Editors

"It should be a point for careful consideration, then, that with due consideration for perspective, lighting, etc., those clouds should be chosen for a landscape which, together with the landscape, will make a well-composed, well-balanced, and symmetrical whole."

"...to be able to say of a representation that it is "exactly like Nature " is by no means equivalent to saying that it is a fine picture."

"A picture whether or not it is really true to fact must above all things appear true."

"A little thought, however, will show that both aerial and linear perspective play as important a part in the heavens as on the earth beneath."

"… especially considering that the whole matter of applying photography to purely artistic ends is in such a state of infancy, and that this idea of deliberate violation of truth to fact, for the sake of securing truth to ideas, has hardly yet been put into practice."

"The texture of the printed image is of such peculiar character that neither brush or liquid paint seem capable of imitating it."

"The moment the eye perceives that the picture is produced by other than the professed means, the effect, the appeal to the imagination, is disturbed."

"Both with the negative in position and subsequently without it, every part of a large print is, maybe, thus printed in, piece by piece, a large print often occupying me two or three days."

"...let it be remembered that as photography is our chosen medium, then if photography unaided will give us the effect we want there is no especial virtue in altering it."

"There is a difference in printing greater depth to any portion with the negative and shading down without the negative. In the former case we get a deeper and stronger image, still preserving to a great extent the relative contrasts between the lights and shades in that portion. This is not always what we require. In order to concentrate attention upon that is, to emphasize, some particular spot, it may be desirable to shade down and flatten some portion."

"Art seeks ever to conceal the means by which its effects are produced and the method in which the work is wrought."

"Probably every photographer has at times found it convenient to print one part of a negative more than another or lias covered another portion during printing, thus deliberately making those portions lighter or darker, as the case may be."

"He (the photographer) has practically created a new thing out of materials gathered from nature; upon a foundation of fact he has allowed his imagination to build up an entirely fictitious scene, and the truth of the effect will depend upon how far his perceptions have been trained by studying nature at various times, so as to know how things might look under certain circumstances."

"Inferior as a mechanical printing method for ordinary photographic purposes, the gum process may for a time at least be regarded as standing apart for pictorial purposes, because the large amount of personal control which must be exercised before it can be said to show distinct advantages over other methods implies that the controlling hand must be guided by an artist that is, a man of such large instinctive artistic taste that one can hardly conceive that he would be able to produce a better result by painting, and without the use of photography at all, were he to devote the same skill and endeavour to the employment of brush or pencil, instead of photographic appliances."

"...skies and clouds were still regarded as something quite apart from the rest of the picture, and, indeed, are still so regarded by the less advanced."

"We are then brought to consider Platinotype, which, on the whole, may be regarded as the most suitable for general pictorial work. Its power of rendering relative tones and atmosphere is perhaps unequalled, whilst, although every one who has used it has sometimes wished that the undeveloped image were more visible, yet the pale, ghost-like print made by the light is very much better than nothing at all, and, indeed, may often be quite sufficient to guide us in our endeavours to control the action of light in a manner to be shortly described."

"In such a picture the artist may depart from actual fact, from what actually was, so long as he does not exceed what might have been."

"The chief characteristic of the pin-hole photograph is that we get a general suppression of focus in all parts the picture is nowhere quite sharp."

"It is often difficult and well-nigh impossible, when using the lens, to get all planes in moderate focus without getting one or some part excessively so, and similarly, if we avoid excessive sharpness in each and every part, some planes, such as the extreme distance or immediate foreground, so broken up as to destroy form and structure. Then it is that the pin-hole, with its equal focus in all planes and at any focal length, seems to recommend itself; but if it be desired to emphasize any object, by introducing more detail there than elsewhere, then the uniform sharpness of the pin-hole image fails us."

"As a rule, in pictorial photography a long-focus lens will on the whole be most satisfactory."

"With most of us, even without special training, there is a certain instinctive sense of proportion, and thus we recognize the relative distance of objects by their relative size."

"We know the mountain peaks are lofty, and we think of them so, and we mentally enlarge them, but not the cottage at their foot, or the trees half way up."

"But the quality of the result obtained by using a pin-hole to which its advocates attach most importance is the suppression of sharp focus over the whole image, no one plane being more sharply focused than another."

"The louder a sound is, the more we recognize it as being near, so the louder the "tone" of objects that is, the blacker or whiter the nearer they seem; and so if in our picture we wish to give a sense of distance, we must see that the darkest shadows and highest lights are in the foreground : and because we may not be able to materially alter things as the undiscriminating process gives them to us, we must seek for and select those scenes, those subjects, in which this arrangement of highest and deepest tones do come in the foreground, and then take care that our process renders them with fidelity, so that we may not lose the sense of their nearness or the feeling of greater distance of other planes which it is intended they shall give."

"It must be remembered that after all in making a picture we are endeavoring to set down on one plane various objects in such a way as to suggest an infinitude of varying planes, and hence we are justified in selecting such conditions of nature as shall help us to give the impression of truthfulness, even though it be not in particular cases absolutely true to fact."

