Originally Posted by bob carnie
Me too? I'd be interested to read more.
Me too? I'd be interested to read more.
Apologies - I thought it was published in the free section - let's see if this works
We’ve already discussed Sebastio Salgado’s Genesis exhibition, but this month also sees the release of 50 selected platinum prints also on display in London, at Phillips de Pury. As someone who prints with inkjet, silver and more recently alternate processes, including a recent start in platinum, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to view these exhibitions together on the same day. I have tried to approach it open minded, but realised the artisan in me couldn’t help but want the platinum images to be ‘better’.
So I joined the queue at the National History Museum before opening and went straight to the Genesis exhibition (another review here). This is a vast, epic exhibit, a real ‘blockbuster’ as I heard someone next to me remark. The images themselves focus on the natural world, encouraging us to reflect on our own lifestyles and our impact. Many images also feature indigenous peoples in their traditional dress. Salgado’s inkjets are large and printed hard, very black and white yet managing to retain just enough highlight and shadow detail to make the image sing. This was no display of subtlety in the mid values, this was high impact printing. Most images work perfectly, but a few I found too ‘overdone’ to my taste, with a hint of an HDR type look. The inkjets themselves, are printed on a gloss paper, so that the blacks are incredibly dense.
It is hard to grumble at any aspects of the exhibit, which is incredible. However for my taste some of the images were over large. Not only did this introduce lack of detail and artifacts into the image, it also means you have to stand back. In a busy exhibition people are often walking in front of the image you are viewing, or standing close to the print, forcing you to do the same, and this did detract from the viewing experience. Salgado has tried to retain his tri-x look in a digital age, using digital contrast adjustment and the DXO plugin to add synthetic grain. It’s an amazing admission to make, I’m sure many other photographers would have kept quiet about it, but the effect is incredibly true. I expected to be able to tell film from digital easily, and you can, but in a positive way. The film shots look like Kodak Tri-x on 35mm, with large areas of characteristic grain, and the digital shots have a more detailed, finer ‘medium format’ look about them. I went in with the mind of a sceptic, but left a convert. I’ve never seen digital images look so good. I left the exhibition with the words of one visitor ringing in my ears ‘my faith in black and white photography is restored’.
As I was crossing London, I was a little worried. How was platinum going to compare with these amazingly impactful images? Platinum is known for it’s subtle shadow and highlight detail, for the richness and velvet texture of the art papers it’s printed on. This would seem to be an almost antithesis of the exhibition I had just viewed.
31 Studio were charged with the task of producing the 16 editions of 50 images that are currently on display at Phillips. Platinum had a rebirth in the 1960s in the hands of Irving Penn after it had fallen out of favour after the First World War with the cost and availability of materials. It is of course known for its archival properties, as well as it’s aesthetic, which is of delicacy with almost endless shadow and highlight tones. Historically the images are contact printed from negatives onto hand sensitised art paper and exposed like most alternate processes to UV light. Technological advances in digital printing allows printing negative enlargements of any size from a digital file (from a film or digital original). This new negative is used to contact print Salgado’s images onto 24×16 inch Arches Aquarelle paper. This produces a matt image, which always gives the impression of a less deep black. The best platinum printers struggle to achieve a Dmax of 1.4 on platinum, whilst most of us at home with inkjets can easily achieve a deep dark 1.8 density. This would mean that the platinum prints would be remarkably different to the images at the National History Museum.
This was immediately obvious on entering the quiet and spacious Phillips gallery. With the high impact images of the Genesis exhibition at the front of my mind I was greeted by wonderfully soft and subtle prints of a select 50 images. As I made my way around the images, I felt something wasn’t quite right. Not all the images ‘worked’. The high drama was missing from some of the prints. A lot of Salgado’s images rely on the impact of high density prints, and whilst credit must go to 31 Studio for producing outstanding platinum work, I started to feel that maybe platinum wasn’t the best media for the subject matter. What was interesting was that a few select images, that seemed over done before, now had an ability to show their true potential, to breathe a little.
