ABSTRACT
There are fleeting or transitory expressions which the ordinary camera cannot seize. They are even lost to the eye because it is not quick enough. The eye, like the camera, only takes notice of what may be called fixed or “dead” points in the play of the features as in the movement of the limbs. That is why an instantaneous photograph of a street scene is so different from a picture by an artist. The rapid plate shows these transition movements; for instance, a man with his leg off the ground, another with his arm thrown back, looking like escaped lunatics or Indian fakeers doing penance. The artist passes over these transitory positions, and gives readers what they consider more natural ones, because their eyes only notice them in ordinary life. The cinematograph, however, can reveal these intermediate stages, not only in movements of the limbs, but in the play of feature.
