Page 96 - The Wellington photographic handbook

FOR many years past, on the part of both amateurs and pro-
fessionals, there has been a tendency to abandon the large
camera, and to rely on enlargements from quite small
negatives when big pictures are required.'
This course has much to recommend it. Fast plates are now
so perfect that one of the greatest drawbacks to hand-camera
work has been removed, and on such papers as the WELLING-
TON Bromide, S.C.P. or B.B., enlargements leave nothing to be
desired on the score of quality.
In selecting suitable negatives for enlargement—or in making
negatives from which enlargements are likely to be required—the
reader should bear in mind that softness is to be preferred to bril-
liancy. A negative capable of making a good print with a reason-
ably short exposure on WELLINGTON Bromide or B.B. will
probably yield an equally good enlargement, although many
negatives are capable of giving better enlargements than contact
prints, and it often happens that enlargement is the means of
revealing unexpected charm in what seemed originally an unpro-
mising subject.
Enlarging is simply re-photographing, only for convenience
certain alterations are made in the disposition of the apparatus.
The photographer knows that as he gets nearer to his subject the
image gets larger on his focussing screen, and the camera has to
be extended more and more in order to secure sharp definition,
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