It's the same as it ever was...

I've been perusing the public domain texts on photography at www.archive.org

There's a lot of great stuff there. This really cracked me up...

From "Letters on Landscape Photography" by H.P. Robinson, published in 1888...

"The lens is always considered the most important of all the tools the

photographer employs. So it is, but I should like to say boldly that, within

limits, I do not care what make of lens I use. It is as well to have the best

your means will allow, but there has always been too much made of particular

variations in the make of lenses. It has been the fashion to think too much of

the tools and too little of the use made of them. I have one friend who did

nothing last year because he had made up his mind to buy a new lens, and could

not determine whose make it should be, and he was tired of his old apparatus.

His was of the order of particular and minute minds that try to whittle nothing

to a point. I have another friend who takes delight in preparing for

photography, and spends a small fortune in doing so, but never takes a picture."

Things haven't changed a bit.

"...minute minds that try to whittle nothing to a point..."

Brilliant.

Thanks for the post.

I have started reading the book, and so far it's one of the best books on photography I've ever read, and funny too.

Links to the book in several different file formats

http://www.archive.org/details/lettersonlandsca00robirich

Matt...thanks for sharing the site with us. If the internet was around in 1888, we'd probably have one forum for the traditionalists called 'wet emulsions' and another for 'dry emulsions'. The first group pride themselves in bringing the horse-drawn darkroom wagon on site where they can prepare the plates, and then return to develop and fix them. The young upstarts in 'dry emulsions' would talk about this guy named George Eastman, who just a few years ago came up with a process to put a dry emulsion on a flexible roll to be processed later.

The more things change...the more they remain the same.

<I>I have another friend who takes delight in preparing for photography, and spends a small fortune in doing so, but never takes a picture.</i><P>

That guy had a crystal ball.

There are a lot of great old books online. I went to www.archive.org, and searched the "texts" with the keyword "photography". Most are available in several file formats including straight text and pdf scans of the actual books.

Watch out for page to text file mis-translations though. I was reading a book on "The Processes of Pure Photography", and it started discussing the "processes of puke photography". That's an alternative process I have no interest in. ;)

To Bob Sharpe:

You don't know how right you are. I have a Kodak book on photography, copyright 1900 or so. Various photogs, some well known to this day and some not, each with their own chapter on a particular part of photography.

In that book, there's a pretty clear rift between the film guys and the glass plate guys, and another smaller rift between users of large film and smaller films. Sounds exactly like the early days of digital vs. film, but maybe worse because it's splintered 3 ways. The old hands state that glass plates are the only way to really learn the craft and produce high-quality results, while the people newer to the craft say that's a misconception, that newer films are plenty adequete to produce results at least equal to glass plates. Meanwhile the smaller format film guys are saying that size doesn't matter at all, and that their portable cameras are opening photography to the masses, with high-quality results.

Hindsight being 20-20, I think all 3 groups are right. Those glass-plate negs are gorgeous, no worries about flat film plane. But big film is almost as good, and 35mm is soooooooo portable....

But in the end, I say get the picture, to the best of your ability and your gear's capability. If it's good, print it. The equipment that takes the image from mind's concept to print has always been changing, and will continue to change, so don't waste too much time or effort there. Just use it well.

"I have another friend who takes delight in preparing for photography, and spends a small fortune in doing so, but never takes a picture."

Scary.