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PICTORIAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE FAR WEST

_By_ JOHN PAUL EDWARDS

The progress of pictorial photography in the Far West can be aptly
compared with the settlement and growth of this big new country itself.
We have had our pictorial pioneers, as it were--our hard-working,
enthusiastic, rather crude first settlers in the art; now we have come to
the stage of permanent abode, with traditions, albeit young, great
enthusiasm, definite ideals, and ambitious hopes for the future.

The one great asset in the upbuilding of the West has been boundless
enthusiasm. This characteristic trait dominates the very soul of the
Western pictorialist. In it lies his greatest hope for the future
progress in his chosen field of art.

It is this live energy and enthusiasm which brings him out afield even
before break of day, which leads him over hill and dale, mountain and
valley, in his insatiable quest for the pictorial. Miles are as nothing;
hunger stays him not; nor rests he at night until his potential treasures
are developed and their beauties appraised.

The purpose of this preliminary psychologic analysis is to explain the
militant attitude of the Western pictorialist in his pursuit of the art of
the camera. His extremely prolific production, manifesting itself in
liberal contributions to the salons and exhibitions of the world
photographic, rises not from vanity but from super-enthusiasm--from the
great joy he derives in making his picture, from the creation of the
beautiful, and from the playing of the game as it is best played.

Without losing a whit of the steady enthusiasm which has brought it to its
present encouraging stage, Western pictorial photography is, nevertheless,
settling down to a more staid and intellectual plane of progress.

The broad average of quality of work is steadily improving. Better
standards have been established. The workers are "finding" themselves.
Enthusiasm is being beneficently tempered by increased technical skill,
and more particularly by the intellectual development of the art side of
the work.

And so the future of pictorial photography in the Far West looks
exceedingly bright. The salon workers of the past five or ten years are
with few exceptions as keen as ever for their art, and a very talented and
numerous lot of new workers are coming to the front.

The center, in fact the stronghold, of Western pictorial photography is
undoubtedly California. All forms of