Is Photography "Prints on Paper?"

[Richard Raymond]

This idea came to me from another thread in the forum discussing photography book publishing. While the use of the web is becoming more accepted for many it is not clear how electronic publishing of images is viewed. More to my point, if a museum or gallery used high definition screens around the walls to display photographic images rather than using mounted prints should it still be considered a "Photo Gallery"?

[Vaughn]

There are many ways to display a photograph.

A photograph on paper, or some other type of substrate, is a photographic print. It can get on the substrate in many different ways...directly in the camera (transparencies, some of the alt processes, etc), or printed on the subtrate (contacted or enlarged onto silver gelatin or color paper), or transfrerred onto the substrate (polaroids, carbon prints, etc), or inked on (bromoil, photogravear), or spurted onto paper by an inkjet printer, or several other methods

A photograph on a monitor is a digital or a video photographic display.

So if a Photo Gallery displays photographs using a wall full of monitors, it qualifies as a Photo Gallery...it just does not exhibit photographic prints.

Vaughn

[tim atherton]

Is a projected transparency not a photograph?

[Maris Rusis]

A photograph is the thing that bears marks (hopefully accumulating to a recognisable representation of something) as a consequence of being struck by light. Everything else is a picture, image, print, display, or depiction of one sort or another.

Only a gallery that shows light-struck objects truly qualifies as a photo-gallery. As a sometime (long retired) director of a actual commercial photo-gallery it was always a point of tension in balancing the buying impulses of the well-heeled public against their misidentification of ink-jets (say) or off-set printed posters as genuine photographs.

I never compromised and the gallery did well, except financially. Had I been more venal I would have espoused the attitude that I don't care what it is. If you call it a photograph and I get your retail dollar then it's a deal!

[Richard Raymond]

Vaughn,
OK, so now I am using photoshop or some other software and after processing go to print the image. One of my printer options in my installed printer list is adobe acrobat creating a .pdf file. So the verb "to print" seems to include electronic capture as well as some form of physical output. From your description the noun "print" means image on some physical surface. Why can't we say that the electrons are the "ink" and the display is the physical surface and that we are therefore creating a new kind of "Print". Are we caught in a vocabulary transition here as the new digital elements to photography move into what has been considered "traditional" photography? Is the vocabulary problem creating problems in how we think about displaying images in new ways?
Ric

[Vaughn]

Is a projected transparency not a photograph?

Forgot that one! How about a photograph of a projected photograph projected onto a photograph...that is then projected onto a photograph?

I guess I should have but in a disclaimer that my list is probably incomplete.

Vaughn

[paulr]

Only a gallery that shows light-struck objects truly qualifies as a photo-gallery.

that might be your definition, but it's not a definition i see being used by galleries, curators, critics, historians, etc. etc...

i've never seen it suggested, for example that a photogravure is not a photograph.

on the other hand, i know a few people who use photo materials, light, and chemistry to make work that is distinctly unphotographic. they paint with light and chemistry on photo paper. these are objects that bear images from being "struck with light," but the images were not formed optically. this work would more likely be curated as 'works on paper,' while every major collection i know of calls a gravure, a carbon print, a gum bichromate print, or an inkjet print a photograph ... even though the print medium itself was not "struck by light."

[stehei]

For me, prints behind museum glass add a dimension to photography displays can give,
no matter what definition one uses, it does that for me.

In the pro world a digital workflow is standard, I recently sat at an editors desk with prints, and he was surprised on how sharp and vivid the prints were. It has become a monitor to monitor to cmyk press process!

one funny thing on chemical photograhpy, I see a lot of colleages returning to film, missing depth in their digital files. I did too!

stefan

[Mark Sawyer]

In fine art photography, the traditional "original print" has the value of being the object produced by the artist's own hand. That gives it an artifact value which is quite important, especially in the gallery/museum/collector venues. Also, it is usually a step (or more) in quality above all other reproductions of it.

