{"id":1550,"date":"2026-06-02T17:48:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T15:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/negativnacestach.cz\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2026-07-23T12:24:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:24:22","slug":"eidoscope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/negativnacestach.cz\/en\/eidoscope\/","title":{"rendered":"Eidoscope"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This is a transcription of a historical interview discovered among a bottle of red wine, a mouldy blue cheese and the legless skeleton of a frog during the restoration of the <\/em>House of the French Crown.<\/em><\/a> Uncolourised.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Editorial Office:<\/strong> Welcome to the Lands of the Bohemian Crown!<\/a>\u00a0 It is our honour to host an emissary from the very bosom of photography here, in one of the centres of Central European artistic life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eidoscope: <\/strong>At last, in the homeland of Drtikol,<\/a> Nov\u00e1k<\/a> and Sudek!<\/a> The latter may still be dragging wooden shoes about, but I foresee a splendid future full of wooden cameras for him! *A beer lands upon the table.*<\/em> Merci. And have you any wine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EO:<\/strong> Perhaps. But enough about us! Pray tell us something of your soft brass mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E:<\/strong> Avec plaisir. I am the Hermagis Eidoscope. My journey began in Paris in the year 1903. They call me objectif \u00e0 flou artistique,<\/em> an artistic soft-focus lens. I was deliberately bred for impressionist<\/a> photography and walk in the footsteps of such giants as Puyo and Pulligny or the Dallmeyer Bergheim. I would gladly recommend a fantastique article about soft-focus photography<\/a> by Negativ na cest\u00e1ch,<\/em> but alas, it shall not be written for more than a century yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n

EO:<\/strong> You claim to be an artistic lens. Is that not merely an elegant way of excusing incompetence and passing off even the least successful result as creative intention?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E:<\/strong>\u00a0Anyone with eyes and a diaphragm ring may achieve sharp focus. With ordinary optics, the photographer sees precisely what he is doing, and should a photograph fail, the cause is usually easy enough to identify. With pictorialist lenses, matters are more complicated, for their peculiar character is greatly influenced by circumstance. The outcome is less predictable, and the boundary between a compelling artistic effect and a failed photograph is exceedingly thin. Despite the widespread belief that they merely facilitate the production of purposeless artiness, creating a truly fine pictorialist image is often more demanding than making a technically flawless sharp photograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without experience, their nature is difficult to divine, and when the uncooperative laws of physics intrude, perhaps in the form of chemical focus, it becomes evident that a convincing result requires considerable mastery of the entire process. One must see the result beforehand, for one shall not perceive it with one's eyes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n