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Thread: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

  1. #21
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    High-end press reproductions can actually cost far more to make than silver prints, and can themselves be remarkable. I'm not referring to anything desktop, or
    even affordable equipment-wise by typical photographers. They can even use inks with a much higher DMax than anything silver or inkjet. Certain classic processes like Woodburytype were inherently press processes. Anything masterfully done works for me. What counts is not whether you use a flintlock or a Remington repeater
    or a cruise missle or a sharp-tipped pogo stick, but how well you aim.

  2. #22

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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    Quote Originally Posted by tgtaylor View Post
    After spending “...about 80 hours per image in Photoshop making optimizations in order to make print that meets his vision” where the result of each slide and click of the mouse is instantly displayed on the monitor it can be reasonably concluded that he never had a “vision” to start with and after 80 hours merely surrendered to the one he finally arrived at.
    The people spending $10,000 per print might beg to differ.

    Quote Originally Posted by tgtaylor View Post
    But the topic of this thread is the perceived value of the process and not which is the superior. You say “I'm sure the poeple who buy my prints much prefer the inkjet print that I make” but do you offer them a choice? Do you display the best darkroom and digital version side-by-side from which they can choose from? Of course you don't.

    Oh, and I just checked the AA Yosemite Gallery and you can purchase a Allen Ross archival darkroom print of an original AA negative matted and framed (14x17) for a mere $380 which is $255 more than the reproduction price quote above. So the AA Gallery prices their darkroom work higher.

    Thomas
    I don't, and would not because I never achieved a color print, other than an inkjet, that was up to my standards. And people do not care. Not the people buying my prints, nor the galleries that I display in, nor the art museums that have displayed my work and added it to their collections, and offered it to their patrons.

    Is an oil painting more valuable than a pastel? It depends on the artist and the skill and reputation of the artist. It's the artist's choice to use the medium that works best for them. And you can't prove a point by pointing out a single situation at a single retail outlet. Anybody can prove anything by citing a single case that supports their position. Gursky has the highest selling print ever. And he prints inkjet. Do you really think he is leaving money on the table by printing in inkjet?

  3. #23
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    You have to mate the medium to the photographer's vision as well as possible. There's not much of my own color work I'd want to see in inkjet. Gursky is largely
    irrelevant because he's playing the big for the sake of big game, and it largely geared to manipulated semi-psuedo imagery anyway. Fauxtography. And I doubt he prints these himself. Most of the skill is in actually mounting them. Those are the guys who deserve the big bucks. Glorified wallpaper, which will itself fade soon
    enough. Yeah... I know, the images themselves need to be interesting in the first place, and they are. But the fad of sheer size and conspicuous consumption spending actually has little to do with visual quality. It's like charging more for a four-layer Bigger Mac, a Dagwood sandwich. Certain people tend to get tens of thousands of dollars for oversized ketchup smears just because they're good at marketing. They could sell a dirty sock for fifty grand. Bucks is a nonsense argument as far as I'm concerned. Always has been.

  4. #24

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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    You have to mate the medium to the photographer's vision as well as possible. There's not much of my own color work I'd want to see in inkjet. Gursky is largely
    irrelevant because he's playing the big for the sake of big game, and it largely geared to manipulated semi-psuedo imagery anyway. Fauxtography. And I doubt he prints these himself. Most of the skill is in actually mounting them. Those are the guys who deserve the big bucks. Glorified wallpaper, which will itself fade soon
    enough. Yeah... I know, the images themselves need to be interesting in the first place, and they are. But the fad of sheer size and conspicuous consumption spending actually has little to do with visual quality. It's like charging more for a four-layer Bigger Mac, a Dagwood sandwich. Certain people tend to get tens of thousands of dollars for oversized ketchup smears just because they're good at marketing. They could sell a dirty sock for fifty grand. Bucks is a nonsense argument as far as I'm concerned. Always has been.
    You personally can dismiss Gursky if you want, but look up most expensive photographs sold, and Gursky inevitably comes up. But you kind of proved my point, you can't make a case by citing one example.

  5. #25

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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    Another example of a spurious line of discussion/argument about "output." What about photogravure, platinum and dozens of other photographic output media? Why argue about output at all, especially in relation to their intrinsic "worth," which is extremely subjective. A print is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Someone could pay a lot of money for a print that some deem "worthless" while the opposite situation is also possible. If a particular output process works for you, great, but don't judge someone else based on your subjective values, and don't belittle someone else's choices.

    I would however look forward to a thread that was focused on "Image resolution and tonal reproduction of output Method A versus output Method B (versus Method C, etc)."

  6. #26

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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    "I would however look forward to a thread that was focused on "Image resolution and tonal reproduction of output Method A versus output Method B (versus Method C, etc)."

    Great suggestion, could be interesting. "Image Resolution and Tonal Reproduction: A Comparison of Output of Digital Inkjet with Platinum/Palladium on Five Select Smooth-Toned 100% Rag Papers."

    Sandy
    For discussion and information about carbon transfer please visit the carbon group at groups.io
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  7. #27

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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    My best B&W inkjets are worth approximately one thousand times more than my best B&W inkjets: 1000 x 0 = 0!

  8. #28
    http://www.spiritsofsilver.com tgtaylor's Avatar
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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    Quote Originally Posted by h2oman View Post
    My best B&W inkjets are worth approximately one thousand times more than my best B&W inkjets: 1000 x 0 = 0!


    Thomas

  9. #29
    http://www.spiritsofsilver.com tgtaylor's Avatar
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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    Greg – According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ve_photographs the Gursky work Rhein II is a not a B&W print but a “chromogenic colour print” which is a silver print and not an inkjet. See also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/a...on-record.html In fact the Wikipedia listing of the most expensive are probably all silver based and not inkjet. What does that tell you?

    Thomas

  10. #30

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    Re: Are Your Best B&W Inkjets Worth More Than Your Best B&W Wet Prints?

    Quote Originally Posted by tgtaylor View Post
    Greg – According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ve_photographs the Gursky work Rhein II is a not a B&W print but a “chromogenic colour print” which is a silver print and not an inkjet. See also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/a...on-record.html In fact the Wikipedia listing of the most expensive are probably all silver based and not inkjet. What does that tell you?

    Thomas
    What we don't know is if it is a traditional c-print or a digital c-print (e.g. a lamda). But if it traditional, then he switched inkjet and obviously didn't think that would hurt his pricing.

    On another note, anyone who prints on silver solely because they think it will enhance their pricing probably out to spend more time improving their photography skills.

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