But with so many options for how to show images, the traditional standards might be shifting...

[tim atherton]

In fine art photography, the traditional "original print" has the value of being the object produced by the artist's own hand. That gives it an artifact value which is quite important, especially in the gallery/museum/collector venues. Also, it is usually a step (or more) in quality above all other reproductions of it.

But with so many options for how to show images, the traditional standards might be shifting...

many "fine art" photographers (that is, photographers whose work is/was exhibited as fine art) often displayed prints that weren't produced by their own hand.

[Mark Sawyer]

many "fine art" photographers (that is, photographers whose work is/was exhibited as fine art) often displayed prints that weren't produced by their own hand.

Yes, and there are precedents in other art forms; large sculptures are often made by craftsmen from a sculptor's model or design drawings. But in something as accessibly done as photographic printing, it still surprises me that a serious fine art photographer would turn to someone else to produce the final work.

A print made by Ansel Adams commands a much higher price than one made from the same negative by an assistant, although in Robert Maplethorpe's case, it doesn't seem to matter. Perhaps it's all in what the artist conditions his audience to expect...

[Michael Graves]

The image is the photograph. The image is the image no matter what substrate it's on. Colloidon, silver bromide, ink or plasma screen. If we start considering the substrate our art, we will be like the guy in the Dire Straits song who hangs an empty canvas on the wall and calls it art.

[Vaughn]

Vaughn,
OK, so now I am using photoshop or some other software and after processing go to print the image. One of my printer options in my installed printer list is adobe acrobat creating a .pdf file. So the verb "to print" seems to include electronic capture as well as some form of physical output. From your description the noun "print" means image on some physical surface. Why can't we say that the electrons are the "ink" and the display is the physical surface and that we are therefore creating a new kind of "Print". Are we caught in a vocabulary transition here as the new digital elements to photography move into what has been considered "traditional" photography? Is the vocabulary problem creating problems in how we think about displaying images in new ways?
Ric

No, As a noun, the word "print" should not be applied to a projected image nor a light display on a computer monitor. An image on a monitor is not a print, nor a "new" kind of print. That is like saying a jet airplane is a new kind of boat. Both are vehicals, so they are related. A print and an image on a computer are both visual displays...but both are not prints.

The verb "to print" does not refer to electronic (or film) capture. I have to admit that any definition or rule has its exceptions -- but the exceptions do not dis-prove the rule...they are only exceptions. For example, if someone used transparency film and the transparency is displayed as the final print, then I suppose one could say in this case that the act of photographing is the same as the act of printing -- but few would refer it as such.

I don't think we should let a computer programmer's desire to reduce the number of option menus drive our definitions of a media (which is why "save as a .pdf file" is in a print menu). I believe it is a mistake to think that we are in a "transitionary period" of time for photography. That sort of thinking is what will limit digital art -- we in the early stages of a whole new art form.

Vaughn

[Christopher Breitenstein]

To answer your first question, no. A photograph is a fixed composition made with light.

[Robbie Shymanski]

This is like trying to define the edges of a cloud on a foggy day.

Something to consider in definition is what printmakers do. Many printmakers, specifially those working in silkscreen, create their prints through a series photographic processes. When Warhol did most of his screenprints, it was done with him shooting a Polaroid, enlarging with a halftone camera on a screen, and manipulating the image when pulling the screen on the canvas. Photography was essential to his process, but I think his work will always be considered painting and printmaking.

What "is" and "isn't" photography is right up there with all the arguments about what is and isn't art. If the bounds aren't constantly pushed, it becomes stagnant.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

The image is the photograph. The image is the image no matter what substrate it's on. Colloidon, silver bromide, ink or plasma screen. If we start considering the substrate our art, we will be like the guy in the Dire Straits song who hangs an empty canvas on the wall and calls it art.

