Photography is a lie. Just think about it: photographers create two-dimensional images that sometimes even lack color and then expect everyone to believe that this is how it was in real life. What is truly amazing is that people fall for it way too easily—almost like they want to be deceived. It gets better: people still believe that you can only photograph what is really there. I am certainly not going to deny that a lens (an optical system that focuses light inside a camera) sees only what is in front of it, but believe me, it is not that simple. It just so happens a photographer and a camera standing between the viewer and reality inevitably distort the latter, intentionally or not. The individual features of a photographer’s perception and the technical limitations of his equipment make him do things that may eventually make a picture look
very different from how a viewer would see the same scene with their naked eye. Consequently, a photographer who is not aware of his inherent ability to distort reality can ruin a picture simply by taking it. Fortunately, there are some good photographers out there. Who are these people? They are the ones who understand the aforementioned constraints and use them deliberately to adjust the level of truthfulness in their pictures.
a dditional Materials
Additional materials to accompany this book are available for download at www.AmherstMedia.com/downloads. p assword: deception.
What Is a Good Photograph?
Once, I was sitting in a coffee shop and waiting for an art director who was late for our meeting. I had absolutely nothing to do but to eavesdrop on a conversation at the table next to mine. The dialogue unfolded as follows:
Person 1: Do you remember a picture that I showed to you last week?
Person 2: Vaguely. What was it?
Person 1: Well, it was a blond woman—a real babe. And some trees.
Person 2: Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.
Person 1: But . . . She looks you straight in the eye and she’s got this dress. You know.
Person 2: Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s right! Listen, Stanley Cup is on tonight. Wanna come over to watch it on my 55-inch flat screen?
Person 1: Cool, I’m in! The girl’s hand is on her lap. It is just so beautiful, right?
Person 2: Yeah, it’s cool. Just wanted to ask you, who is she? Quite a looker! Hook me up, will you?
Person 1: She is just a coworker. Married and all.
Person 2: Why the hell did you take her picture then?
Person 1: What do you mean “why”? It is just so beautiful!
Person 2: How often do you have to change the front tires on your RX7?
This surreal conversation carried on for another good twenty minutes or so, until they had paid up and left. Listening to them was quite a treat; one kept trying to talk about a photo, which he apparently had taken recently, while the other was desperately trying to steer the conversation in some other direction. It was
really farcical and, at the same time, very serious from a photographer’s point of view. Why didn’t the guy want to talk about the picture? I mentally placed myself in his shoes. Obviously, he wasn’t interested. That could be caused by two things: either photography just wasn’t his thing or this particular portrait of a blonde in a dress in front of trees did not tickle his fancy.
I am inclined to accept the second version as the more plausible explanation. In my experience, a good photo can touch anyone with eyesight, no matter how well he or she can handle a camera.
What Is “Good”?
So why do we all seem to agree that one photo is great while another one is a flop? What are the criteria that allow us make a clear distinction between the two—and why is this important at all? Essentially, all of these questions boil down to a fundamental one: “How can photographers succeed in achieving global recognition?” This perspective leaves no doubt about the relevance of the question, does it?
Of course, when it comes to photography, not everyone sets out to conquer the world, but I have yet to meet a person who wouldn’t like his pictures to be seen with genuine interest rather than polite impatience.
What is good? And how is it different from bad? There is no universal recipe for “quality” in art. Moreover, due to the subjectivity of human perception, it is impossible to create a masterpiece that will be equally (or even just a little bit) liked by everyone. However, a knowledge of the basic criteria of visual harmony really helps you to consistently take pictures that will not make spectators drowsy.
artistic and Technical Criteria
Back in my high school, our compositions were graded with two marks on a scale from 1 to 5.
The first mark was for content, while the second one was for presentation. It always hurt so badly to get something like 5/2—or, even worse, the other way around! Well, it just so happens that the grading system in photography is practically the same: a combination of artistic and technical criteria.
At this point, you may be thinking, “Shouldn’t we be talking about lies?” Well, yes! Essentially, a basic activity of almost any photographer is manipulating the viewer’s consciousness for money or for personal enjoyment. In order to do that, there is a set of technical and creative means that must be used flawlessly to make the lies convincing and thrilling (figure 1.2).
Technical excellence
The fundamental criterion of technical excellence is whether the photo conforms to your intentions of how it should look. Besides that, particular criteria such as sharpness, exposure, composition, cleanness (absence of sensor dust, spots, scratches, etc.), and print quality (smoothness of color gradations, color fidelity) will help you determine objectively whether or not there is something wrong with the technical quality of your picture.
In most cases the image (or at least its semantically important part) must be sharp, exhibit a full tonal range, and present a balanced composition. On the other hand, motion blur can make the picture more dynamic and a predominance of black or white tones will greatly affect its emotional content. A slight misbalance in the composition or clashing colors may change the perception of the image immensely. It is important that any “wrongness” lend a predictable contribution to the viewer’s perception of the picture. (It is useful to remember, by the way, that statements like “this is my artistic vision” are just excuses that do not make the photograph even a bit finer. If you want to
use some unconventional approach, you better be sure that it is indeed going to improve your picture.)
For a photographer, presenting a picture before an audience is not unlike an oral exam in which technical excellence is expected. It is there, before the audience, that it becomes clear that a good photo is something more than, say, a telephone directory that is beautifully laid out and printed without a single spelling mistake.
If your picture causes responses like “great composition” or “wonderful lens choice,” you may safely consider it a failure. Techniques are just means of expressing an artistic vision in visual metaphors. In this sense, photography is amazingly similar to poetry; the ability to rhyme words is clearly not sufficient to be able to come up with something like this (from The First Kiss of Love by Lord Byron):
When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past—
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove—
The dearest remembrance will still be the last, Our sweetest memorial, the first kiss of love.
This example is rather straightforward, so allow me to make a parallel with Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. Despite radically different formats and styles, both pieces are similar in the sense that no one in their right mind would say that Byron was actually talking about the temperature-lowering effects of age—or that Pushkin’s story was about one good-for-nothing playboy shooting another because of a neighbor’s daughter. Good poetry is never literal; neither is good photography.
f igure 1.3
A good portrait is never about a sharp and well-exposed image of a face, beautifully turned into the light. A spectator will see not just an eye color and the shape of a nose, but also the character—wisdom, vanity, kindness, deceit, bravery, femininity, etc. A good landscape is not about a sunset, or a waterfall, or a mossy stone. It is about freshness, heat, solitude, danger, tranquility, etc. A good reportage image goes beyond a picture of an airborne paratrooper shooting his machine gun left and right. It shows heroism, or perhaps the senselessness of violence.
subjective Perception
You must have figured out by now that a work of art should operate by abstract, universal ideas. Why? Because your spectator is a lazy, self-centered egoist who is not going to spend a second on something that he or she does not find interesting and easy to comprehend. People are interested in things that are significant to them, and it is universal ideas that have an ability to feel important on a personal level. It means that a viewer is more interested in what a picture conveys than what it shows.
