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View Full Version : should we stop looking at reproductions?



james ryder
3-Apr-2010, 11:41
Because they mask the intensity of the photographer’s intent. Recently I was able to look at some naked Stieglitz prints at the Art Institute of Chicago. Only matted without frames, they were free from annoying reflections caused by the omnipresent museum glass. I was able to tilt them to create a raking light that revealed Georgia O’Keefe’s freckles. I was able to move my eyes closer or farther back mimicking the sensation of looking at a ground glass and getting that “in focus” effect. Where the light is caught just so on the ground glass screen like catching a butterfly’s wing in mid stroke. Almost like looking over his shoulder as he said, “there” and stopped. But what was most apparent in the prints was the majesty of their beauty. Arrested, deep dark sighs. When Stieglitz used silver to paint the Hand of Man, he obviously saw it rushing out of the glowing morning of modernism and being captured in a glistening dawn. Each silvery tone laid down by the lens and camera, from the imagination of a master and the heart of a muse. Indeed Aurora was rushing towards us that morning. Something else, ugly, more constructed lies in the photogravure versions. The rails are dim, the sky dark. A different cloudier image and a different, darker, meaning. The saddest part was knowing the Russian Revolution interrupted the supply of platinum. What masterworks would he have been capable of at the very moment at the apex of his power. In his hands palladium is wonderous but shows weakly next to the layered blacks from the platinums. But most important was the revelation of his intent. To be able to look simultaneously at the scowling Beck and the enraged O’Keefe, is to sit before the real manifestation of their presence. They were there and they moved me back. I physically recoiled and then laughed. O’Keefe, me and Stieglitz touching each other over 90 years. Time travels. I have these same images in the highly acclaimed Met book of O’Keefe prints and the National Gallery’s book of Stieglitz and countless other obviously inferior reproductions in other books, prints, cards and posters. But nothing is the same and nothing even compares. The reproductions are not real, merely pretend, they only skim, like standing on the bank skipping stones across a deep pond. Jump in with me, naked, the deep water is bracing. Perhaps the better the reproduction the worse the joke, because the most important detail that gives truth and life is exactly what is not there. To be able to be next to, in front of, transfixed by these prints is an irreplaceable experience. Photography’s truth was in my hand. Make an appointment today.

Robert Hughes
3-Apr-2010, 12:21
If so, most of us would never see classic photographs.

Jim collum
3-Apr-2010, 13:14
i struggle a lot with this.. especially my Platinum and Platinum over color prints. There's so much depth and subtlety of tone in the print, with so much of that lost on the web. Since that depth and tone makes up a large part of the image aesthetic, the web versions often just get a 'yawn'

Nathan Potter
3-Apr-2010, 13:25
Watchout! You're in danger of becoming a critic. I think you were carried away by the moment. :) Stieglitz did some fine work but no better than some on this forum. His fame derives within an historical context. Reproductions tell much about a photographer and his subject but generally little about the physical original. That's OK because we, as viewers, have an opportunity to see all this material. With experience gained from viewing original images, we can often guess what the real thing might be like. In fact in some cases the reproductions approach the originals. The whole thesis of the subject is revealed in the reproduction and IMHO this is usually the larger part of the statement. I'll take the reproductions if I must.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

Jim Noel
3-Apr-2010, 14:20
I look at as many original prints as possible. On occasion I go to the Center for Photography in Tucson to view not only original prints but also negatives.
I generally ask for prints or negatives whose reproductions I have seen in books, or for those which I have seen original images under glass.
Reproductions are priceless as introductions to the real thing.

Henry Ambrose
3-Apr-2010, 14:53
You mean you don't just "get it all" on a monitor or the page of a cheap book?
Impossible!

<grin>

There's nothing like a real print.
I'm with you 100%.

Toyon
3-Apr-2010, 15:57
I've noticed that glass, particularly UV glass reduces light by nearly a stop. My prints are brighter without glass than with. Its hard to know whether to print for glass or for viewing "raw".