I could agree with this only if the artist made the conscious selection of what material and what size the form of the finished product takes. Where electronic display devices are used, I have to take issue. No two plasma screens look alike and they come in many different sizes and are subject to adjustments made by people other than the artist. Additionally, they are not a permanent vehicle for delivery of that image and degrade with age. With ink or silver bromide on paper or any other substrate on which those chemicals are deposited, at least the artist maintains control of how the final product appears and with reasonable handling, it can be expected to last well beyond the life of any electronic video display.

[D. Bryant]

many "fine art" photographers (that is, photographers whose work is/was exhibited as fine art) often displayed prints that weren't produced by their own hand.
Not to mention one of a kind Polaroids!

Don Bryant

[Christopher D. Keth]

I would suggest that a display of monitors are not prints for one reason: permanence. Through much of photographic history, including the present, an attempt has been made for photographic prints to be as permanent as possible. Many people who print in platinum boast of the expected 500 to 1000 year permanence of the process. The word "archival" is thrown around an awful lot, indicating to me the importance of the issue to both the artists and to the collectors and curators.

Displaying images on monitors is the height of impermanence. Every night the images would be destroyed and recreated the next morning when the monitors got switched back on again. I don't like the idea of a power failure destroying a work of art.

For this reason, that no attempt is made at creating a safe, permanent piece for viewing, I submit that monitors would not be photographic prints.

[Kirk Gittings]

This thread seems very confusing. Is the OP and posters trying to define what is photography or what is a photographic print?

[Vaughn]

Where is that "Whipping the Dead Horse" icon?:p

[redrockcoulee]

What about photo etchings, photo serigraphs etc? Are they photographs or are they from the printmaking tradition. Lumpers and splitters as the taxonomists would say. A projected image may also be part of new media or installation so maybe it is more than the materials used to capture or present the image but also the context. I have no answers. My wife is trained as a printmaker and would consider photogravres as part of printmaking but then she is also a photographer and as she is starting to use LF she may change her mind :)

Any system of classification is artifical and thus can be argued.

[Louie Powell]

Many years ago, there was a debate in a local camera club over the issue of whether photograms could be entered into club competitions.

The main opponent of photograms objected to them on the basis that a camera-made negative was not required to make them, therefore they didn't qualify as photographs and shouldn't be allowed in competition.

Frankly, a discussion about whether only 'prints on paper' qualify as photographs strikes me as just as ludicrous as that camera club argument.

The only outcome of this kind of argument is to trivialize photography. .

[Ash]

I considering a Photograph a printed, hard copy, something tangible.

I considering a Photo as any form if non-printed or non-tangible. So it's a "Digital Photo" as opposed to a "Photographic Print".

[Marko]

Would Shakespeare be any less valuable had he written his works on a computer and saved them on a disk instead of using a quill to permanently (?) imprint his handiwork on a piece of paper?

Does the use of a computer make a written word somehow less valuable, less "written", less of a "word" or all of the above just because there is no "permanent" record?

And how is it a record that can be replicated exactly, effortlessly and ad nauseam less permanent than an imprint on a veritably degradable medium using chemically unstable inks, pigments or other stain-producing materials?

[Marko]

Reading this recent thread (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=41603), I cannot but wonder how could that not be photography at its finest?

I don't really see how could the act of shooting them on film and printing them on a piece of paper make them any more powerful or emotional nor can I see why would they be less of an art simply because of the choice of material.

Any takers?

[Kirk Gittings]

"I don't really see how could the act of shooting them on film and printing them on a piece of paper make them any more powerful or emotional nor can I see why would they be less of an art simply because of the choice of material."

Any takers?"

Or simply more valid as photography in the finest traditions aesthetically of the medium.

[Clay Turtle]

The image is the photograph. The image is the image no matter what substrate it's on. Colloid on, silver bromide, ink or plasma screen. If we start considering the substrate our art, we will be like the guy in the Dire Straits song who hangs an empty canvas on the wall and calls it art. Well, that is your thoughts but it would tend to see the blank canvas as the personification of a museum containing monitors ( hi-def or not) without any any art.