Some readers may object along these lines: “How can they not like this sunset? I took a picture of it eight years ago, and every time I see it, the memories take my breath away! How come they do not feel it? It’s probably because I’m so refined and sensitive and they are just pachydermatous ignoramuses!” Astonishingly, such an opinion may be completely legitimate. The photographer, indeed, feels more while looking at this picture than anyone else does. This is not, however, because the viewers are insensitive morons.
The secret here lies in what is called subjective perception. The photographer feels passionate about this picture because it is an anchor to events that happened when it was
taken: the wash of waves, the smell of seaweed, a sense of freedom because it was the first day of a vacation, etc. The rest of humankind, however, was not there when the photo was taken; for them, it is just a sunset. That is where an advantage of working with general concepts really shows. They are universally understood and cannot be argued. Therefore, anyone can identify with them.
Looking at a picture that conveys a fundamental concept—for instance, joy, sorrow, boredom, or suspense—the viewer feels an emotion caused by perceiving it, just like anybody else seeing the image would (figure 1.3). That, of course, includes the person who took the picture. As a result, the viewer ends up sharing an experience with the photographer. It is the sharing that makes them both feel like they have something in common.
This is always a powerful and profoundly pleasant experience. You must have had it more than once—that moment when you suddenly felt a tide of sympathy for a total stranger who happened to share your musical preferences or who liked the same movie. When it comes to showing a photo to someone, this effect may be even more powerful because a viewer realizes that only you and nobody else could give him this pleasure, since you took the picture. You, in turn, are grateful to the viewer for his sincere appreciation of your work of art.
The emotion caused by such an experience is profound enough to become associated with the image, which makes it stick in the viewer’s memory for a long time. Emotions are easy to memorize, as they are registered directly; information is perceived only by association.
“That’s easy for you to say!” you may just have thought. “All you have to do is shoot conceptual visual metaphors and you are fated for success. But how do I do it?” Just calm down— there is a book full of tricks ahead!
What Makes a Photograph happen?
Attention! The next few sections touch on aspects of photography extensively described by many authors, starting with Ansel Adams himself. Hence, they will be discussed only in terms of their relevance to the deceptive nature of photography. The remainder of the chapter (even though it also addresses topics extensively covered elsewhere), is more detailed due to its importance to the subject.
f igure 1.5
exposure
One principle of the photographic process is simple: an image is projected through the lens onto an image-recording medium of some sort. For more than a century, photographers relied upon the light-sensitive properties of silver halides to record images. These days, most cameras are digital (i.e., instead of capturing images on film covered with tiny grains of silver bromide
entrapped in gelatin emulsion, they employ a high-tech, light-sensitive device called a sensor). In order for all the colors and tones to look real, a precise quantity of light must reach the sensor. Now, what happens if the quantity of light reaching the sensor is less than is needed for things to look real? The picture looks darker, and the colors are more saturated (figures 1.5, 1.6). If more light gets to the sensor than was required, the picture will look brighter and the colors will lose their punch. So, things will not look the way they really are. (By the way, do you remember the definition of a lie?)
Basic camera settings essentially determine how the resulting image looks. By altering the aperture and shutter speed, we can change reality and create the illusion of motion (figures 1.5, 1.6)—or the lack of it. Responding to changes in the exposure settings, unnecessary details in the background can disappear into a complete blur (figures 1.7, 1.8), or hide in a shadow, or blend with a highlight.
Understanding how these changes in camera settings affect the image is what makes our results predictable—at least to a degree. For instance, the sinusoidal pattern in figure 1.5 is the result of a wavy camera movement combined with a 1/4 second shutter speed. The fairly well-defined silhouettes on a blurred back-
ground in figure 1.6 were created by panning the camera in sync with the figures’ motion at 1/10 second.
Balancing a studio (or other) flash with ambient light is another way to create an illusion (figure 1.7). It is the fact that shutter speed has no effect on flash exposure that enables tricks of this nature. The flash duration is usually shorter than 1/600 second, and its light output can be adjusted. Hence, its exposure depends only on the flash power output and camera lens aperture. The amount of ambient light, on
igure 1.7
f igure 1.6
f
the other hand, is a function of aperture and shutter speed. So, setting the exposure for the ambient light first and then adjusting the flash
output as desired enables full control over how bright the foreground and background will come out.
f igure 1.8
I can foresee a question here. If the flash is bright enough to expose the foreground perfectly, how come it is not flooding the whole room? Well, this is because (excluding cases of some exotic light sources like lasers and parabolic projectors) light always dissipates in a predictable fashion in accordance with the Inverse Square Law, which we will discuss in more detail in the next section of the book. Without digging into scary formulas, the practical implications of the law are very simple: if the distance from the flash to a person in the foreground is 1.2–1.5m (4–5 feet), the light spill from the flash on the background, which is 4.5–6m (15–20 feet) away, will be negligible for all practical purposes.
depth of Field
Understanding how the depth of field can be influenced by aperture change opens up another possibility for getting predictable amounts of detail. Fast lenses can blur a background so much that it becomes practically indecipherable—especially with long optics (figure 1.8). When shooting small objects, however, even
slower aperture values produce a similar effect. In fact, I set the aperture to f/8 to take a picture of a hummingbird (figure 1.9) to prevent important details from falling out of focus.
Wide-angle lenses, on the other hand, easily register everything from just a few feet away to infinity once you stop down just a few clicks. Due to the inherently large depth of field, even
f igure 1.10
f igure 1.9
at full aperture, throwing the background out of focus is not possible. Figure 1.9 is an example of a photo shot with a Leica Summilux 35mm f/1.4 at full aperture. This is precisely the reason why 28mm and 35mm lenses are so popular among street photographers and landscape shooters. Just set it to the hyperfocal distance and fire away (figure 1.11).
Understanding how camera settings can transform reality is not enough to actually do it. To present the world the way you want people to see it, you need to be in control of your gear. Today’s cameras are marvels of artificial intelligence that is eager to take over. With a level of patience that only machines possess, today’s cameras wait for you to set them in a fully (or semi-) automatic mode and render yourself a prisoner of technology. Autofocus and autoexposure are capable of producing excellent
results, but most of the time these are not the results that you want.
