s in perspective,
the trunk as an item is unserviceable, as its branches start above the
point where the top line occurs, and can therefore render no assistance in
destroying an absolute vertical as has been done in the left tree by the
bifurcation, and the first on the right by the encroaching masses of
leaves. The eye follows the receding lines of roadway beneath the canopy
and is led out of the picture by the light above the hill. The last
arrangement is more formal than either of the others but gives us the good
old form of composition frequently adopted by Turner, Rousseau, Dupre, and
others, namely of designing an encasement for the subject proper, through
which to view it. For that reason after the arch overhead has been
secured all else above is cut away as useless. The print has been cut a
little on the right, as by this means the foreground tree is placed nearer
that side and also because the extra space allowed too free an escapement
of the eye through this portal, the natural focus of course being the
fountain where the eye should rest at once. It has been cut on the bottom
so as to exclude the line where the road and the grass meet--an especially
bad line, paralleling the bottom of the picture and line of shadow upon
the grass. This shadow is valuable as completing the encasement of the
subject on the bottom and in starting the eye well into the picture toward
its subject.

Our natural vision always seeks the light. Shadows are the carum cushions
from which the sight recoils in its quest for this. Letting the eye into
the picture over a foreground of subdued interest, or better still, of no
interest is one of the most time-honored articles of the picture-maker's
creed. If the reader will compare the first and last of these three
compositions he will see how in this respect the first loses and the last
gains. The element of the shaded foreground in the first was cut out in
preserving a better placement for the subject proper, which lay beyond.

[Photography Nearing the Pictorial]

The photographer comes upon a group of cows. "Trees, cattle, light and
shade--a picture surely!" Fearful of disturbing the cows he exposes at a
distance, then stalks them, trying again with a different point of sight
and, having joined them and waited for their confidence, makes the _third
attempt._ On developing, the first one reveals the string-like line of
road cutting the picture from end to end,