The ferrotype and how to make it - The Grian Press

COMPOSITION AND ILLUMINATION. 123
CHAPTER XI.
COMPOSITION AND ILLUMINATION.
Among Ferrotypists, and I might say among
Photographers generally, there is less known of,
and consequently less skill exhibited, in composi-
tion and illumination than in almost any other
particular of the art. More and more is the at-
tention of photographers being drawn to this sub-
ject ;
and justly so, for this has been the neglected
ground, while other, less productive fields, have
been thoroughly and almost exhaustively culti-
vated.
We find in photographic manuals and books of
leference long chapters treating of lenses, silver
baths, Collodions, etc., etc., but few give any in-
struction on the more important subjects of this
article; and even they, in such a scientifically ob-
scure manner as to afford very little information
or assistance to the operator in posing, draping,
and lighting a subject in order to produce an ar-
tistic effect.
It is certainly a good thing to know how to
make gun-cotton', to understand fully the proper-
ties and qualities of ether, alcohol and the salts
used for exciting Collodion ; how to compound or