Controlling your camera manually is no more difficult than throwing yourself into the deceptive embrace of automation—it just requires a different (and now mostly forgotten) set of skills that your grandparents used every time they took a picture of your mom or dad playing in a sandbox.
igure 1.11
f igure 1.12
What Makes a Photograph Visible? p
It is not my intention to scare you with formulas describing what light does while passing through a medium or between two mediums with different refraction coefficients. You can scare yourself plenty by reading textbooks on the fundamentals of optics. Instead, with minimal use of clever vocabulary, I will try to help you grasp the principles of how light works and learn how to control it so you can predict and reproduce the results that you want.
direction
First, let us try to figure out what light can do for you. Start by standing in a room lit just by one window and observing what the light does. It does not take much to notice that it comes in a particular direction, which is evident from the highlights on and shadows cast by the objects standing in its way (figure 1.12). It is dra-
art
1: The properties of light
matically different from what happens outside on an overcast day when it is nearly impossible to figure out where the light comes from, because there are no shadows. Since it is the shadows that make things visible in a photo (in a black & white one, anyway), understanding where the shadows come from is crucial to a photographer’s ability to create the illusion of depth.
Now, imagine yourself outside under the overcast sky. Unlike on a cloudless day, when the sun acts like a point light source, the light on people’s faces is now soft and virtually shadowless. This is because we have a gargantuan translucent screen shading the sun. This, along with softening the sunlight, also diffuses it in all directions. Hence, no shadows. In a studio, a similar kind of lighting can be created by putting a large diffusion screen between a studio
f igure 1.13
f igure 1.14
flash and an object. However, unless the screen is exceptionally large, the light will still be directional since it will be coming from one side.
Diffusion can also be achieved by reflecting light from a rough surface. On a macro level, light acts like a stream of particles. Therefore its angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection—much like when a ball bounces off the edge of a pool table. On an uneven surface, the angle of incidence is different at every point. This causes light to reflect in many different directions, scattering the rays for a diffused look. If you use a mirror, on the other hand, the re-
flection will be predictable and can be precisely controlled. Photographers extensively use reflection from rough and mirrored surfaces to redirect and/or diminish the light to create an illusion of depth.
The Quality of light
Another interesting phenomenon you might notice is that different light sources produce different shadows from the same object. The smaller the light source is, the “harder” the shadows are (note the shadows cast by the saltshakers and a sugar bowl in figure 1.13) and vice versa (figure 1.14).
The property of light that is responsible for the width of the shadow edge transfer is called the quality of light. Light that produces a wide transition (a gradual shadow edge) is called soft; light that produces a narrow transition (a sharp shadow edge) is called hard. It is the relative size of the light source, not its actual dimensions, that determines this. For instance, the sun is larger than any other light source in the solar system, but direct sunlight produces notoriously hard shadows. A 3x4-foot window facing north, on the other hand, looks like nothing compared to the sun—but it is large relative to a subject’s face, so the light from it is extremely soft.
The Quantity of light
One of the most frequent misconceptions perpetuated among beginning photographers is that “softness” is the same thing as “low contrast,” while “hard” means “contrasty.” The only thing that can be farther from the truth is that hard physical labor makes you smarter. The problem stems from a lack of understand-
ing of the difference between the quality and the quantity of light. The difference is indecently simple. The quantity of light is a value that depends on the intensity of the light, its angle of incidence, and the distance from the light source to the subject. The quality of light, as we have just established, is simply the width
of its shadow edge. Contrast is essentially a difference between the darkest and the brightest part of a scene; this pertains to the quantity of the light, rather than its quality.
Even though light quality and light quantity are two different animals, there is some relationship between them. In the case of a
f igure 1.16
single light source, the contrast does change with the distance between the subject and the light source. The shorter the distance is, the softer the shadows and the higher the contrast will be. This is easily explained by the Inverse Square Law, which I still remember from my high school physics course.
According to this law, in the case of a point light source (an imaginary light source with a diameter equal to zero), the intensity of the incident light is inversely proportionate to a square of a distance between the source and an object of incidence. For a real light source, with finite dimensions, the relationship is not that simple—but for describing behavior of contrast, an approximation holds for distances five and more times larger than the diameter of the light source.
Since the quantity of the light decreases as the square of a distance, it does not take a genius to realize that increasing the distance,
say twofold, will result in a fourfold (2 stop, in photographic parlance) drop in the quantity of the light. This phenomenon has a potential for deception that cannot be underestimated. By positioning our lights and subjects in the frame in a certain way, we can create an illusion of twilight or even complete darkness in bright daylight. All it takes is overpowering the sun, which is much easier than you might think (figure 1.15). Conversely, you can use daylight to overpower fairly bright indoor lighting, which is easier yet (figure 1.16).
Now, if this is really the case, how come the results are so dramatically different from what the naked eye sees? This is because the eye is not a camera; it is a scanning device. A scene that we see is a composite created by our brain from several images of possibly very different brightness. While scanning through the scene, the iris in our eyes constantly oscillates, opening up for darker parts of the scene and con-
stricting for brighter ones. The camera’s sensor does not behave this way, so it has a substantially lower dynamic range than the eye. This results in much higher contrast in our photos than what we see in real life.
Modern cameras and computer software can imitate the behavior of the human eye by taking several identical images at different exposure levels and then creating a composite with the highlights, midtones, and shadows derived from different images. This technique is called HDR (high dynamic range) photography; it is widely described elsewhere.
Hence, thoughtful use of the Inverse Square Law opens up great possibilities for manipulating reality: to hide or highlight certain details of the image, to balance composition, and even to create a certain mood.
Now, let us get back to our experiment. Simultaneously with contrast rising, the light
f igure 1.17
source (provided it is not a point light source, which is always a point no matter how close it is) becomes larger compared to the face and, therefore, the light becomes softer—which is great for portraits (figure 1.14). If we reverse the situation, the contrast drops while the lighting becomes harder. Indeed, if you illuminate an elephant with a pocket flashlight from 6 meters (20 feet), he will cast a hard shadow; if you use the same flashlight on a pea from 5cm (2 inches), the shadow will be soft. Just try it tonight when it gets dark: one pea and one elephant is all you need if you already have the flashlight.
Manipulating the tonal contrast of a scene is possible in two ways (I am not discussing how to do it in postproduction; this book is about how to lie with your camera, not with Adobe Photoshop). The first way is one we have already discussed: the contrast can be adjusted by changing the distance between the light source and the
subject, according to Inverse Square Law. The problem with this approach is that it also alters the quality of the light, making it sometimes impossible to attain the desired light quality at a given contrast (like try to change the distance between you and the sun).
