up of the early days."

NO ONE LENS IS SUFFICIENT

"Getting down to a practical question for a moment, Mr. White, do you
recommend a soft focus lens for small cameras, the work to be enlarged
with a sharp lens, or do you recommend the reverse process?"

"I still keep to my original statement that I made two or three years ago
that I do not believe that any one lens will serve all purposes. I
sometimes feel that an anastigmat lens is best and sometimes that a soft
focus lens is best for some particular work, and sometimes I feel that if
I could get only one I would prefer an anastigmat to a soft focus."

SOFTNESS DESIRABLE, NOT FUZZINESS

"Is there a tendency, as shown in the work seen in the magazines, the
exhibitions, and the photographs selected for the present _Annual_, to get
rid of fuzziness and substitute a rational degree of softness and
atmospheric effect?"

"I would say that the reproductions that we see in the magazines do not in
all cases represent lens work but, I fear, bad printing sometimes. There
is often a good definite quality in soft focus lens work that looks very
definite indeed, even more definite than a sharp lens will give.
Fuzziness is bad, but not softness. The soft focus lens seems to be more
popular than ever and it apparently has come to stay."

PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY INFLUENCED BY THAT OF THE PICTORIALIST

"Has the professional photography of today been influenced, in your
judgment, by the work of the pictorialists?"

"Yes, very decidedly, and the professionals confess it. The best
professional photographers freely admit that they have drawn much
inspiration from the pictorial workers' ideas."

THE POPULAR MEDIUMS

"What medium--gum, multiple gum, bromoil, platinum, bromide, chloride--is
most popular today?"

"Bromide and chloride are the most popular. That this is so is probably
because they are easier to use; but there are very earnest workers--some of
the best--who insist on using the processes which give a greater range and
greater possibilities of quality, such as bromoil, gum, and gum platinum.
I would say that these processes are more popular than they used to be."

COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY

"Has color photography made any advance during the year? Are autochromes
still popular? Has any progress been made in the direction of pro