Individuality, Repeatability and Computers

[r.e.]

In the last 24 hours, I've read every one of the recents posts about the implications of making a photograph by stitching together digital images.

I am working on a book, and one of the elements to which I've been paying a fair bit of attention is the typography. We are using a typeface that is generated by a computer instead of lead type. Similarly, we are using a programme called InDesign to set the type instead of forms and leading. Computer type and computer design have certain advantages. On the other hand, this past summer I spent a few hours with some people who use lead type and real presses to make limited edition books. I was struck by two things; first, the fact that the pages that they printed were three dimensional, due to the fact that traditional typesetting is a physical rather than virtual process, and secondly, the fact that every page that they printed, depending as it did on how much ink there was on the roller and how much pressure was applied, was different.

As a result of this experience, I went to a local library and had a look at some books that were carefully printed from lead. I am not talking about books that were printed 200 years ago. Indeed I specifically asked to see books that were published in the 20th century. And I am also not talking about typical, mass-market books. I am talking about books that strike one, at least if one is paying atteniton, as works of art.

I came to the conclusion that these books demonstrated craftsmanship and individuality, perhaps summed up as personality, that is not evident in the book on which we are working. I love our typography, I love our design, but it lacks the physicality of the work that I came to admire. Indeed, I feel this so strongly that I have decided that I want our book to have an insert that is printed by hand. That said, I am not at all hopeful that the publisher will agree. The cost of putting an individual stamp on every book that we print is probably too great.

About three years ago, I bought my first photographic print from a fellow named Geoffrey James. It was a contact print from an 8x10 original. I have reason to believe that Mr. James printed the photograph that I purchased more than once, maybe several times, before he was satisfied with what he was sending me. What he did was labour intensive, but that is just another way of sayiing that he created, and approved of, the print that he sent me. He didn't just push a button. There is something to be said for that.

I wonder about what is lost, if anything, when people adopt a process for creating a plastic work, whether a book or a photograph or a drawing or a sculpture, that distances an individual's physical hand from the creation of the template of the work and the copies that are generated. It seems to me that this is what has happened to book publishing, and it is an interesting question whether the same thing is happening to filmmaking and photography. And if so, does it matter?

[Struan Gray]

It matters, but not in any absolute moral sense.

I have two copies of Whymper's "Scrambles in the Alps", one is a cheap imprint on bad paper; the other is a first edition. The pictures are much, much better in the latter, but it's the former I read in bed, and lend to friends. The purpose of an artifact has to enter into any assessment of its worth.

Also, I don't equate 'hand made' with well made. And I don't equate well-made with irregularities. I once saw a Chippendale bed semi-disassembled, and the joints looked like they were made with a CNC mill. Precision is precision, however you acheive it.

I think it is human to look for a personal connection. The plywood wooden sewing box my grandfather made for my grandmother has far more attraction to me than any number of more practical or more beautiful boxes my wife could use. I have a pair of polarising filters - long seperated and fogged - which once belonged to Millikan, and have his name on the case. They're useless for optics experiments or photography, but I keep them tucked away all the same.

I think art buying and art owning is heavily invested with this spirit: people want to buy a personal connection to the artist. Limited editions, signatures, newsletters and all the other irrelevant but successful tricks of the fine art trade are there to provide a psychic patina, a back story, provenance, for something that according to cold hard, widely repeated theory ought to be able to stand on its own.

[GPS]

...
It seems to me that this is what has happened to book publishing, and it is an interesting question whether the same thing is happening to filmmaking and photography. And if so, does it matter?

Sure it matters. We have a physical as well as spiritual dimension. When we express ourselves we imprint the inner dimension into the physical world around us. Once we cut the physical expression from its inner cause using the physical in a anonymous, sterile, even if physically efficient way, we feel that we could not express ourselves fully. It's from there the "cheap" feeling over plastic cups made by a machine. The same goes for photography - the zillion of personal marks put there during the photo process makes for the satisfaction of the inner soul that could be expressed in a way no impersonal machine can imitate. Whenever the inner prevails it chooses a personal way over the anonymous to express itself.

[Dick Hilker]

What, then, are the implications for the genuinely gifted artists for whom the more personally-invested modes of expression are impractical? Are they foredoomed to a second-rate status in the world of art collectors? Will the finely-crafted digital print never achieve respectability?

Having printed from lead type on a hand-fed Heidelberg press and produced thousands of silver prints over the years, I have a great respect for the individuality of those products and understand the value of the perceived personal connection with the craftsman or artist. My concern is that an elitist attitude may stunt the growth and acceptance of photography as a form of art equal to any other. Or, are we to accept the notion of always being just photography instead of fine art, especially now that so much of it is deemed plastic and lacking the personal touch?