The second way is much more convenient, although it requires some additional equipment. The fundamental idea behind it is that you can have more than just one light source illuminating your subject. In this instance, the contrast depends on not only the distance between the light source and the subject but also the light ratio (the power outputs) of the light sources. It sounds complicated until you realize that, now,
the distances between the lights and the subject can be kept constant. This method is discussed in-depth in numerous textbooks on studio photography.
light Color
Color is another property of light that makes our life more exciting, yet harder to manage with a camera. However, there is a bright side: colors can be manipulated. Since colors have their own semantic content and a great power over human emotions, altering the color content and balance in an image can distort and even completely change the look, feel, and very meaning of a scene. For instance, the warm f igure 1.18
yellow-orange tint seen in figure 1.17 creates a false sensation of opulence, which (under closer examination) is not there. Figure 1.18 feels cold yet light—all because it is predominantly white. Figure 1.19, on the other hand, is “dark” in every sense of the word. We will discuss the deceptive properties of color in much greater detail in chapter 2.
Color contrast is easy to comprehend: it is said to be higher when the colors are farther apart on the spectrum scale (the one that normal people call a rainbow). Imagine an orange on a blue background, and you are instantly an expert in what high color contrast is.
Tonal contrast is pretty much a no-brainer when you do not take colors into account. You should never assume that a picture with high color contrast will be just as contrasty when the colors are taken out. Just compare figures 1.20a and 1.20b
Mixing the light
We have not yet considered the importance of where light comes from. I took this liberty because everything discussed so far applied equally to both natural and artificial sources. In real life, however, we need to make decisions about whether to use natural or artificial light and about how these should be mixed.
Studio lighting is easy in the sense that you have enough power to create any lighting pattern that comes to mind. Once you step outside, things get complicated. What if you want to light the universe? Well, maybe not the whole universe, but a substantial part of it—for example, a city block? In that case, no matter how much lighting equipment you bring, the
scene will still require something more than electric light. Fortunately, it is always there, and it is always available; it is called ambient light. It is the lighting that is provided by all the light sources around you—windows, storefronts, street lights, the moon and stars, and the city lights reflecting from the clouds. Usually it is rather dim, but it is still substantial enough to be useful. All you have to do is mix it properly with flashes and it can look like you had a Hollywood-scale budget at your disposal. For example, figure 1.21 was shot on New Year’s night in 2008. It would have been pitch-dark, if it were not for the street lights and Christmas decorations. The lighting on the couple of criminals that killed Santa was provided by a porta-
f igure 1.19
f igure 1.20a
f igure 1.20b
ble flash generator (Broncolor Mobilite) with a 3x3-foot softbox. Clearly, this would not have been enough to illuminate the background and snowflakes 10 feet above people’s heads.
The solution was simple: at ISO 800, the flash was set to f/4, but the exposure was measured for the available light, which yielded a shutter speed of 1 second. The flash duration was approximately 1/600 second, which left the shutter open for almost 1 second after the flash did its thing. The models were instructed to stand still and it was dark enough for any slight movements not to be registered on their faces
and hands, which was critical. The slight ghosting next to the woman’s left leg is not a problem, as it adds a sense of movement and plays well with light streaks in the background that look like motion blur. In fact, if you underexpose the ambient light for more than 1 stop (which was the case here), ghosting is so inconsequential that you can shoot without a tripod at shutter speeds that usually require steady support.
Underexposing the ambient light is a technique that can also be used in bright sunlight. This is especially useful when you are shooting indoors and still want some detail in the
windows. Figure 1.22 is an example of this technique. The flash was set to f/11. For this aperture, the window light required an exposure of 1/60 second—but the picture was shot at 1/200 second. That is why the windows look so blue. What you may mistake for window light on the dancers’ faces was, in fact, a softbox standing next to the window. Without the flash, the windows would be overexposed.
Flash usually has a color temperature that is different from the ambient light; that can be used to your advantage. In figure 1.23, the difference in the color of the flash and the incandescent lights on the building creates the illusion that the man is bathed in moonlight.
A super important thing to remember is that cameras with focal plane shutters are limited by their flash-sync speed. This can be a real problem when shooting in bright daylight with wide apertures. An attempt to use a faster shutter speed severely darkens the lower part of
a horizontal image in cameras with a vertically traveling focal plane shutter. Older cameras with horizontal focal plane shutters (like film Leica M cameras) will darken the right side of the picture. This usually just ruins a photo. The problem is easy to tackle by using a polarizer or a neutral density filter. Figure 1.24 was lit with a flash head powered by a portable generator. The trick here was that the flash overpowered the sun. It effectively made the flash the main light while the sun provided fill. To accomplish that at 2pm on a bright sunny day, I had to shield the model from the sun with a diffusion screen. Keeping the aperture at f/4 was important to prevent the background from being too sharp. Even at ISO 100, the ambient light was bright enough to command a shutter speed of 1/400 second. A polarizing filter reduced amount of light passing through the lens by 2 stops, which was enough, as the flash-sync speed for the camera used was 1/90 second. f igure 1.22
f igure 1.23
f igure 1.24
What Makes a Photograph
To understand artificial light, let’s talk about something that you already know: natural light.
Natural light photos (figure 1.25) look beautiful for many reasons. The one that I consider the most important is that natural light does not detract from the subject matter. We are accustomed to it, not even acknowledging its presence. As a result, it is the subject, not the lighting, that becomes the main feature of the photograph. A comment like, “My god—your lighting is so beautiful!” usually means that the lighting is better than everything else in the picture. Hence, the photographer failed to deliver. When light is used correctly, the chance that it will compete with the story is next to none.
With some skill, natural light is relatively easy to deal with. It does not annoy models with constant flashing or unbearable heat, and
Visible?
p art 2: When the sun is not enough
it does not cost you anything. So, what’s the catch? There is always a catch, right? Of course there is.
As beautiful and stunning as natural light is in photography, it has some major limitations. Availability is the first on the charts. When time is important, like in commercial photography, it is a great hindrance to rely exclusively on natural light. In such intense fields as fashion and advertising, photographers are always on a deadline. They just cannot afford to wait for suitable lighting conditions—or even for the sun to rise. Indeed, the problem is so serious that photographers have invented all kinds of devices to help them fake natural light one way or another.
To a lesser (yet equally annoying) extent, natural light is often unpredictable. In the morning and evening, its color temperature
f igure 1.25
changes dramatically within just an hour. Also, natural light is not easily controllable. You cannot really order the sky to become a couple of stops brighter, nor can you tilt the sky down just a few degrees.
