PHOTOGRAPHIC HANDBOOK.*
Asa skilful painter and a skilful photographer, Mr. Price possesses excellent qualifications for addressing the public on the processes and capabilities of photography. His manual is on an ample scale, entering in detail into every stage of the art, so far as the collodion process—the most extensively practised of all—is concerned; and truly the multi- plicity and imperative delicacy of the manipulations is enough to frighten a tyro, and almost to deter the uninitiated from venturing upon the work at all. Though ample, Mr. Price's book aims to .be as short and simple as possible; and it is not often that he transgresses the necessary limits of clear explanation.' One point which he puts more distinctly than we remember to have seen it propounded before is the theoretic and construc- tional correspondence needed between a good lens and the human eye, in order to enable the former to produce, like the latter, true images of ob- jects. This is one of those primary ideas which lie at the root of rea- soning on any such subjects, and which it is well to grasp firmly at starting. The writer is against the predilection which many of his brethren exhibit to large dimensions in photographic work, for their own sake, and believes in the permanence of the pictures, under due precau- tions. Founded as his own repute in the art mainly is upon dramatic combinations of figures—an attempt which we think inherently weak, and seldom even moderately, successful—he gives' full attention to the question of " Subjects, their Nature and Treatment." We do not doubt that students will find this book a clear, practised, and safe guide.
• A Manual of Photographic Manipulation, treating of the Practice of the Art and its various applications to Nature. By Lake Price. Published by Churchill.
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