I do find viewing an actual print a far greater experience than a reproduction. With digital it is a moot point, since they are always reproductions.

sun of sand
3-Apr-2010, 16:42
Where the light is caught just so on the ground glass screen like catching a butterfly’s wing in mid stroke.


are you here to speak with us or for us to read you

ic-racer
3-Apr-2010, 17:31
Actually the situation is worse. I read a post on another forum where the poster indicated his primary exposure to B&W photography was looking at de-colorized digital images on Flicker.

BetterSense
3-Apr-2010, 17:47
If so, most of us would never see classic photographs.

Kind of the point is that, if we are viewing reproductions, we aren't seeing them anyway.

jnantz
3-Apr-2010, 18:13
isn't a print a reproduction of the negative ( the actual photograph ) ?

BetterSense
3-Apr-2010, 20:55
They are both photographs. The print is a photograph of the negative, and possibly the photographer (dodging/burning). I wouldn't consider the print a reproduction since it is made by the photographer and presented as a finished work.

Brian Ellis
3-Apr-2010, 21:35
They are both photographs. The print is a photograph of the negative, and possibly the photographer (dodging/burning). I wouldn't consider the print a reproduction since it is made by the photographer and presented as a finished work.

When I make say a 25 print series in a darkroom, surely the last 24 are reproductions of the first - I've made all the creative decisions I'm ever going to make with the first print, the next 24 are just sheer mechanical drudgery and rote repetition in an effort to reproduce the first one as faithfully as possible.

Mark Barendt
4-Apr-2010, 03:59
When I make say a 25 print series in a darkroom, surely the last 24 are reproductions of the first - I've made all the creative decisions I'm ever going to make with the first print, the next 24 are just sheer mechanical drudgery and rote repetition in an effort to reproduce the first one as faithfully as possible.

Personally, I find that with straight prints can I duplicate as you describe but, if there is any dodging or burning or toning to do, I change something with every new print.

Just my style.

Ash
4-Apr-2010, 04:25
There is nothing democratic in elitism

BetterSense
4-Apr-2010, 09:32
When I make say a 25 print series in a darkroom, surely the last 24 are reproductions of the first - I've made all the creative decisions I'm ever going to make with the first print, the next 24 are just sheer mechanical drudgery and rote repetition in an effort to reproduce the first one as faithfully as possible.

Such is your prerogative as the artist. The resulting prints are not reproductions if you, the artist, made them. If your goal was to make them all like the first print, then so be it. It's rather irrelevant.

Prints are not 'reproductions' just because they all look the way you want them to, or because they all look like your negative. If a "reproduction" is identified as a photograph with an image that was intended to look like something else, then all photographs are reproductions in that sense--reproductions of reality, or of light, or of people. If you photograph a building, does that make the resulting photograph a 'reproduction of the building'? In some sense of the word, yes, but not the sense of interest here.

If you think of your prints as reproductions and not original prints, I hope you are pricing them as reproductions and not as original prints.

Brian Ellis
4-Apr-2010, 12:41
Such is your prerogative as the artist. The resulting prints are not reproductions if you, the artist, made them. If your goal was to make them all like the first print, then so be it. It's rather irrelevant.

Prints are not 'reproductions' just because they all look the way you want them to, or because they all look like your negative. If a "reproduction" is identified as a photograph with an image that was intended to look like something else, then all photographs are reproductions in that sense--reproductions of reality, or of light, or of people. If you photograph a building, does that make the resulting photograph a 'reproduction of the building'? In some sense of the word, yes, but not the sense of interest here.

If you think of your prints as reproductions and not original prints, I hope you are pricing them as reproductions and not as original prints.