Not knowing when will be a good time to shoot, dealing with low light levels that make camera and subject motion problematic, addressing color temperature changes, and facing difficulties with adjusting, shaping, and directing the light—there are a whole myriad of frustrations that can make artificial light a more appealing choice.
Faking nature
While shooting in a studio, most of our time and energy is spent on attempts to imitate natural light. This is all because a truly great studio portrait looks like it was shot not in a studio but, rather, in the most natural and favorable conditions. Obviously, there are exceptions when a photographer is going for a strikingly unnatural look, but it is the understanding of how to make things look natural that gives you an
ability to twist light in any way you want—not the other way around. This being the case, the goal of this section is to demonstrate that you can create such natural looking and favorable conditions using any type of lighting. Here, we will focus on studio techniques, as the studio affords the ultimate control over pretty much everything, lighting included.
Figure 1.25 is a natural light photo. It was shot with no light modifiers of any kind, not even a reflector, and sustained no retouching. This is an example of a rare instance of ideal lighting conditions. Note the large catchlights, very soft shadows, gentle contouring highlights, and well-defined hair and fabric texture. Of course, to capitalize on the ideal conditions, you must first notice them. Learning in a studio is one thing that helps make us aware of lighting in any situation.
As discussed in a previous section, light can be described by its quality (the width of the shadow-edge transfer) and quantity (the tonality and contrast). These properties of light determine how and where a certain type of lighting can be used.
Carefully studying natural light pictures and paying attention to subtle details helps us understand what to demand from a picture taken with artificial light. The key is to set the lights in such a fashion that the result does not defy logic. For instance, when you are trying to imitate window light, round catchlights will tell a viewer that either the window is round or you have no idea what you are doing. If something looks strange, or even is just a bit too noticeable, change it or downplay it.
Playing with Quality
The term “quality of light” is somewhat misleading; it may lead you to believe that light can be good or bad. In reality, it is a bit more complicated (or maybe just plain simple, de-
f igure 1.26
pending on how you look at it). “Good” lighting is the lighting that best suits your purpose. If it requires hard light, then hard is good and soft is bad. The opposite is also true.
Hard lighting feels edgy, energetic, and even dangerous. Soft light is the opposite; an interior lit by soft light makes a soothing background for a portrait, for instance. Consequently, if you need a tender portrait of a child, hard light will probably be a really bad choice. For a photo of a femme fatale, soft light will not work well.
Soft light is often difficult to imitate because it requires very large light sources or reflecting surfaces, and yet the benefits that it provides are impossible to discount. If you need to make a subject look younger, a piece of jewelry look more expensive—or, for that matter, if you want anything or anybody to look more rich and delicate—this is your solution (look back to figure 1.14). In other words, soft light is a great tool of deception.
However, as great as soft light is for this purpose, it cannot be used indiscriminately. Like everything in photography, softness has its price; for the tender subtlety of tonal gradations, you have to shell out. Soft lighting dulls out colors, smooths textures, and makes hair look flatter. However, even though soft light is not always suitable, a common trend in mainstream studio portraiture is to use it anyway. Photographers tend to shy away from hard light because it is much more difficult to use. In fact, the frequent improper use of hard light is what has led to a widespread (yet erroneous) opinion that hard light is bad for portraiture— especially for female subjects.
Indeed, hard light mercilessly emphasizes every blemish and results in nose and cheek highlights that remind us why skin powder was invented. Soft light, on the other hand, is much more forgiving. The highlights are translucent and make the skin seem to glow from within.
Dealing with soft light is simpler, mainly because it does not restrict the subject to a single pose. Also, soft light often makes retouching unnecessary—even if the skin is far from perfect. Smaller skin imperfections just disappear as the colors become less saturated and the gradations grow more subtle. For instance, it can make freckles almost invisible (figure 1.26). Even larger wrinkles and scars become subdued in soft light. This is invaluable in commercial portraiture, especially in actor and model headshots where makeup is not allowed.
This is how it works: our ability to perceive depth on a flat medium depends entirely on translating the shadows and highlights into contours and textures. A wrinkle or pore will cast a much harder shadow when lit by a hard light source than by a soft one. Hard shadows, with their sharply recognizable shapes, more readily emphasize the subject’s textures and contours—and the longer, deeper shadows cast by oblique hard light makes them appear even more exaggerated.
Is it “bad,” though? It all depends upon your interpretation of how flaws contribute to the personality of the portrayal. A pimple is always offensive; it is unpleasant to look at. However, wrinkles, scars, and skin pores are not always that bad; they may suit the mood of a photograph, convey personality, emphasize a facial expression, etc. Under different circumstances, however, the same wrinkles may ruin the picture. It is all a matter of how it fits your vision.
Your choice of lighting should be based on suitability, not on what is easy to use. Hard light is not always bad and it doesn’t have to be avoided. It works very well in pictures where darker tones are predominant. It is ideal for dramatic effects and vintage looks (figure 1.27). It can emphasize the texture of the fabric in a model’s dress, give hair more volume, and (when used skillfully) even change the shape of a face.
In full-length portraits (and especially environmental portraits) you often have the freedom to combine soft and hard light in one image. For instance, in fashion photography, a model’s face can be lit by a softbox while her dress is lit by a bare bulb or snoot to reveal its texture. Figure 1.27 shows exactly the opposite technique. The subject’s face and upraised arm were lit by a collimator unit, which is a very hard light source. Her lower arm was lit by a softbox.
Another way to combine light sources is to use different light qualities on a person and on an interior. Figure 1.28 shows just that. The faces of the female models were lit by flashes with honeycombs (modifiers that produce a light spot with soft edges). Another flash in a large softbox was used on their bodies. An incandescent wall light fixture provided hard light. This intentional combination of flash and continuous light sources resulted in an effect that is quite puzzling for the uninitiated.
f igure 1.28
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smoked his pipe and talked to me, while Mrs. Bagot cleared away the tea-things, and washed them up in the little pantry opening out of the kitchen.
"Do you see that, Peter?" said Bagot, pointing to a card over the chimney-piece, in a pretty Oxford frame. "That's our motto, that is! All in this place have to try to walk after them there rules. The lady gave them to us; she has them up in her room, too. She'll give you them, I shouldn't wonder, when she sees you. Dear me! I wouldn't be without them for a sight of money, I wouldn't. You read them, and see what you think of them."
RULES FOR TO-DAY.
Do nothing that you would not like to be doing when Jesus comes.
Go to no place where you would not like to be found when Jesus comes.
Say nothing that you would not like to be saying when Jesus comes.
THE LORD IS AT HAND!
"I like them very much," I said, when I had read them, and I thought of the sermon I had heard the Sunday before, and of Salome's text.