Before anyone springs for my throat, please understand that my comments are meant primarily to shed a different light on the subject and act in a way as a devil's advocate. I do treasure the feel of a fine book and fully appreciate the effort that goes into the making of a great print, but necessity now dictates that all my printing be done with "the push of a button." Should my future efforts be rebuffed by a "No digital need apply!" sign on the gallery door?

[Marko]

I wonder about what is lost, if anything, when people adopt a process for creating a plastic work, whether a book or a photograph or a drawing or a sculpture, that distances an individual's physical hand from the creation of the template of the work and the copies that are generated. It seems to me that this is what has happened to book publishing, and it is an interesting question whether the same thing is happening to filmmaking and photography. And if so, does it matter?

Short answer: it depends. It depends on the purpose and intent of the work in question. If the primary purpose of the book is to present a work of literary art or even simply to convey verbal information of any sort, then I would say it does not matter. What matters in that case is the efficiency with which the book performs its task. The book in that case is a vehicle, if you will, not the object.

But if the purpose of the book is to be the work of art itself, the work of book-making and printing art, then all the qualities of the old-style printing and book-making process become very important indeed. Printing is only one aspect of it, though, there are other crafts involved in making a trully representative hand-made book as a work of art.

But once in that domain, it could easily be said that lead-printing and press-binding takes all the real soul out of the really hand-written and hand-made book! If you think lead printing has plasticity, you should definitely look into pre-press books, each piece individually written... no, caligraphed by hand, including the cover illustrations and the covers themselves.

Same thing can be said of photography. If the main purpose is the print, then how the print is produced is important, that's the art of the craft. But if the main purpose is to take and present a photograph, the art itself, then the technology becomes just a vehicle for the purpose and the best one is always the most efficient one.

[Kirk Gittings]

well said Marko....

[John Kasaian]

There is a difference, whether that is important or not I think depends on a lot of things, maybe the most significant would be the viewer's ability to discern and appreciate the difference.
As a long time bachelor I survived on fast food, hwever I used to search out social functions around town for bake sales since home made baked goods were a special link in my mind to life at home while growing up with my family.
Then, 13 years ago, I met a gal who actually baked a loaf of banana nut bread for me! I savored it, I appreciated it, I was nearly driven to tears over it.

So get to the point

My point is that that loaf of banana nut bread made in a small kitchen by a human was more pivotal, more important than any other banana nut bread churned out in a bakery and wrapped in cellophane.

I think of photographs in a similar way---but maybe that is because I can't bake worth a darn

[Steven Barall]

Oh how I hark back to the days when I could get a carefully hand crafted plastic cup. A cup filled with the aura of the maker, sixteen ounces of spiritual dimension. And we do have machine made movies. We call it television and it's been around for 60 years and some of it's not half bad where as most of those hand crafted, sweated over films, the ones where the director personally puts his fingerprints on each and every frame are unwatchable and horrible.

If the sole point of your work is that it's a hand crafted thing and that in order for anyone to fully feel you the type has to be hand made and hand set that's great but don't go and blame the printing press if no one is interested in what are you doing.

There are certainly a lot of us who believe that content is king and if the content is worth it then the exact means of reproduction is less important. You can sit down and read Shakespeare and get a lot out of it even though you aren't Laurence Olivier.

Read Walter Benjamin and all the Post Modern stuff from the 1990s. Good luck to all.

[Bruce Watson]

I have reason to believe that Mr. James printed the photograph that I purchased more than once, maybe several times, before he was satisfied with what he was sending me. What he did was labour intensive, but that is just another way of sayiing that he created, and approved of, the print that he sent me. He didn't just push a button. There is something to be said for that.

Well, there is. It says to me that your education is lacking. That you don't understand that printers of all stripes, including inkjet printers, all make work prints. That they all push and prod the media to make it say what they want it to say.

I know that I personally spend more time on each print using an inkjet printer than I did in the darkroom. In the darkroom I would settle for the little imprefections that you think of as "personality" because I learned what the limits were and accepted the diminishing returns. With inkjet the limits are higher. Which means if I'm willing to work more I can make a better print. So I work more.

"...just push a button" is just such rubish.

Now if you want to come out and say you like hand labor more than you like thought labor, OK. If you like a chair made by hand without power tools over a chair made with power tools, or even a chair made in a factory, that's fine too.

If you prefer a contact print made on hand-made paper that was hand-coated by the artist, I don't have any problem with that. Everyone has their preferences.

Where I have a problem is your implication that inkjet printing is somehow easy or automatic. It is not.

[tim atherton]

as has been mentioned, this is pretty much the same argument Benjamin made 70 years ago "against" photography (the silver gelatin type) in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

r.e. - how would you feel about one of Geoffrey's inkjet prints? Same world renowned photographer, just different process. Is it about the photograph itself or the print as fetish object?