Frequently we have been requested by mail to give our method or rule for making the different lightings, as we have practiced them for years past. This, we feel sure, our readers will understand is a very difficult thing to do. It is a difficult matter to lay down a rule for lighting a face, and it is especially hard to put one's ideas into writing, so that all may understand just what the writer wishes to convey. Where we have our audience in front of us, and have the use of a skylight and a subject to demonstrate on, it is much easier, as we can then point out the different phases of lighting in a way that the oh-looker may see for himself, just the effect we are striving for. Again there is the problem of pleasing all operators. There are no two that can agree on all things, and few that will agree on any thing; and yet we are all working toward the same end — to secure a perfect negative. In many, many cases where two operators are at loggerheads, as to their methods, after the plates are developed from each, the work from one can not be distinguished from the other, and yet these men may be calling each other anything but pet names.