"Ay! They're good rules, them are," he said. "The missus and me reads them every morning, for we never know, Peter," he said, in a solemn voice, "which day He may come."
"Peter, have you any sort of an idea what an angel's like?"' he said, turning round on me suddenly.
I thought of the Christmas card, and of Salome, and said I wasn't sure.
"You'll be sure to-night then," he said, "as sure as your name's Peter, you will."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Why," he said, "wait till you've seen our lady, and you'll know what an angel's like, and no mistake."
"Is she so beautiful?" I asked.
"Beautiful!" he repeated. "You never saw such a face in your life, you never did. Misses," he called out to his wife, who was busy in the pantry, "is our lady beautiful? What do you say?"
"Ay, you're right there, Jem; she's beautiful, if anybody ever was beautiful!"
"And is she good, old woman?" asked her husband.
"Ay, Jem, you're right again; she's good, sure enough!"
"And kind?" asked her husband. "Come, old woman, is she kind?"
"Ay, Jem, I wouldn't be the one to say she isn't kind," said his wife; "she's been that to you and me, Jem, and the
times can't be counted!"
"Well, then!" said Bagot, with an air of triumph, as if he were collecting evidence for the county court, "if she's beautiful and good and kind, my lad, it stands to reason that she's an angel, she is, and so I always have said she was, and always will say."
"Has she any children?" I asked.
"Only one," he said, sadly; "it's a sorrowful story, hers is. She has been through deep waters, she has; but the Lord has been with her!"
I waited for him to go on, and presently he did.
"She was only a wife for one year," he said, "and then her husband died; he was only ill a few days. Poor lady, it nearly broke her heart, it did, for it was just wrapped up in him. And then, only a few weeks after that, her baby was born, and then she wrapped up her heart in him, she did. She just lived for her baby. But when Master Reggie (that's what we call him) was only a few months old, a careless servant girl let him fall, and injured his back, and he'll never be able to walk, the doctor says. Ay, but he's the dearest lamb that ever was, he is!"
"How old is he?" I asked.
"Five years old," said Bagot. "It was his birthday last Sunday, it was, and his mother gave him a Bible, and he sent for me up to see it. Bless him, he's mighty fond of me. You'll maybe see him this evening; and if you're a good lad, and careful, our lady will let you take him out in his carriage, I shouldn't wonder."
"Poor lady, she has had trouble!" I said.
"Ay, a big heap of it," he answered; "but it's the trouble that drove her to the Lord. She didn't love Him before, so she says. And folks say she was proud and cold in those days. I didn't know her then, and I don't know if I can bring myself to believe it. She isn't cold and hard now, that I know; but it makes a vast change when a body comes to the Lord, it does; so there's no saying!"
"Will she get married again, do you think?" I asked.
"Married again!" says Bagot, starting from his seat, and looking at me quite fiercely. "Married again! If our lady gets married again, Peter, I shall look for the sun to fall from the sky, and yon big hill to tumble into the valley, and my old woman to run away from me!"
Which last, of all impossible things, seemed to him the most impossible.
"She loved her husband so much, then," I said.
"Loved him," repeated Bagot, "she loves him, loves him now. She does not think of him as dead, but as living— living with the Lord, and any day the Lord may come and bring him to meet her. That's the hope she lives on, that is!"
I felt very anxious after hearing this to see my mistress and the little crippled boy, who was just the same age, and had the very same birthday, as our little Salome.
CHAPTER VII.
MASTER REGGIE.
THAT evening, about seven o'clock, my mistress sent for me. I was shown into a beautiful room, with a carpet as soft as velvet, and all round the room there were lovely pictures, and photographs, and vases of hothouse flowers, and so many pretty and charming things, that I felt as if it was a strange dream that I was there, and that it could not be true.
Mrs. Tremayne was as beautiful and as good and as kind as Bagot had described her. She was sitting by the fire with her work when I went in, and on the other side of the fire, lying on a spring sofa, was the thinnest, whitest little boy I have ever seen. He looked just like a tiny skeleton dressed up in clothes, but, though his face was so pale and worn, it was a very beautiful little face, for he had large lovely eyes, that seemed as if they saw far more than our eyes see; they seemed to be looking at something very far away.
"Dear mother," he said, in a little, thin, high-pitched voice, "what is that boy's name?"
"It is Peter," said his mother; "he has come to live in Bagot's cottage."
"Oh! Is it Peter?" said the little boy, "Peter who walked on the sea! Oh! I am glad you've come. We read about you
in my new Bible yesterday. Weren't you very frightened, Peter, when you began to sink?"
"Oh! It isn't the same Peter," said his mother, smiling; "that Peter lived a long time ago."
"Oh! I'm sorry it isn't the same Peter," said the little voice; "I do wish it was the same Peter."
Mrs. Tremayne talked very kindly to me, and told me she hoped I should be very happy there, and would do my work well, not to please her, but to please God. Then she told me what my work was to be, and how she wished me to divide my time; and she said she hoped I should be very obedient to Bagot, and take his advice in everything, "for he is a good, worthy man," she said.
Then Mrs. Tremayne spoke of the wages she would give me, which were to be increased as I became more useful, and she said she would have me taught to clean the silver, and to wait at table, so that, after I had been with her about three years, she might be able to get me a situation as footman in one of the large houses in the neighborhood.
The little boy had been quite quiet all the time my mistress was talking to me, until she mentioned this, and then he said, suddenly—
"Dear mother."
"What, my darling boy?"
"You said three years."
"Yes, Reggie."
"Won't Jesus come before three years are done, dear mother?"
"I hope so, darling," said his mother, with tears in her eyes; "but we do not know how short a time or how long a time there may be before He comes."
"I hope He will come before three years," said little Reggie.
I glanced up when he said this, and I saw that the "Rules for To-day" were hung up over the chimney-piece. Mrs. Tremayne seemed to think of them at the same time, for she went to her writing-table and took out a copy of them, which she gave to me, and told me to hang it up in my bedroom.
"We are all trying to live by those rules, Peter," she said; "and I hope, by God's grace, you will do so, too; then, I am sure, neither Bagot nor I will have any fault to find with you."
As I was leaving the room, the little boy called me back.
"Peter," he said, "stop a minute, Peter! Dear mother, may Peter take me out to-morrow?"
"Will you be very careful? Can I trust you, Peter?" asked my mistress. "My little boy is very delicate, and needs the greatest care."
"Yes, ma'am," I said; "indeed you may trust me."
"Then be ready at eleven o'clock, in your tidiest clothes, to take Master Reggie out."
