correct the unpicturesque

"Any dodge, trick and conjuration of any kind is open to the photographer's use.... It is his imperative duty to avoid the mean, the base and the ugly, and to aim to elevate his subject.... and to correct the unpicturesque....A great deal can be done and very beautiful pictures made, by a mixture of the real and the artificial in a picture."
Henry Peach Robinson
"Pictorial Effect in Photography" (1867)

Read full article by Robert Leggat, 1999