T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 407

To Hogarth About June 24 (1911) Very many thanks for the prints and your love: I see my photos. turned up, but they would not have been much loss. I found out a faster-exposure developing here: apparently my lens is much faster than I thought, all you tell. Seems to me whoever it is to reckon for over-exposure in most of the new negatives. I might by bromide of potassium: if that had been done this time 90% of these would have been all right. I don't see any signs of under-exposure in these 4 plate prints: I should have called them over-done. Will you try employing little Woodstock Road watchmaker, with any unsatisfactory negatives? Leeds knows him, and as a semi-amateur, he understands checking or bringing up a plate better than Soame would. He can intensify every single negative you send & get prints of, so that they would reproduce perfectly. Something of the sort will have to be done with the later photos: the sunlight now is like snow, and the shadow like ink: the results will be ghastly without intelligent manipulation. Trade plates are not at all well develop-ed in my opinion, whoever did them. (This except your bin-ocular camera, which has done great things: if there was no vertical distortion, there would really be something to say for enlarging ... them). I am taking all sculpture with my camera: the 4 plates are running low, and must be saved for small objects. Thompson is a leading & strong rival with his camera, and I will use up the binocular plates as far as they go, on the same thing: It will be scandalous if none are successful: but evidently the light is tricky. An exposure of 1/50 with .22 stop was enough before 6 a.m. I have found a leak in the fold-back hinge of one of the dark-slides: damages unknown but will not be more than slight. Photographing object on glass out of doors is a most pesky job: the grain is reflected in the glass I find; indoors it is perfect. The weather has become too hot (c.90°) for developing; which is a nuisance. Your "Binocular" back is warping yet further, & lower down there is a split which should be caulked, but only the leather now makes it light-tight. I would recommend it being sent to Thompson overhauling when Thompson brings it back. It is not often that a camera does as much work in a season. Some of the prints were sent to the Torquent Place instantly, and the photo. of old Gregory I recognised one side of the loft where the house rise. The sour chap went from his ... and a horrible fool has come in his place. He is continually intending, lingering, with demands for brandy. We got rather tired of this, and so when he produced a preposterous fever, we promised him medicine, and invited him into the kitchen. Thompson put on a pulpit face, and