"Peter," said the child, "I'll take you to see my children. You didn't know I had any children, did you, Peter? I have sixty-nine children; isn't that a great many? I used to have seventy, but one of them died. Would you like to see my children, Peter?"
"Yes, thank you, Master Reggie," I said, "very much indeed."
"Good-night, Peter," he said.
But before I had shut the door, I heard him say to his mother, "Isn't Peter a nice boy, mother? I like him very much, though he didn't walk on the sea."
The next morning I was very pleased when eleven o'clock came, and it was time to take the little carriage round to the front door. The carriage was made of wickerwork, and was something like a bed inside, so that Master Reggie could lie down the whole time, and there was a handle by which I pulled it along. In a few minutes the door was opened, and his nurse carried him downstairs. He was very pleased to see me, and we went off at once to see his children. As we passed the back door, the cook ran out with a basket, containing a number of parcels.
"That's the children's breakfast!" said the child. "Cook always has it ready for me. My children have a number of nurseries, Peter. Here's the first," he said, as he pointed to a horse-box, at the entrance of a very clean and tidy farmyard.
EIGHT RING-DOVES CAME FLYING DOWN AS SOON AS THEY SAW US.
I drew his carriage gently inside, and there we found a white hen and eleven little, soft fluffy chickens. He watched me with great interest while I made a dish of sopped bread for the little ones, and threw down a handful of corn for their mother.
"She's an old child, Peter," he said; "I've had her a long time, since I was quite a little boy."
We next visited an old black hen, who had charge of six tiny yellow ducks, and again he was much pleased to teach me how to mix their breakfast, and how much they ought to have.
Then we came upon an open space in front of the barn, and here eight ring-doves came flying down as soon as they saw us, and perched upon the wicker-work of the little
carriage. We fed them with corn, and Master Reggie quite screamed with joy as they picked it off the rug which was thrown over his feet.
The next child was a very strange one—a small monkey, which had a warm, cosey home in one of the out-houses.
"A man with an organ brought him one day," he said, "and he shivered so, and the man was cruel to him and beat him, and that made me cry; so mother bought him for me, and he's so happy and warm now; aren't you, Jacko?"
The monkey certainly looked in the best of spirits, as he put out his hands for biscuits, and nuts, and all the good things we had brought for him, and then scampered away and hid them behind his warm bed of hay, to be devoured after we had gone.
We then went on to visit a hutch of ten rabbits, of all colors and breeds, and for whom we had brought a good supply of cabbage leaves, and two young pigs in the cleanest pig-sty I have ever seen, and a tame squirrel with a broken leg, which Bagot had found dying in the wood, and had brought home to be nursed.
"That child is to go free as soon as he's well enough," said the boy; "he has just come to the hospital for a bit, poor thing! He's like me now, he can't walk!"
Then we turned into the garden, and went into an aviary, opening out of one of the hothouses, where were no less than twenty canaries, and here there was much to be done to supply them all with fresh water and sufficient seed. Some of them were so tame that they flew on the carriage, and took hemp seeds out of Master Reggie's mouth.
Our last visit was to a pet lamb, in a field in front of the house, and for this child, I fetched a bucket of milk from the farm.
"Now you've seen sixty-one of my children," said the little boy; "there are eight more in the house; they had their breakfast before you came. There is a little green parrot, an old pussy-cat and a kitten, four little dormice (it was one of them that died), and my little dog Sandy. Haven't I a great many children?"
He seemed very tired now, and soon his nurse came to carry him in. But before she took him away, he threw his arms round my neck, and said, "Peter, dear Peter, don't forget to come for me to-morrow."
He was so thin and light that the nurse carried him upstairs as if he were a little baby.
"Do you think he will ever live to grow up?" I said to Bagot, when I went back to help him in the garden; "he looks so very ill and white and thin."
"God knows," said Bagot, with tears in his eyes; "God knows, Peter. That's all we can say about it, God knows. And, perhaps, Peter," he said with a sigh, as he stooped to pull up a weed, "perhaps it's just as well that we don't know."
CHAPTER VIII.
THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE.
I WAS very happy in my new life at Grassbourne. If it had not been for the parting from Salome, I do not think I could have been happier.
I had a very busy life, for there was plenty to do both indoors and out-of-doors; but I am sure we are always happier when our time is filled up with useful work. Idle folks are always in bad spirits.
Every one was so kind to me, that I should indeed have been ungrateful if I had not loved them and tried to please them. Bagot and his wife were father and mother to me. Their cottage was a merry, cheerful place to live in, and it was a great help to me to be with such good Christian people.
Ever since the night of Salome's fifth birthday, when I had brought my sins to Jesus, I had taken Him for my Master, and had longed and tried to live as He would like me to live. And every one and everything at Grassbourne seemed to help me forward in this wish and in this effort.
The one thought with which all their hearts seemed to be filled was this: that Jesus, their Lord, might come at any day, and at any hour, and that they must be ready at once to go and meet Him. The "Rules for To-day" were no dead letters to them; they brought them into daily use in their daily life.
Often have I seen Bagot stop suddenly in the midst of something he was saying, and glance up at the chimneypiece, and sometimes he would say aloud to himself:
"Ah, Bagot, you wouldn't like to be saying that when He comes, you wouldn't."
Or when the clock told that the hour he allowed himself for dinner was over, he would rise, and, pointing to Rule No. 1, he would read it aloud:
"'Do nothing that you would not like to be doing when Jesus comes.'"
"Ah, Jem Bagot," he would say, "you hadn't need be caught a-wasting of your time when your Master comes."
His wife seldom spoke of the rules, but she kept them for all that. I never heard her but once speak an ill-natured word of any one, and then she looked up at the chimneypiece, and I saw tears come in her eyes, as she felt she had broken the third rule on the list.
As for my mistress, I think she lived every day as if it might be the last day before her Lord came. Her life was one long act of loving obedience to the Master; she always seemed to try to please Him in everything she did. The poor people in the cottages round, the sick folks in the little town near, the children playing by the roadside, all knew the sound of Bessie's hoofs on the road, and all of them
welcomed the sight of her; for they were sure to get a pleasant word, or a kind visit, or a bright smile from their dear Mrs. Tremayne.
"The Master may come any day," I heard her say once, when some one was urging her not to go out in the rain to see a dying woman; "there is no time to lose."
Over the dining-room chimney-piece there was this verse, which my mistress had illuminated herself:
"The time is short—how short we cannot tell, Or clearly understand; But those who read the King's directions well, Think it is close at hand!
Lord, is it so? Then grant that we May lose no time, but work for Thee."