I apparently wasn't sufficiently clear about the fact situation I had in mind. I assume you know that some photographers sell their works in portfolios. The portfolios contain some number, usually something in the 10 - 20 range, of different photographs but each portfolio contains the same photographs. Thus, for example, I might make 10 different photographs of a building and if I was limiting the edition to say 25 portfolios I'd make a 25 sets of the 10 prints, with the prints in each portfolio as nearly identical as possible to those in every other portfolio.

If this still isn't clear, take a look at the book "The Portfolios of Ansel Adams" to see what I'm talking about.

I was just raising the question of what we mean when we refer to a "reproduction" and suggested that in the situation described above once the first set of 10 prints was made, the remaining sets could be viewed as reproductions in the sense that there was nothing new or creative going on when the later sets were made, the darkroom printer is just taking a bunch of mechanical steps much the same as if the subsequent prints were being made by a printing press.

Obviously a print isn't a reproduction just because it looks like I want it to and I didn't say anything about a print being a reproduction of reality. And since no photograph reproduces "reality," if I photograph a building I certainly don't think of it as a reproduction of the building. And finally, I understand that in the situation I'm describing all the photographs in each portfolio would be considered "originals" in the way that term is normally used.

Merg Ross
4-Apr-2010, 15:26
I apparently wasn't sufficiently clear about the fact situation I had in mind. I assume you know that some photographers sell their works in portfolios. The portfolios contain some number, usually something in the 10 - 20 range, of different photographs but each portfolio contains the same photographs. Thus, for example, I might make 10 different photographs of a building and if I was limiting the edition to say 25 portfolios I'd make a 25 sets of the 10 prints, with the prints in each portfolio as nearly identical as possible to those in every other portfolio.

If this still isn't clear, take a look at the book "The Portfolios of Ansel Adams" to see what I'm talking about.

I was just raising the question of what we mean when we refer to a "reproduction" and suggested that in the situation described above once the first set of 10 prints was made, the remaining sets could be viewed as reproductions in the sense that there was nothing new or creative going on when the later sets were made, the darkroom printer is just taking a bunch of mechanical steps much the same as if the subsequent prints were being made by a printing press.

Obviously a print isn't a reproduction just because it looks like I want it to and I didn't say anything about a print being a reproduction of reality. And since no photograph reproduces "reality," if I photograph a building I certainly don't think of it as a reproduction of the building. And finally, I understand that in the situation I'm describing all the photographs in each portfolio would be considered "originals" in the way that term is normally used.

By this definition there would be 250 "original" prints and 240 "reproductions".

The term "nearly identical" suggests a difference between the individual prints, and brings into question that "the darkroom printer is just taking a bunch of mechanical steps much the same as if the subsequent prints were being made by a printing press".

From viewing several portfolios of an edition, one can often observe the variations from print to print made from the same negative. Hence, I have difficulty in accepting the notion that portfolio prints are reproductions, although I understand your comments.

In answer to the OP, no, we should not stop looking at reproductions, no matter how we might define them.

Drew Wiley
4-Apr-2010, 16:30
Reproductions differ in their faithfulness. Printing in books varies considerably, though for a small fortune you can put yourself on the map. But books do supply us
with quite a bit of visual information about photographs and phtographers we would not otherwise know. Web imagery is a lot less faithful, and at times make me seriously think about pulling my own site down altogether, due to either the barbarity of the reproduction or the inability to realistically communicate anything subtle or detailed on the web, which effectively eliminates about 90 percent of my
best images. I feel the web prostitutes everything anyway. But it's the visual language of the contemporary generation, so you can't exactly ignore it. Yet I'd agree with Stieglitz that there's only ever one "best" print of any given negative. Can say the same thing about painting. Never saw a picture by Rembrandt which impressed me in a book, but standing before some original paintings in the Natl Gallery with all the delicate impasto almost floored me. Quite a difference.

Brian Stein
13-Apr-2010, 22:46
Never saw a picture by Rembrandt which impressed me in a book, but standing before some original paintings in the Natl Gallery with all the delicate impasto almost floored me. Quite a difference.