[Oren Grad]

Reading this recent thread (http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=41603), I cannot but wonder how could that not be photography at its finest?

I don't really see how could the act of shooting them on film and printing them on a piece of paper make them any more powerful or emotional nor can I see why would they be less of an art simply because of the choice of material.

Any takers?

I think this is something of a straw man. People make photographs, and view photographs, for many different reasons and with many different purposes. Some of these reasons and purposes don't depend on the particulars of capture and presentation, while some of them do.

[Marko]

I think this is something of a straw man. People make photographs, and view photographs, for many different reasons and with many different purposes. Some of these reasons and purposes don't depend on the particulars of capture and presentation, while some of them do.

Precisely.

Some among us, however, seem to claim that only images captured on film and wet-printed on paper represent "real" photography while dismissing everything else.

My long-standing view is that photography is primarily a method or a medium for conveying information by visual means, be it factual information or photographer's emotion at the time of capture, and that the actual materials and/or technology used is much less important, as long as it was captured by using a camera with lens on one end and light-sensitive material on the other.

There will be more and more photographers like Mr. Katz who use entirely modern technology for both capturing and displaying their work as we go forward and I would like to hear an intelligent explanation of why their work should not be considered photography.

[Ralph Barker]

I think it is perfectly OK, and probably to be expected, for creators of images to have differing opinions on the matter. The ultimate arbiter, however, is probably the person who signs the check. ;)

[Clay Turtle]

I think this is something of a straw man. People make photographs, and view photographs, for many different reasons and with many different purposes. Some of these reasons and purposes don't depend on the particulars of capture and presentation, while some of them do.I went as far as looking at the linked page but didn't go any further. So I may be missing some perceptions that are guiding the thinking of others.
Prints on paper . . .
For me, prints behind museum glass add a dimension to photography displays can give, no matter what definition one uses, it does that for me. I agree, I had reprinted a negative for the widow of a friend. His original is 16x20 my print(s) are 11x14. I was going to post them on the web but realized that the futility, I did a series of 5 prints, the first was pretty strait print which for all practical purpose equal to the original, each print is slightly different as I varied techniques to improve the look as I wasn't particularly satisfied with my results. They each are very close to the original & they each are individual prints but you would have to look long & hard at each side by side to see the difference.
In the pro world a digital work flow is standard, I recently sat at an editors desk with prints, and he was surprised on how sharp and vivid the prints were. It has become a monitor to monitor to cmyk press process!

PS . . . One may wonder if the advent of chemical photography sent similar shutters through out the painting community. After all one can photograph a painting & reproduce its image with film.

I considering a Photo as any form if non-printed or non-tangible. So it's a "Digital Photo" as opposed to a "Photographic Print". Of course then one might point out that such reprints would not have the texture of the painting?
So what if you did stereo imaging to produce a computer overlay used to form a holographic (laser) image? You would then have an apparent texture of the painting as well as the image, imagine . . .
The local museum is (showing) exhibiting ancient Egyptian artifacts (art), I would be more than a little peeved if I went down to see them & found everyone standing around a pedestal viewing holographic images of artifacts . . .

[Clay Turtle]

Which is a long way around to say that yes, his digital photos are quality material but then so are 35mm. If you compare them to say 'Robert Skeoch' (http://www.bigcameraworkshops.com)works with b&w 8x10 format then one readily makes the distinction of format & medium of display. While some photography may have merit for no other reason but historical aspects & therefore an article worthy of being in a museum & there are those that due to there artistic aspects qualify as museum pieces.

[Michael Alpert]

This idea came to me from another thread in the forum discussing photography book publishing. While the use of the web is becoming more accepted for many it is not clear how electronic publishing of images is viewed. More to my point, if a museum or gallery used high definition screens around the walls to display photographic images rather than using mounted prints should it still be considered a "Photo Gallery"?