The prints themselves are at a better size of 24×16, and honestly might actually look even better printed a little smaller. This made the viewing much more personal, helped by the almost complete absence of anyone else in the gallery, it felt like a very privileged experience. If I was really nit picking the lack of anti-reflective glass, the mixed tungsten and daylight balanced lighting and the subtle but present venetian banding effect on some of the prints did detract. However this really seems churlish on what is really a remarkable feat, 2 brilliant but incredibly different exhibits of the same images.
The platinum images are on display at Phillips, Howick Place. The images are sold as a 16 edition, 50 print portfolio, at £1m, with the value increasing as the editions sell. Better get there quick!
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David Higgsmilesfromhere.co.uk
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7 thoughts on “Platinum in Genesis”Ebony1 on May 23, 2013 at 8:15 am said:
Anyone visiting the Salgado exhibition should be prepared for hectoring programme notes from the great man himself, urging us all to lead less materialistic lives. And how does he put his principles into practice ? Why, by giving us the chance to buy a limited edition of his book – for a mere £7,000. Clearly he intends to use the bank notes as simple wall paper.
Reply ↓David Higgs
on May 27, 2013 at 6:09 am said:
To be fair Salgado has some sound humanitarian and environmental credentials. In this world wearing hessian clothing, eating tree bark and living in a hole in the ground are not going to get your message across, so I can forgive him some commercialism. Besides the beautifully printed Taschen coffee table book for mere mortals was in the order of £40.
Reply ↓Pretoret on May 23, 2013 at 10:04 pm said:
I was in London two weeks ago (coming from south of France, forgive my poor english!)and got lucky to visit Salgado’s exhibition as i was on my way to V&A to see D. Bowie’s one!
I found it was really wonderfull, long time since I’ve seen such a combination of powerfull subject and magnificient large black and white prints.
I do not agree regarding the prints size, I think it gives an increased power and it makes you feel like immersed in the landscape! Of course it is true that sometimes I had to change my point of view depending on how many people were standing in front, but anyway this is something that I usually do as it is interesting to stand close to get some details and then stand back for an overall view.
Reply ↓Giles Stokoe on May 27, 2013 at 11:39 am said:
Thanks David. I am a Salgado fan, and I am pleased that the current exhibition is up to scratch after a few years of relative quiet from the man. I am interested to hear how the exhibition and the Taschen book were printed, as getting to the exhibition will incur significant cost and effort on my part and i might have to settle for the book as an xmas present.
I did a quick search on the web and it appears that there are a few ‘old’ images ( from workers, migrants etc) in the new collection, is this true?
It does seem slightly odd that the selection of which images to print platinum might have been badly made ( since it should be fairly easy to work out which would benefit from the treatment and which wouldn’t ). Was it Salgado’s choice, or a money spinning excercise by some foundation or other? I would have thought that Salgado would have retained the last word though… Interesting.
Reply ↓David Higgs on May 28, 2013 at 7:26 am said:
Giles, the older images were present at Phillips, but not at the NHM. The Taschen book was very well printed, the large limited edition books were almost like having originals, very impressive printing at a price.
I think the choice of which images to be platinum printed was more down to content of the image rather than suitability for platinum. A lot of the images worked well, and had a different feel from the inkjets, but some of the high contrast images where black is dominant, were ‘lost in translation’.
All of course, in my humble opinion.
Reply ↓Joe Cornish on June 5, 2013 at 11:50 am said:
Thanks for such an interesting review David. Having seen the NHM show I concur with almost all of your observations. It is indeed a tour de force, but it is difficult not to feel that some of the printing is just “trying too hard”. Nevertheless, huge admiration for the achievement. In all honesty though, perhaps it would have been stronger for being a little smaller? Anyway, the platinum show sounds wonderful and I will definitely try to get to it.
Reply ↓David Higgs
on June 5, 2013 at 12:24 pm said:
The platinum show ends Friday, better be quick. I’m sure we’d all be interested in your views on the smaller more subtle imagery.
Hi David
I would be very interested in seeing the pt pd prints for a comparison as you were so lucky to have had.
I have to humbly disagree about the Inkjets, The prints here are not first rate, and look forced and not like any silver gelatin work I have seen from him in the past.
