Arthur Hammond Quotes

39 Sourced Quotes

Practically speaking, the securing of true tones in a photograph depends entirely upon the exposure.

Arthur Hammond
A curved line, as a rule, will convey an impression of beauty more strongly than a straight line; a curve can be vastly more satisfying and pleasing than a tangent.

Arthur Hammond
Even if our range of tones is shorter and we have to compress the tones into a shorter scale, we can preserve truth of value only by keeping the tones in about the same relative proportions. We should make our lightest tone light and our darkest tone dark, and then get in as many tones as we can in between.

Arthur Hammond
Lines have expression, and by the use of lines alone we can suggest impressions.

Arthur Hammond
The laws of principality and unity, harmony and balance, must always be observed. The picture should tell one story, and only one.

Arthur Hammond
The picture-space should be filled, but need not be crowded, and it must be remembered that in judging balance, not only the masses of the subject, but also the shapes of the area remaining after being cut into by the outlines of these masses, have a bearing on the general design of the picture.

Arthur Hammond
There is another kind of perspective that is of great importance in picture-making. This is known as aerial perspective, and this kind of perspective imparts "atmosphere" and depth to a picture, and gives a suggestion of space and distance in an outdoor view.

Arthur Hammond
It is essential to have only one principal object of interest in a picture. Without it the picture is not completely satisfying, for the eye is apt to wander over the surface of the picture, seeking rest and finding none.

Arthur Hammond
The main object of interest should not be in the exact centre of picture-space, because that is where we imagine the fulcrum of the steelyard balance to be.

Arthur Hammond
A photograph can be made with an uncorrected lens, or with no lens at all by making an exposure through a fine needle-hole in a thin metal disc, and the result may be a picture showing the characteristic virtue of photography, the rendering of infinitely delicate gradations of tone. This is where photography stands alone, and this is the distinguishing quality which has given it a place among the fine arts.

Arthur Hammond
A view or a landscape will impress different people in different ways, just as a human individual will.

Arthur Hammond
But the fundamental element of picture-making is the cutting of the picture-space by lines or edges of tones, and this is what is known as "spacing".

Arthur Hammond
The lack of hard edges and the entire absence of that biting hardness of definition that is unavoidable with some lenses is just what the picture maker wants.

Arthur Hammond
The accuracy of the lens is often regarded as infallible, whereas, from the artistic standpoint, a lens is less accurate than the trained eye.

Arthur Hammond
The function of composition is to make a picture interesting, and the disposition of the lines in the picture, the opposition of lines, and their placing in the picture-space will all help in giving the desired interest.

Arthur Hammond
The composition in portraiture and figure studies may be constructive rather than selective, though it will be found that selective composition also plays an important part in portraiture.

Arthur Hammond
This is composition; knowing what to select, how to arrange, what to emphasize or eliminate and how to do it...

Arthur Hammond
I do want to make it clear that the success of the picture does not depend entirely upon the beauty of the subject, but mainly upon the manner in which the picture-maker uses his pictorial material.

Arthur Hammond
There is a tendency among "advanced" pictorialists to neglect the choice of an interesting subject and to trust to an effective pattern to make their pictures interesting. Such pictures are often interesting, but they are interesting more as studies in artistic technique than as pictures.

Arthur Hammond
I want to make it clear that the success of a picture, as a picture, does not depend upon topographical interest of the subject, but on the ability of the photographer to convey impressions of beauty or interest by his manner of treating it.

Arthur Hammond
The would-be picture-maker must learn to think pictorially; he must try to regard a picture as a pattern, as an arrangement of lines and shapes, making in themselves a pleasing and satisfying design, quite apart from the objects represented. The lines will form certain shapes, and the shapes will vary in tone; some may be light, some dark and some of intermediate shades of gray, which we call halftones.

Arthur Hammond
A small but noticeable patch of contrasting light or dark tone would more correctly be described as an accent than as a mass, and it will be found that, as a rule, an accent is needed to prevent a picture from becoming monotonous and uninteresting.

Arthur Hammond
The treatment of the subject is considered to be more important than the subject itself.

Arthur Hammond
The eye is, practically, a long-focus lens. It covers only a comparatively narrow angle, and in order to see as much as can be included in a picture made with a short-focus lens we have to move the eyes a little and look at the various objects in succession.

Arthur Hammond
A painter, by the skilful use of color, can make idyllic pictures in which a figure or a group of figures is not the dominant thing in the picture, but for a photographer this is more difficult.

Arthur Hammond
I am a firm upholder of and a strong believer in the merits of the straight print, not that I disapprove of hand work, but because I believe that hand work carried too far will tend to destroy the very quality that makes photography worth of being considered a fine art.

Arthur Hammond
The very word composition, defined as the "the act of composing; putting together; arranging in proper order," implies that the picture-maker must do something besides setting up his camera and letting it photograph just what happens before it.

Arthur Hammond
Where light falls on an object and is reflected back to the eye, we see a highlight; where it strikes at an angle and is reflected back other than directly to the eye we see halftones; where no direct light falls on the object we have shadows: and these highlights, halftones and shadows are modified by light reflected into them by other objects and by other parts of the same object.

Arthur Hammond
So photography, having a place among artistic processes, has its own distinguishing quality which cannot be duplicated by any other medium.

Arthur Hammond
For outdoor work, landscape and marine pictures, a long-focus lens is usually more satisfactory, because with it we can more easily isolate and emphasize the principal object of interest, and make it large enough without having to get too close.

Arthur Hammond