Don't worry about innumerable formulae. Get a few tried ones and then shut yourself up in your workroom to fully digest them. The fewer formulae, the fewer failures; the more certain your progress.
Don't let the wiseacres lead you into believing that fuzziness, gum, varnish and Japan tissue are the secret paths which lead into the charmed circle of the Photo-Secession.
Don't plagiarize if you can help it. It can't give you any real pleasure to know yourself akin to a thief. Plagiarizing does not carry with it penal punishment; for that very reason it is more abominable than stealing in the ordinary sense.
(N.B. Photographic editors should discourage the vicious habit. See prize-winners in numerous magazines.)
Don't believe you became an artist the instant you received a gift Kodak on Xmas morning.
Don't believe that because of your lack of taste you are privileged to air your opinions on pictorial photography and art matters in general. The world in its entirety is not a camera club.
Don't believe that the snapshot you have made is a Ògenuine work of artÓ because some painter has asked you for a copy. It is just possible that he may need it for his next original painting. Your photograph, he argues, is an accident; his appreciation of that fact entitles him to its use. Some painters are unusually clever -- some photographers are even more so.
Don't believe that experts are born. They are the results of hard work. Remember inspiration is usually nothing more than perspiration recrystalized.
Don't be discouraged because after a week of real hard work your print is not up to a best Steichen or a best White. Photography of that class is not quite as simple as it looks. Everything worthwhile means continuous struggle and concentration of effort -- even in photography.
Don't believe that a semi-achromatic lens is preferable to an anastigmat, nor vice-versa. Both have their proper uses and are consequently invaluable; neither should be sacrificed for the other.
Don't believe that beauty reveals itself to him who thinks it only film deep.
Don't go through life with your eyes closed, even though you may have chosen photography as your vocation. The machine may see for you, but its eye is dead. Your eye should furnish it with life. But don't believe that all open eyes see. Seeing needs practice -- just like photography itself.
P.S. Don't believe I claim any originality for the above random remarks. They have been called forth to satisfy the editor of this delightful little monthly. It is with him that you will have to quarrel if you must. But you won't must.