Seeing the "real deal" is indeed quite something special, but as most substantive photographic collections are many 1 000s of distance units away from me I prefer reproduction to never seeing.

Vaughn
14-Apr-2010, 01:48
Seeing the "real deal" is indeed quite something special, but as most substantive photographic collections are many 1 000s of distance units away from me I prefer reproduction to never seeing.

And reproductions can move us to seek out the real thing...

rdenney
14-Apr-2010, 05:38
are you here to speak with us or for us to read you

Heh.

The first post brought to mind Seldom Seen Smith's response to Doc Sarvis after a mini-lecture: "You said a mouthful."

As to the prints vs. reproductions:

I suspect the difference between a good reproduction of a photograph and an original print is less than the difference, say, between a reproduction and an oil painting. Yet books have been the only way I have been able to appreciate the work of great artists of the last many centuries. That richens my life even if I have to wait for a rare opportunity to see burnt umber or cadmium yellow in all its original glory, as made subtle by contrasting washes by a master.

I have a Special Edition print of Dogwoods by Ansel Adams (the print was made, of course, by Alan Ross). That image is also in the book Yosemite and the Range of Light. I have compared them side-by-side. The print includes a subtlety of edge made too crisp by the screen of the reproduction, but the expanses of tone seem to me pretty faithful in the duotone reproduction, especially if I leave the magnifying glass where it belongs.

And Adams worked with Little, Brown and Company to come up with reproduction methods that he found at least a reasonable compromise on the quality of his original prints, in addition to making prints especially for reproduction. I have seen many reproductions, and many originals of him and even of Stieglitz. I guess I haven't had that much trouble filling in the blanks.

Rick "who can listen to a recorded symphony, even in the car, and still conjure up the feeling of being in the hall, too" Denney

paulr
14-Apr-2010, 09:13
Photography is a medium that encompasses many viewing media, and for which "reproduction" has always been one of its central qualities: it's a medium of multiples.

Attempts to draw a hard line between "original" and "reproduction" tend to be artificial, unless you're talking about one of the few photo media that produces a monotype (like a daguerrotype).

Generalizations about quality also fly out the window if you look at notable exceptions. The plates in my Paul Strand book, printed in quadtone with two tints and two varnishes (separations made by Richard Benson) look as good as the very best darkroom prints I've ever seen ... better than all but a tiny handful.

Most book reproductions of Walker Evans photographs look better than most of the "original" prints I've seen.

I suspect this thread is really about the original poster's preference for platinum prints over photogravures ... a preference not everyone shares.

I think reproduceability, especially in book form, is one of the greatest strengths of photography. John Szarkowski once suggested that the book was the ultimate medium for distrubuting and viewing photographs. I may agree. In some cases we may wish for better quality reproductions, but it seems to me that any rant against reproduction in general because of this amounts to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Oren Grad
14-Apr-2010, 10:13
Attempts to draw a hard line between "original" and "reproduction" tend to be artificial, unless you're talking about one of the few photo media that produces a monotype (like a daguerrotype).

Generalizations about quality also fly out the window if you look at notable exceptions. The plates in my Paul Strand book, printed in quadtone with two tints and two varnishes (separations made by Richard Benson) look as good as the very best darkroom prints I've ever seen ... better than all but a tiny handful.

Most book reproductions of Walker Evans photographs look better than most of the "original" prints I've seen.

To take this line of thinking another step, when a book of photographs is exceptionally well-crafted but has attributes distinctly different from photographic prints, I'm not sure it even makes sense to think of one as an "original" and the other as a "reproduction", rather than thinking of both as distinct works based on the original negative/transparency/capture.

This discussion brings to mind William Clift's work. I have his books "Certain Places" and "A Hudson Landscape", and also had the good fortune to see an exhibition of silver contact prints and enlargements of pictures from "Hudson Landscape" some years back. Each of the three "products" - book, contact prints, enlargements - has a distinct character. But I think each is also wonderful and stands on its own as a fully realized and self-contained work, not a second-generation derivative of one of the others.