If an image has a direct optical link to the world, it is a photograph. Traditionally photography has been defined as a form of printmaking. But printmaking has changed from works-on-paper to works-as-multiples (or as possible multiples), regardless of physical "support." Museums and galleries are sometimes stretching definitions a bit, but their image-based galleries are legitimately "photo galleries."

With that said, your post has additional impled questions. Is 72 lpi a good resolution for a photographic image? I don't think so. I am happy that a gallery that represents me will soon have a number of my images on the web. And a talented friend has offered to design a web-site for me. So I guess I am also accepting some forms of digital presentation. Still, I love well-made gelatin-silver black-and-white photographic prints on paper. In terms of basic image-quality, they are not out of date. As far as I am concerned, nothing else comes close.

[paulr]

Is 72 lpi a good resolution for a photographic image? I don't think so.

Wouldn't it depend on the image? For some images and artists' intents, big pixels or ink dots or other intrusions of image structure are appropriate. In some cases they might be essential.

Just as for others, nothing less than the silky smoothness of a a contact print will do.

[Michael Alpert]

Wouldn't it depend on the image? For some images and artists' intents, big pixels or ink dots or other intrusions of image structure are appropriate. In some cases they might be essential.

Just as for others, nothing less than the silky smoothness of a a contact print will do.

Paul,

Okay, of course, in the same way that some early twentieth-century photographers loved blurry prints. To make a virtue of necessity is what artists do. But artists whose images need "big pixels or ink dots or other intrusions" are exceptions. There is such a thing as photographic standards of quality. There's a history of the medium here; it's not a situation where each person independently creates the whole world. One can decide to ignore or even oppose those historical standards, but--for the present time at least--they still exist.

[jb7]

There is such a thing as photographic standards of quality. There's a history of the medium here; it's not a situation where each person independently creates the whole world. One can decide to ignore or even oppose those historical standards, but--for the present time at least--they still exist.

You may be choosing standards for yourself,
but some of the most beautiful portraits I've seen on this site recently, have been very selective in the areas presented as sharp-

Photography might be capable of presenting uniform detail over large areas of print,
but an inspired composition, regardless of overall sharpness,
will always trump a technically adept, but boring picture-

To say that photographs can only exist on print is to relegate yourself to a photographic backwater;
surely it can't be beyond anyone to appreciate great art wherever it presents itself?
And in whatever medium?

for me, it's whatever moves me, in whatever medium-
and if that includes areas which don't include high resolution,
well, so be it-

j

[paulr]

I think it's just a matter of recognizing the strengths and weaknesses and unique qualities of different media. Think about platinum prints, projected slides, polaroids, and huge color murals. They're each capable of different things. As such they each bring with them their own possible standards of quality. Photographers today can choose from between all these media ... and if they're good artists, they'll make good choices.

I'd say the same about an LCD screen hanging on a gallery wall. It has strengths, weaknesses, and many unique qualities. It will be appropriate for certain kinds of work. If it doesn't serve the work, then that's more a reflection on the artist's judgement than on the screen itself.

[Michael Alpert]

You may be choosing standards for yourself,
but some of the most beautiful portraits I've seen on this site recently, have been very selective in the areas presented as sharp-

Photography might be capable of presenting uniform detail over large areas of print,
but an inspired composition, regardless of overall sharpness,
will always trump a technically adept, but boring picture-

To say that photographs can only exist on print is to relegate yourself to a photographic backwater;
surely it can't be beyond anyone to appreciate great art wherever it presents itself?
And in whatever medium?

for me, it's whatever moves me, in whatever medium-
and if that includes areas which don't include high resolution,
well, so be it-

j

Joseph,

You did not understand what I posted. That's okay, but reread it.

[jb7]

Well, I did-
Maybe you're right-

j