Editorial Comment for this plate:
COMPANIONS.
OUR picture this week is one that is interesting both as a landscape and a figure composition. The young lady beneath the sheltering trees, with her companionable dog for a protector and friend, makes a picture which completely fulfills the title it bears. The quiet charm of the landscape, while fully in harmony with the interesting group which it sets off, is an added attraction to the picture.
It will be encouraging for our younger and more inexperienced readers to learn that this, in every way, successful photograph was made by a beginner ⎯Mr. John D. Grant, its author, writing us that he has not taken “more than fifteen or twenty pictures.” “This one,” he modestly states, “chance had more to do with than good judgment on my part. * * * * The length of exposure was cut short of what I intended to give it, because the dog moved, and I clapped on the cap; so the only items of interest are that it was developed by a ‘green’ hand, and the exposure timed by a dog.” Our readers will judge for themselves whether it is not shown that there was room for “good judgment” on the part of Mr. Grant in other respects than in the mere timing the exposure.
We think Mr. Edwards deserves special credit for the satisfactory manner in which he has reproduced the picture in photo-gravure. (p. 527)