Michael Alpert
14-Apr-2010, 10:57
Because they mask the intensity of the photographer’s intent. . . . Perhaps the better the reproduction the worse the joke, because the most important detail that gives truth and life is exactly what is not there. To be able to be next to, in front of, transfixed by these prints is an irreplaceable experience. Photography’s truth was in my hand. Make an appointment today.

James,

Whenever I am in Chicago, I set aside an afternoon for a visit to the study room at the Art Institute. So I've also spent time with the Stieglitz prints in their collection. I actually found the silver prints to be the most interesting ones. That difference with you aside, I think knowing "the intensity of the photographer's intent" is, at best, an optimistic assumption.

Stieglitz certainly was a good darkroom craftsman, but his total artwork also clearly included those fuzzy photogravures that he fussed about for many years. Perhaps the quality of his gravures, the very quality that you find problematic, was also a primary part of his intent and intensity.

There is much to say about Stieglitz's obsessions and freedoms. In many ways, he was a difficult Victorian at war with himself. Much of his work seems ridiculously self-absorbed, sometimes compositionally lax, and sometimes amazingly shallow; but even with all that reservation, like you I find exceptionally fine qualities embodied in his best photographs.

As much as I appreciate his prints, I don't think I would have any understanding of Steiglitz's work without the well-printed books that have been published about him, especially the Boston Museum of Fine Arts book and the National Gallery "Key Set" book, which offers an overview that puts the prints in context. With that in mind, to answer your question, I can only say: no, I don't think we should stop looking at reproductions.

paulr
14-Apr-2010, 11:37
To take this line of thinking another step, when a book of photographs is exceptionally well-crafted but has attributes distinctly different from photographic prints, I'm not sure it even makes sense to think of one as an "original" and the other as a "reproduction", rather than thinking of both as distinct works based on the original negative/transparency/capture.

This discussion brings to mind William Clift's work. I have his books "Certain Places" and "A Hudson Landscape", and also had the good fortune to see an exhibition of silver contact prints and enlargements of pictures from "Hudson Landscape" some years back. Each of the three "products" - book, contact prints, enlargements - has a distinct character. But I think each is also wonderful and stands on its own as a fully realized and self-contained work, not a second-generation derivative of one of the others.

That's a good way to look at it. Especially considering that Clift probably had a hand in the look of all three versions.

Maybe an informal way to look at the idea of original vs. reproduction would just be the artist's intent for the work. Someone like Clift (or Stieglitz, with his rotogravures) intended for the work to printed in book form. So the book plates aren't some kind of secondary work. But if you make book plates from the work of someone from the "if-it's-not-gum-bichromate over palladium-it's-crap" school of thought, then it seems like a reproduction or secondary interpretation.

Which says nothing about quality ... the amazing Paul Strand book that I mentioned was made after Strand died. In one sense, since the plates were made in part from original negatives, they aren't reproductions any more than the silver prints ... but in the informal sense I'm proposing here, they are.

Chris Strobel
14-Apr-2010, 12:05
I've got the book 'Edward Weston a Legacy' When I went to the Getty museum to view the Weston exhibit, I was disappointed.The originals looked worse than the reproductions in my book.The lighting was very poor at that exhibition :(

Oren Grad
14-Apr-2010, 14:19
That's a good way to look at it. Especially considering that Clift probably had a hand in the look of all three versions.

If I recall correctly, he made all the silver prints and was intimately involved in the book design and production.

Actually, in writing above I'd forgotten that there are two other variations - Clift also sells nicely made notecards of selected pictures, and some of his books have been sold with an accompanying gravure printed by Jon Goodman. So yes...


Maybe an informal way to look at the idea of original vs. reproduction would just be the artist's intent for the work.

...it would be interesting to know how he thinks of them all.