The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 7, 1902, Page 9

T is not much more than a d&osen years since some one first suggested photography as a business, profession, art—what you will end what they make it—for women. Only a dozen or thereabouts it has taken for o gather about the camera as thick es flies around the honey and they are oney and achieving fame now y over. hey once started at the thing wondered why they hadn’t done & before seems to be thoroughly suitable as a for the capable woman. It is work t calls for artistic instincts, tact, deft r All these things the capable woman has. She has the ability to make thermore, although her sex is called the conservative one, she nas shown. &ny, amount of daring in photography. It was: & New York woman who first tried .the sut-of-focus picture that is a present day fsd and that men all over the country are imitating. ‘We have our own women who are doing something sworth while in the art right here in San Francisco. Take M s Adeleide Hanscom, for in- stance. fie nmever makes a picture be- cause somebody made 2 similar one before her. Each study in her studio is a crea- tion, & work of art as individual as the work of & painter might be. “] know what I'm doing, because I studied art for a long time before I at- tempted photography,” Miss Hanscom says. “There's no use playing with the camera. It isn't wo while unless you understand eall the lues of a picture. The photographer must look out for his n just as much as the water B t training shows in Sne does the or- that comes along likes to take le excursions aj Such studies —full of symbol- aracteristic of her she seems to infuse much all the models be- mewhere she finds act in each one rives to draw it her cholce of su éinary po: much of the t time of her ow into the realm of r as “The Wine of 1 of her own poe: fore her camera, ar more than the mat of her subjects out while they are The negative half done. “Pri art,” she says. She which appears to be d and softest pencil touche Miss Laura Adams was her predecessor in the roomy, restful studio in the far- floor of a busy Market-street Miss Adams is now the wife of Armer and she has ommercial end” of the work and is indulging in pho- tography merely as a dissipation. She can devote herself to work after her own heart Her portrait of Coquelin is one that has P been reproduced s number of times. It idered by the great actor to be he strongest character studies that bad ever been made of him, and Mme. Bernhardt cried “Ah, it is you!" when he showed it to her. Miss Frances Thompson has the most urigue photogreph gallery in the city. It s @ cloth background which she carries k is only be a fine some work with the finest up what sbout with her. Shemakes all her portrait studies in the subject’s owr: home, 50 that ali the trouble of costuming yourself in 2 dressing-room downtown, and finding et the last moment that you have left the belt of your gown at home, 1s avold- ed. Other photographers insist that they must have the light made to order in a carefully appointed studio, but Miss Thompson overcomes the difficulty of -- FTOPY OF @ LITTLE GIRL —B» MRS S CRULZR lighting by claiming that it does not ex- ist. She enters & room, chooses the side where the light suits her, hangs up her cloth background and poses her subject. Her “Vanitas Vanitatum’ is one of her fancy studies. A portriat of Mrs. Gaston Ashe is another strong plece of work. She caught the splendid tropical beauty of her subject as few have been able to do. She spent half a day with Margaret Anglin during the star’s last visit here, and the result was an interesting series of portraits, showing as great variety of mood as the actress herself shows. Miss Thompson does gnother line of photography that is widely apart from all this, and yet she likes it, too. She is offi- cial school photographer, known to all the boys and girls of our city echools as the “picture lady.” Her duty is to photo- graph each class. . Mrs. Harna Robison began as an ama- teur photographer, making her camera & £ - plaything, until she became so interested in it that she decided to make it do pro- fessional 'work. Now her shingle is hang- ing out and she is sealously devoting her whole day to her art. . Some of her studies of children are her favorites. She says: “A’'woman ought to be able to photograph- children if she can photograph.at all, for she under- stands the little people, their moods and changes, as very few men ever do.” Mrs. Schultze claims the honor of being the first woman in the profession. She started out in San Diego a number of years ago, and a woman in photography was s0 unique tht she was heard of in the East. Later she came to San Francisco and began by photographing Chinese chil- dren, willing or unwilli She had plenty of amusing experienced with them when their superstitious fear of a camera was far greater than it is in these days. “One day Mr. Schultze and I set out for S HOUETTE - B MISS BiSEEE Chinatown to get pictures together,” she relates. | “We saw a woman and children coming down the street and determined to have them. Bo he focused on me while I made a great pretense of stand- ing in front of him ana primping to be ‘taken.’ I carried a sunshade and this screened me from the woman who was coming along behind me. Just as she got near enough Mr. Schultze gave me the signal and I slipped out, parasol and all, and he snapped her.” Miss Bisbee is progressing in Berkeley, finding a broad fleld there. Of late she has done considerable work in silhouettes like the one shown. “It is only a fad, though,” she says. “People want real pictures to keep."” But all of thess women photographers seem able to furnish “real pictures” as well as faddish ones, for there is a strain of the practical in them all. And who wants art without it2 s v S A A7 LSRR NI VIO 1N - BY HANGM WMOBINSON, LA wingE OF L\FE— &> ADELATE RANSCO™M