Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1898 — FUN WITH THE CAMERA MAN. [ARTICLE]

FUN WITH THE CAMERA MAN.

Reason He Failed to Get a Good Photo graph of the Vo ting Man. A professional photographer tells this tale of a practical joke. One day a young man came to sit for his likeness. To the ordinary eye he looked just like any other young man. A couple of plates were exposed and then the assistant, who was operating, went Into the dark room to develop the negative. He was gone much longer than usual and was heard berating the junior assistant pretty soundly for playing pranks with the apparatus. When he returned to the studio he asked for another sitting and apologized for having before used spoiled plates. This time when he went away to develop he was heard to utter a slight scream, but he reappeared and said there was a peculiar effect in the negatives which he couldn’t account for, and would the sitter oblige him again. Once more he went to develop, then the bell rang violently for the master, and the two held a long confabulation In the dark room together. This time the master tried his hand and went away to develop. It was not long before he returned and said he was sorry not to be able to get a satisfactory likeness, but a skull and crossbones appeared defined on the young man’s forehead. “Rubbish!” said the sitter; “my forehead’s all right. Can you see anything the matter with my forehead?” and he peered into a mirror as he spoke. “No, there’s nothing that I can see,” answered the photographer. “But I Should be obliged if you will please go away and not come here again; this sort of thing is just a wee bit creepy.” Upon this there was a dreadful scene, but the upshot was that the young man had to go, and up to the present time has never returned. The explanation of the matter is that the young man was a bit of a scientist, and had been playing a joke on the photographer. Bisulphate of quinine is a chemical which is white to the naked eye, but seen black by the camera. Anything that is painted on the skin, therefore, with the chemical will be Ordinarily invisible, but will come out prominently in a photograph.— Pittsburgh Dispatch.