HF The History of Photography 600pág

which each time entailed retouching the joins. Reviewers were completely taken in
by the genuineness of this and other scenes of country life. 'Mr Robinson avoids all
appearance of trick, and all theatrical effect, by never troubling the costumier, or
"dressing" his figures. They are presented in the homely garb of actual life which
seems to befit them as naturally as the leaves belong to the trees.'8
Robinson's technique in building up his compositions can be seen from the
example illustrated in plate 109, a pencil sketch with one photographic figure set in.
To facilitate the work on his pictures, Robinson arranged in the back garden, both
of his studio in Leamington and later at Tunbridge Wells, a bank of earth covered
with ferns, wild flowers, or brambles, according to requirements, with a rivulet of
waste water from print washing. Sometimes the models were even photographed in
the studio, behind a foreground of turf, ferns, etc., placed on a movable platform.
The former arrangement is seen in another composition in which the joins between
the separate figures and the landscape background were smoothed out in a
grand retouching operation, after which the picture was rephotographed. Quite
possibly this picture was a rejected composition, for the mound did not merge
harmoniously with the landscape, and no amount of retouching would have made it
do so. Other pictures achieve the author's intention. Yet is this photography?
Decidedly not. It was scissor and paste-pot photomontage, and the final result could
in many cases have been achieved in a less roundabout way. Some compositions
would at the time have been technically impossible without photomontage. Without
artificial light no one could have photographed a group against a window, as in
'Fading Away', so Robinson built it up from five separate negatives. As for the outdoor
groups, the exposures necessary for such very large plates would have been too
long for the many models involved to keep still. Enlarging from smaller negatives
needed continuous sunshine, and was therefore not a practicable proposition. Robinson
attempted the impossible, from the technical as well as from the artistic point of
view. Twenty years later, when the technical difficulties had been overcome, he laid
down the axiom that no photograph which could be obtained at one operation
should be produced from several negatives, and that combination printing should be
reserved for those effects that cannot be obtained on one plate.9 However, he himself
did not keep to the rule. 'Carolling' (1887)-two girls and a flock of sheep in a landscape-
could undoubtedly have been taken at that time instantaneously, and the same
could be said of 'When the Day's Work is Done' (1877) which was made from six
negatives, and many others. Instead of taking pictures, picture-making by photography
had become an obsession with Robinson. And Robinson's word became
law, despite an occasional criticism such as that voiced by the editor of the Photo­
,Rraphic Art Journal apropos of photography's claim for recognition as a fine art :
'These hopes of it must be based, not upon the cleverness of combination printers,
but upon improvements in the art itself. We must develop pure photography.'10
A prolific and influential writer on pictorial photography, he contributed articles
to practically every photographic journal in the English language. In addition he
published between l 869 and 1896 a number of books which were translated into
several languages. The best known, Picture Making by Photography, was reprinted as
late as 1916-the best indication of Robinson's influence, not only in England, but
wherever pictorialists were at work.
ROGER FENTON, a pupil of Paul Delaroche, who had also been an exhibitor at the
Royal Academy in l 849-5 1, urged the members of the Photographic Society not to
make up scenery artificially but to photograph direct from nature; yet even he
occasionally succumbed to the pictorial heresy. His coy English models dressed up
'High art' photography 249