"Very great care should then be taken to see that distant objects are rendered so as to appear distant that is, in correct relative tone when compared with the foreground or nearer portions."

"The objection to the shiny, highly polished surface of albumen and gelatine papers is that, besides the fact that the surface reflects false and disturbing lights, the very polish and gloss has an artificial appearance which, from its very superfine character, irresistibly reminds us of its origin and nature."

"The sky is as much an essential part of the picture as any other part of it, and indeed, in very many instances, constitutes the key-note and important feature of the whole idea."

"...strictly speaking, tone is the relative lightness and darkness due to the effect of light governed by atmosphere, and has nothing to do with the relative lightness and darkness or relative value with which various colours appear when compared with each other."

"If we are to select our subjects or arrange our groups with a pictorial motive we must absolutely and entirely sacrifice every other consideration, and be prepared to cut out of our composition the prettiest and most interesting item, if by so doing composition pure and simple is improved. And if some subject you are attached to will not admit of composition or will not admit of your treating it pictorially, then photograph it if you wish, but never suppose that it will form a picture."

"The prettiest or most interesting prospect may lack the conditions which awaken our emotions, and, lacking the essentials of the picture, must be passed by."

"Hence SELECTION in photography, or at least in landscape and some other branches of work, often takes the place of what in painting becomes voluntary COMPOSITION."

"The composition may be ever so carefully worked out, but it must appear unconsciously done. And so it will be best in most cases to depart slightly from precise and symmetrical arrangement, as though unintentionally, lest the endeavor to obey artificial rules betrays itself."

"The desire to see for the sake of seeing is with most people the only desire to be gratified; hence the delight in detail."

"… to put it into slightly different form, it is not the facts in nature that the good picture aims at portraying, but the effects of light and shade accompanied by a pleasing arrangement."

"…we might now formulate a maxim to the effect that art -- that is, in our case, pictorial representation --- employs the image of concrete things to create abstract ideas."

"In selecting our subject…there are two factors which it should be borne in mind are essential, and these are Expression and Composition"

"…the strongest part of a picture is the sensation and the feeling which it creates, this being done through the agency of certain familiar objects more or less accurately depicted and represented with more or less completeness. The MOTIVE, then, in all pictorial work is to convey some thought or idea or sensation by means of a chosen subject."

"Photography itself may err by inaccurately rendering the relative tones in Nature. Then we shall have to ask, What is " Tone "?..."

"…--- a view may include any number of interesting facts, may constitute a whole catalog of important and pretty items, and so be valuable as a view or as a record; but it would utterly fails as a pictorial composition."

"...he (a photographer) forgets that unless he has learnt when the tones of a picture are right or not, he will not know whether his work is good or bad, nor know what to try and overcome in future."

"It must ever be borne in mind that the prime object of all fine arts is to please through some or other of the emotions which it stirs."

"Once data are ruled out as arbiters among theories, those theories become pointless, just another clever intellectual game."

"It should be clear by now that there are people who can, in fact, be reasonably considered experts; that it is rational to rely, within limits, on expert opinion; and that it is possible, by exercising relatively simple criteria, to gain insight into whether a particular expert is reliable or not. It is also true that experts, of course, do make mistakes, and that even the agreement of a large majority of experts in a field does not guarantee that they got it right. That’s the nature of scientific truth, as we have seen throughout this book: it is tentative, because it is the result of a human endeavor that is limited both by the type and amount of available evidence and by humans’ finite mental powers and emotional reactions. But the examples above show how you can, with a little bit of practice, tell science from bunk!"

"Poetry, the noble brotherhood who speak in tones of harmony, grandeur & pathos."

"No nation is more abundant than Scotland in local bards that sing of streams & valleys & heathery hills"

"With all due respect for the title of professor. Vetulani, however, is a unique moron."

"The results led us to say that the so-called β-down-regulation is not (as it was believed in the 1970s and 1980s) a necessary and characteristic condition for the antidepressant action of drugs. In particular, this confirmed the result that citalopram, currently considered the most effective antidepressant from the group of selective serotonin inhibitors, does not cause β-down regulation, and the opposite effect. Jurek was completely not bothered by the fact that these results had narrowed down the earlier theory (his and Sulser's) regarding the mechanism of action of antidepressants. He believed, and often said, that a true scholar can not fall in love with his own theories and must know that sometimes they should be verified."

"Professor writes about the brain in a very approachable way, and from what he writes, the conviction that man is free is born. The message of his books influenced, among others, the emergence of several of my painting cycles. For me he is an authority, and I do not have many of them."

"The professor was a charismatic person, lectures and crowds of listeners gave him great pleasure. Undoubtedly, an additional feature that attracted crowds was his sense of humor, also in relation to himself. Not only lectures, but also ordinary conversations with Jurek were full of humor and jokes. He had an amazing personality. His energy, knowledge sharing did not diminish with age, but even being an extremely busy person because of his scientific activities and numerous lectures given throughout Poland, he never refused to lecture as part of the "Brain Week" and write an article. He is an unrivaled model of a neuroscientist, social activist and popularizer of science."