London Films

Whoever carries a mental kodak with him (as I suspect I was in the habit of doing long before I knew it) must be aware of the uncertain value of the different exposures. This can be determined only by the process of developing which requires a dark room and other apparatus not always at hand; and so much depends upon the process that it might be well if it could always be left to some one who makes a specialty of it as in the case of the real amateur photographer. Then one's faulty impressions might be so treated as to yield a pictorial result of interest or frankly thrown away if they showed hopeless to the instructed eye. Otherwise one must do one's own developing and trust the result whatever it is to the imaginative kindness of the reader who will surely if he is the right sort of reader be able to sharpen the blurred details to soften the harsh lights and blend the shadows in a subordination giving due relief to the best meaning of the print. This is what I fancy myself to be doing now and if any one shall say that my little pictures are superficial I shall not be able to gainsay him. I can only answer that most pictures represent the surfaces of things;