order to persuade it into a particular scheme of composition; and
in this very instance an artistic photographer could probably have
discovered a position for his camera which would have obviated the
necessity for any change whatever;--a nearer view of the building,
for one thing, would have considerably lowered the trees.)

[Illustration: FIG. 39 FROM A PHOTOGRAPH]

[Side note: _Third Problem_]

We will consider still another subject. The photograph, Fig. 39,
shows a street in Holland. In this case, the first thing we have
to determine is where the interest of the subject centres. In such
a perspective the salient point of the picture often lies in a
foreground building; or, if the street be merely a setting for the
representation of some incident, in a group of foreground figures.
In either case the emphasis should be placed in the foreground,
the distant vanishing lines of the street being rendered more or
less vaguely. In the present subject, however, the converging sky
and street lines are broken by the quaint clock-tower. This and the
buildings underneath it appeal to us at once as the most important
elements of the picture. The nearer buildings present nothing
intrinsically interesting, and therefore serve no better purpose
than to lead the eye to the centre of interest. Whatever actual
values these intermediate buildings have that will hinder their
usefulness in this regard can, therefore, be changed or actually
ignored without affecting the integrity of the sketch or causing
any pangs of conscience.

The building on the extreme left shows very strong contrasts of
color in the black shadow of the eaves and of the shop-front below.
These contrasts, coming as they do at the edge of the picture,
are bad. They would act like a showy frame on a delicate drawing,
keeping the eye from the real subject. It may be objected, however,
that it is natural that the contrasts should be stronger in the
foreground. Yes; but in looking straight at the clock-tower one does
not see any such dark shadow at the top of the very uninteresting
building in the left foreground. The camera saw it, because the
camera with its hundred eyes sees everything, and does not interest
itself about any one thing in particular. Besides, if the keeper
of the shop had the bad taste to paint it dark we are not bound
to make a record of the fact; nor need we assume that it was done
out of regard to the pictorial possibilities of the street. We
de