The overall tonality of these prints were off. Yes they did set the aim points at a value that would somewhat hold detail in the highlight and as well the shadow, so I can agree
that this happened but the graduation in between was lacking.
The paper choice may also be what threw me off , maybe a less gloss surface would have helped, I couldn't help seeing a blue cast on the whole show.
Psuedo Black and White, kind of like my impression of the Vivian Maier book Street Photographer .
.
Hi Bob, so much has to do with the presentation and lighting, that prints that are supposedly the same can look very different, I was on the other side of the world so might explain some differences but you are far more experienced than I at this.
Also this was an article for general submission, aimed at the middle of the curve, and not a large format forum type of post. If I was to 'put the boot in' I'd expand on my comments that the prints were overdone, that there were obvious artifacts on the larger images that to my eye very much detracted from the overall look. The HDR effect on some prints was very ugly, however on other images, the prints were 'right' and really sang. I mention this in my article in gentler words.
To my mind the exhibition was 'block buster' and not aimed at the fine art eye in any way. The crowds loved it.
The platinum prints were completely different, and not always for the better. Some compositions relied on harsh dark to light transitions and extreme contrast which just wasn't possible. I think the selection of images going to platinum could have been better. Also the larger prints exhibited the venetian blind effect that you can get with digital internegatives - subtle, but present.
Having said all that, fair play on the whole it looked good, and brought B+W to a wider audience.
Hi David
I think I may be more disappointed than most as an NA printer, I used his worker and Migration series that was shown George Eastman House as a mark for my own printing comparison.
As well the great printer Brett Weston has prints out there for us to compare our skills against.
This body of inkjet work is not in the same league IMO and actually does high quality B & W a disservice to some of us striving for the highest of quality.
Yes the crowds loved it , somewhat sad but predictable , I just wish he had made the show tighter to better standards.
I am intriqued by your comments about the pt pd as I think you are correct that the selection of images for process may have been underestimated, or not fully understood. I think this may be what is bothering me.
Kind of like saying, put it on platinum, its expensive so it has got to be good. Its the same thing that I see with the ink prints.. set the aim values and everything will fall in place.
There are those here on this forum who know how to make a good inkjet print , and the highlight transition would have certainly been handled better may some here as well the overall look of the print.
This show is going to raise a lot of opinions , that is for sure.
I just hope I don't come off as the Grinch who stole Christmas.
What I didn't mention were that there were some of his very large scale silver prints from the migration and worker series in the Philips de Puy exhibition of platinum prints. These were of a completely different feel (obviously) to the over glossy inkjets.
The sheer logistics is not to be underestimated though. 250 large scale inkjets in each exhibition in several different parts of the world simultaneously - you wonder how much control Salgado really had. Some of the prints in the Taschen large scale book, were better done than the images hanging on the walls.
Same at Metivier Gallery here in Toronto, older work and digital silver prints from LVT negatives, quite successful.
Yes the logistics is mind boggling.
Was in London last week so took in the show on Sunday AM-Of course it's impressive but frankly I felt it would have been better with a 25% or even 50% further edit-less is more!
The 5x100 art edition EUR 8500 book ( with "silver gelatine print overseen by SS" - not inkjet!) might be a good investment-Taschen also published Sumo by Helmut Newton ( then the worlds largest conventional print run book-10000 signed copies at EUR 10,0000- so this is a deal!
The EUR 3500 edition ( 2500 copies no print) is clearly a steal.;-)
Salgado is interviewed with display of some of his Genesis work in the current issue of "Black and White" magazine. This may have been stated in other threads in detail, but he transfers digital images to 4x5 negatives and works them in PS to increase the grain. Says the images are better quality with this process. It wasn't clear if he was taking 4x5 images of post-card sized digital prints or otherwise. I wonder what 4x5 taking lenses he uses? Sounds like a tedious process to produce improved quality prints.
Comments and further clarification welcome.
PDM
He is using a LVT recorder to make negatives then put in enlarger... I wonder why he is not going direct to silver from his digital files... the only reason I can imagine is the type of paper ... or he just wants to feel like he is controlling the process by putting recording negs in an enlarger.
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