And the same thought which stirred my mistress up to work, was also her great comfort in her sorrow. There was a beautiful picture of her husband hanging in her room, and underneath it, on a white scroll, I read these words:
"O comfort ye your hearts; If ye could only know How few the days Ere that glad day arrives, Ye could but praise!
Then wipe your weeping eyes, and joyful say, 'It may be that the King will come to-day.'"
My chief pleasure and delight was in drawing Master Reggie out in his little carriage. Each morning we went together to feed his children, and he soon became almost as dear to me as my little Salome.
Nearly every day he would ask me the same question:
"Peter," he would say, "do you think Jesus will come today?"
And when I answered, "I don't know, Master Reggie; we can't tell," he would say, "Oh, I do hope He will come today!"
"Do you know, Peter," he said once, "when Jesus comes I shall walk as well as you do, and run and skip and jump! Oh, Peter, won't it be nice?"
And the poor little boy, who had never been able to walk or skip or jump, had tears in his eyes as he said it.
Often he would bring his new Bible out with him, and ask me to read aloud to him out of it. He looked out all the stories about St. Peter, and made me read these to him very often. The story of Peter's walking on the sea was a great favorite of his; but whenever we read about Peter's fall, and his denying his Master, he would take hold of my hand, and say:
"It wasn't you, Peter, you know. You would have called out, 'I do know Him;' wouldn't you, Peter?"
Sometimes, when the days grew damp and cold, and when he could not go out so much or so often, he would send for me to come and see him in his nursery, and would show me his toys and picture-books.
So a whole year passed away, and Salome's birthday came round again, and my mistress was so kind as to give me a holiday, that I might go over and see her. Master Reggie did not half like my being away on his birthday; but he comforted himself with his mother's promise that I should come up to the nursery the next day to see all his presents, and to tell him about Salome.
I went over by an early train, and took them all by surprise. They gave me a warm welcome, and Salome danced for joy, and was delighted with the present I had brought her, a little rose-bush, covered with tiny dwarf roses, and a pot of forget-me-nots. Bagot had given them to me when they were quite young plants, and I had reared them for Salome's birthday.
There was so much for me to tell, and for them to hear, and for them to tell, and for me to hear, that the day passed all too quickly. The parting at night was a little hard to us all, and Salome's tears left my face quite wet, as I hurried away from her down the street, to catch the evening train for Calvington.
All this time I had, by God's grace, kept out of crooked paths.
I had a little room of my own over the kitchen in Bagot's cottage, and I used to get up early, and sit by the window looking out into the little garden, and read my Bible, and pray to God to help me to please Him through the day, and to give me grace to keep the three rules unbroken.
But soon after Salome's sixth birthday had gone by, I began to get very careless about my daily reading and prayer. A lazy fit came over me, and I would lie in bed half
awake, until I heard Bagot coming out of the opposite room. He would rap at my door, and call out—
"Only ten minutes, Peter, my lad; you must look sharp, you must."
And then I would tumble out of bed, and dress, and only have time to kneel by my bed for one hasty moment, before it was time for me to go out to my work.
I mention this fact because it throws light upon what comes next. I am quite sure of this, that we are never safe when we are prayerless, and that if, for a single day, Satan can catch us going forth to the day's work without prayer, he catches us at the best possible time for him, and the worst possible time for us.
I think Bagot had some idea that all was not right with me, for he said, suddenly, one morning, as we were walking together to our work in the garden:
"He's a bad soldier, Peter, who goes into the battle with no armor on; he'll come off badly, he will."
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Only don't you ever try it on, Peter, my lad, that's all!"
I thought I knew what he meant, but I did not like to ask him; and for one or two days after that, I got up rather earlier, and gave myself more time for prayer. But I soon slipped into the old careless way again.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ROBBER'S CAVE.
ONE morning in August, about six weeks after Salome's birthdays I went for the carriage, at eleven o'clock, and brought it round to the front door. I was looking forward to taking Master Reggie, as usual, to give his children their breakfast. But my mistress came to the door, which was standing open, with a letter in her hand.
"Peter," she said, "Master Reggie is not at all well; he seems to have taken cold; he will not be able to go out today. I want you, instead, to take this letter for me. You are a good walker, are you not?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said, "very good."
"It is to the doctor, Peter," she said; "he lives, as you know, at Calvington. Have you ever seen his house?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said; "isn't it a large red house, standing among a number of trees, not far from the station?"
"That's it, Peter," she said. "I am sorry Bessie is laid up with her bad foot. Bagot says she must not go out for some days yet; but if you walk steadily on, you will have plenty of time to get to Calvington before one o'clock, when the doctor is always at home, to receive any messages that have been left for him. Ask to see him yourself, Peter, and give him the letter; I am very anxious that he should come before night."
I set off at once for my long walk. It was a very sultry day, and it was a long time since we had had any rain, so the road was covered with thick white dust.
It was anything but a pleasant day for a walk, and I soon got very hot and tired. Twelve miles of this would be very wearying, I thought. And I wished very much that Bessie had been all right, for I could have driven to Calvington in a very short time.
When I was about two miles on my way, I came to a part of the road which ran very near the sea, and here I overtook a lad who came sometimes to Grassbourne, when we wanted an extra hand to dig up potatoes, or to weed, or to do any odd job we might have on hand in the garden. His name was Jack Anderson, and Bagot did not like him much, and was always very short with him; but his mother was a widow who lived in one of the cottages near, and my mistress pitied her, and for her sake was willing to give Jack a little work now and again.
"Hullo! Peter," he said, "where are you off to?"
When I told him, he gave a great groan of horror.
"Wouldn't be you," he said, "for a good deal."
"It is hot," I said, stopping under a tree to take off my hat, and to wipe the perspiration from my forehead; "there is not a breath of air!"
"I'll tell you what," said Jack, suddenly, "Mike will be up directly. He'll take your letter for you; he's going to Calvington."
"Who is Mike?" I said.
"Don't you know Mike?" he said. "He's McTaggart's youngest lad; his father has Canrobin Farm, away up on the hills. He's driving into Calvington with some parcels for his father, which have to go off by the one o'clock train. I saw him a few minutes since, calling for something at Kilgreggan House, a bit down this road by the sea. Oh, here he is!"
At this moment a light cart drove up, and in it was young McTaggart, in the midst of sacks and bundles and parcels. Jack told him my errand, and he said at once he would take the letter.
"Oh! But, Jack," I said, "maybe I ought not to give it to him. My mistress told me to go myself, and to give it to the doctor."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Jack, laughing heartily. "As if it mattered who took the letter, so long as the doctor gets it? and Mike will be there long before you would; so it's a good job, whichever way you look at it."
"Perhaps I had better go with Mike," I said, "if he'll be so good as to give me a lift."
