are produced in the Scandinavian countries and in Germany, where bromoil work has even acquired a commercial status among professional photographers.

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The question is sometimes raised whether the general public who attend photographic exhibitions are interested in processes as such. I think the question must be answered in the negative. It is the general effect that interests the outsider, and he cares not whether the print is a gum, a bromoil, a bromide, a platinum, or a palladiotype. We must beware lest we get enamored of a process rather than the result. I say this with no disrespect to the bromoilists, many of whom are gifted workers and endowed with art feeling. But we must remember that we are working to popularize photography as an art as well as to demonstrate our own artistic feeling and technical skill, and we ought not to lay too great stress on a difficult branch of our work, to the discouragement of those who would seek to share the delights of a beautiful recreation. The problem must be left to each individual. The beauty of a bromoil print, for instance, is supreme to its devotee: is its superiority to other processes worth the time and the toil necessary to make it, which might be devoted to the study of composition, of a wider range of subject, or to the mastery of simpler processes? Picture construction and print quality are after all the main things in photography, not the medium we use.

There is no royal road to distinction in photography, but each year sees some helps devised for the earnest worker, whether amateur or professional. For the amateur there is now an increasing variety of cameras and photographic material. New cameras are coming from abroad, among them a small French moving-picture machine, the “Sept,” which can be carried in the hand and with which, it is claimed, good “stills” may be taken as well as good regulation movie pictures. An auto-focus enlarger, at a comparatively small price, has also been put on the market for amateur use; and with the increasing use of small cameras and the adoption of simpler methods this may prove a boon to those who wish to make bromide enlargements more easily than they could by the older methods. It is to be regretted that platinum paper is not being manufactured in America for photographic purposes, for the quality of a choice platinum print is still regarded by many as unsurpassed, and many workers wish to see platinum resume its old place among the photographer's resources. Many “spotlight” machines and artificial illuminating devices have been put on the market, and with these the photographer will be equipped to play on his sitters the “light that never was on sea or land,” if he so desires. But the ingenious photographer who is quick to seize good lighting effects will not need the aid of artificial lighting, anymore than did the early master of photography, D. O. Hill, whose simple effects reached almost the finality of lens art.

Just here I might add a word as to the increasing coalescence of the amateur and the professional photographer in America. Strictly speaking, an amateur may [pg 12] be said to be one who gets no return in money for his work, while the professional's work is mainly financial in its object. The amateur photographer, however, finds his expenses heavy and the temptation strong to sell his pictures; while in America the professional photographer is frequently so much in love with the pictorial possibilities of his work that he loses sight of the financial end of it.

For the worker to get the real enthusiasm and benefit from photography, the thing now necessary to mark a distinct note of progress, or to make an outstanding year, is to have a great international exhibition, similar to the one held in Buffalo in 1910. This, I am glad to say, is already planned for next year, to be held in New York City, which, although the great center of activity, has never had an exhibition of this kind.