Chapter I: The Home and Its Possibilities

To the majority of amateurs, photography is a hobby to be ridden only on fair days and in pleasant weather; or it is thought of chiefly as a means of securing records of places and things seen during tramps abroad. But it is more than this, and those who follow photography merely as a summer pastime know but the half of it. In these pages we will discuss something of the other half, and set forth, in a plain and practical way, what the amateur should know about photography at home and its possibilities for the enlivening of the dull days or long winter evenings.

It has always seemed strange to me that, among the hundreds of books published for photographers, there should be less than half-a-dozen dealing with photography as a home craft. Amateur portraiture, photography by artificial light, the photographing of interiors, still-life and subject pictures, flowers and fruit, copying and enlarging, printing on fabrics and the making of photo enamels on china ware, with the innumerable applications of photography in decoration; all these are essentially home arts, and well within the capabilities of the average amateur equipment. Hence this attempt to make a little book about some of them.

More than this, I have long desired to interest the stay-at-homes, our womenfolk, in the gentle art of making pictures of that world wherein they hold the chief place. Who so well fitted as they, in patience and opportunity, to picture that supremely interesting panorama of life of which the home is the theatre? It is a world sadly neglected by photographers, but abounding in the most delightful picture material. The children at their play, the rooms which echo with their merry laughter, the toy corner where the mimic general, the rag doll, the grizzly bear and the woolly lamb, with a thousand other curios, are so tenderly laid away when bedtime comes. The master of the house enjoying a quiet smoke, the grandmother nodding in her easy-chair, the music lesson and little social gatherings—all these are simple subjects for the camera at home, full of pleasure in their interpretation, and afterward.

Beyond these things are the more prosaic business possibilities open to women well informed and skillful in the practice of photography. It is true that these possibilities have been all too glowingly enlarged upon by certain writers for the press, but they are not to be too lightly passed over. The first place in American portraiture today is held by a woman who, but a few years ago, began the practice of photography at home as an amateur. It is needless to remark that success of this sort results only from long and thorough experience in a special line of work, and it is equally obvious that photography at home offers peculiar advantages in the gaining of this experience at odd times and in leisure hours.

Let us begin with the understanding that photography at home presents no difficulties which cannot be overcome by ordinary intelligence, a little contrivance, and a few helps here and there. At first we may content ourselves with such apparatus as we already possess. Later we will see that special aids are desirable for special kinds of work, and that certain commercial conveniences are useful, and well worth their cost as saving time and labor. These we will discuss in their proper place. The one thing essential is a thorough knowledge of the conditions peculiar to photography indoors, and this will be our first consideration.