Changing methods...

[bob carnie]

Hi Percy

I have been making traditional prints since the early 70's and still do today, Since 2002 I have been making lambda digital fibre prints and as well inkjet prints from various sources.
Our lab decided to get out of the digi -tradi debate and try to output as many end prints as possible at our location and see for ourselves the differences.

I have over the last few years dedicated a rather large part of my time to the learning curve associated with digital capture and output. I willingly admit to the fact that I am still on a steep curve. We have had the luxury of doing direct comparisons of each process captured in many ways. In fact we are preparing a portfolio of work for the Silver conference that will include a rather large body of work in silver, done in digital and traditional workflows..
I have been working on this portfolio solidly for a few months now and what is obvious to me *subjective* is that the amount of work to make each series is somewhat the same. As well as I show the work to select clients the response is equally positive to the digital fibres as traditional fibres.
I too love the feel of traditional prints and in any given week I am working with the enlargers 2-3 days and now 2-3 days with the Lambda.
My eyes may be getting old , but I am having trouble seeing major differences if the original is captured by a competent artist, and the workflow to final print is managed well, the final result is a wonderful thing .
Both methods require a very competent approach to get excellent results and personally if the image at the end of the day is compelling to you , the tools used should be transparent and not of great importance.

hmmm...never intended the discussion to degrade to this point. Just wondered who preferred chem prints to digi prints. Guess staying on a specific topic is not easy around here.

[Ted Harris]

Another interesting observation is how the print buying public feels and that is something that is very difficult to ascertain.

Last year at Photo LA I tried to take a tally of what percentage of prints were digital and what were traditional silver (excluding the images that were created pre 2000 or so). My rough guesstimate was that something like 80+% of the color images were digital and, to my surprise, half or a bit more of the blackand white images. Informal discussions with gallery owners, photographers and the public didn't shed a lot more light on the subject with the exception that most of the 'public' weren't really aware of the difference and didn't seem to care.

This year at Photo LA I focused my questionsa bit more and kept more accurate trackof the answers I was getting. I concentrated on talking with gallery owners and the responses I got weren't surprising at all. Those galleries that sell only traditional silver prints were adamant that silver prints are "better" that they would never let their clients buy a digital print, that they spend time edcating their clients on why silver prints are "better," etc. When I pushed the point on why silver prints are "better" I got absolutely no coherrent answers. I got a few gallery owners that quoted their unmatched archival qualities but on futher discussion didn't really know much about archival qualities. When I posed the same questions to gallery owners who sold both traditional and digital prints I got different answers (of course). In their case none of them pushed one type of print over another, none of them stated categorically that one type of print was "better" than another, they all said that they were just different and that a good print was a good print and that is why it sold. Some did mention, specifically with regards to color that they believed the digital prints would prove to be far more archival than any of the traditional methods.

The most interesting point for consideration, to me, was that the printing method appeared to have absolutely nothing to do with the pricing of a print.