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Industrial Division.

This class includes that great majority of the photographic world—the craftsmen. These men have learned the methods of their craft, and go on from day to day meeting the industrial requirements of the age, producing good useful work, and often filling their pockets at the same time. Their aim is utilitarian, but in some branches they may at the same time aim to give an æsthetic pleasure by their productions, but this is always subordinated to the utility of the work. When they aim at giving this æsthetic pleasure as well, they become art-craftsmen.

Amongst these craftsmen are included photographers who will take any one or anything if paid to do so, such forming what is known as “professional photographers.”

All reproducers of pictures, patterns, &c., by photo-mechanical processes, in which the aim is not solely æsthetic pleasure, as in reproducing topographic views. All plate makers. Transparency, opal, lantern-slide, and stereoscopic slide makers. All facsimile photographers; photographers of pictures, statuary, &c. All makers of invisible photographs, magic cigar photographs. All operators who work under the guidance of artists or scientists for pay, they not having artistic and scientific training themselves, as in the preparation of lantern slides for a biologist. All enlargers, operators, spotters, printers, retouchers, mounters, &c. Producers of porcelain pictures. Producers of facsimile type blocks and copper plates, with no artistic aim, et id genus omne. All photographs produced for amusement by the untrained in art or science. All photographers who produce pattern photographs, “bits” of scenery, and animals for draughtsmen to work from.

It will thus be clear to the student that all these photographers serve useful purposes and each is invaluable in his way, but we repeat the aim of the three groups of photographers is very different and quite distinct, as distinct as in draughtmanship are the etchings of Rembrandt, the scientific drawings of Huxley, and the pattern plates of a store catalogue. All are useful in their place, and who shall dare to say which is more useful than the other; but all are distinct, and can in no way be compared with one another or classed together any more than can the poems of Mr. Swinburne, the text of Professor Tyndall’s “Light,” and the Blue-books. All can be good in their way, but the aims and methods of the one must not be confounded with the aims and methods of the other, and we fear that such is the case in the photographic world at present.

“Amateur” and “professional” photographers.

There is one obstacle which we must clear from the student’s path in this introduction, and that is the confusion of the terms “professional” and “amateur,” as used in the photographic world; for in this world it must be understood that these terms are used as in no other world. Briefly, photographers mean by “professional” one who gains his living by photography, and an “amateur” means one who does not practise photography for his living. The folly of this is obvious, for by this definition the greatest English scientific photographer, Captain Abney, is an “amateur” and the sands photographer at Margate is a “professional.”

This anomalous definition of the two classes has led journalists into strange errors and mistakes. We remember one journal, which prides itself upon its accuracy, breaking into satirical writing because the judges at a certain photographic exhibition were to be “amateurs.” Of course the journalist who wrote that article used “amateur” in the ordinary English sense, and hence his amusement; but, as we have shown, he made a great error in fact.

In reality professional photographers are those who have studied one branch of photography thoroughly, and are masters of all its resources, and no others. It is no question of £ s. d., this “professional” and “amateur” question, but a question of knowledge and capacity. An amateur is a dabbler without aim, without thorough knowledge, and often without capacity, no matter how many of his productions he may sell. We think, then, the words “professional” and “amateur” should be abolished from the photographic world, until that day shall arise when there is a central training and examining body, that shall have the power of making real professional photographers, when all possessing a diploma would be professionals and all others amateurs.

A college of photography and diplomas.

We fondly hope that a college of photography may one day be instituted, where a good art and science training may be obtained, where regular classes will be held by professors and regular terms kept, and where some sort of distinguishing diploma as Member of the Royal Photographic College will be given to all who pass certain examinations. The M.R.P.C. would then have a status, and the profession which would then exist—but only exists as a trade now—would be able to draw up salutary laws for the government and good behaviour of its members, and the status of photography would be everywhere raised. The diploma of F.R.P.C. (Fellow of the Royal Photographic College) could be given to distinguish photographers at home and abroad as an honorary title.

But if such an institution is to have weight it must procure a charter. Money must be obtained to give honorariums to the lecturers, and the lectureships must be held by the best men. To begin with, all photographers in practice could be admitted upon passing a very simple examination in the subjects of elementary education and photography. If ever such a thing is brought about—and we trust it may be—we should find many gentlemen of education would join the ranks, as indeed they are doing now; and with the taste and education they brought to the work, we should see them working quietly in studios like painters, and the “show-case” and the vulgar mounts with medals and other decorations, and the “shop-window,” and the “shop-feeling” would all disappear. We need not despair if we will all do what is in us to kill “vulgarity,” for painters were not so well off as most photographers are now but a very few decades ago. What gives us hope for these golden days is the fact that we number in our ranks in some branch or the other probably more intellectual men than any other calling. We have an emperor, and quite a profusion of royal-blooded wights and aristocrats, whilst every learned profession gives us of its best. Law, medicine, art, science, all contribute largely important members to swell our ranks.

Here, then, we must end our introductory remarks, and we wish the student who comes to the study of photography with capacity and earnestness all success.

P. H. E.

Chiswick, July, 1888.