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Thread: What is more important to you...image or print?

  1. #1
    Vaughn's Avatar
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    What is more important to you...image or print?

    I believe there is not correct answer to this...just different personal approaches to photography.

    I am 50/50. The image is very important...it is hard to beat wandering around in the redwoods, for example, discovering the forms light creates and learning to reconize when all the elements come together in a distillation of the moment that I can then capture onto my film.

    I have been involved with photo education for many years -- as an assistant to Friends of Photography Workshops in the 80's and now being in charge of the teaching darkroom at a university (I am in the middle of teaching photo to a group of twelve 14 to 17 year olds, also). So sharing, and hopefully educating, the viewers of my photographs about what I experienced and learned when taking the photo is important to me.

    So the print in equally important as the image to me as it is the qualities of the print that will help convey what lies behind the image. Contrast, print color (or tone), the way compostion and the way light values are arranged to lead the viewer's eyes within the image, et al are to me equally important as the subject, or image.

    So what percentage would you apply to your importance between image/print?

    Vaughn

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    Re: What is more important to you...image or print?

    Q: How do you describe a schizophrenic Zen Buddhist?

    A: A man who is at two with the universe.

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    Re: What is more important to you...image or print?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Lee View Post
    Q: How do you describe a schizophrenic Zen Buddhist?

    A: A man who is at two with the universe.
    That may be true, but it is also said that a sign of intelligence is the ability to be able to hold two conflicting ideas in one's head at one time.

    vaughn

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    Re: What is more important to you...image or print?

    It depends!
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

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    Re: What is more important to you...image or print?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vaughn View Post
    That may be true, but it is also said that a sign of intelligence is the ability to be able to hold two conflicting ideas in one's head at one time.

    vaughn
    No it hasn't. Yes it has.

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    Re: What is more important to you...image or print?

    My prints are images...

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    Re: What is more important to you...image or print?

    That's an interesting question that I need to answer for myself.
    According to my personal experience it is a continuum.
    The shooting stage is extremely important to me because it opens me to a different view of the world, it enlightens me, excites me and gives me a sense of release.
    The darkroom stage is the one where if I do the job right then I complete that vision.
    The shooting stage if it wasn't for the weight, it would be much more fun than the printing stage.
    But in the printing stage, when I nail a print, then I have that quite time with myself as if I had won a war aginst my worst enemy.
    Darkroom sessions at Foschi's can be particularly ferocious

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    Re: What is more important to you...image or print?

    The image, which is a fairly shallow *and* narrow way to define it, is most important. It is the concept, and in terms of conception, the seed. Without it, there would be no print.

    But the print must do it justice.

    There isn't any conflict, unless one comes up short. Either one...

    Though, in all honesty...

    as a large format photographer...

    maybe it's the negative that's most important...

    or...

    maybe...

    it's the photographer who's most important...

    Or the viewer...
    "I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."

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    Re: What is more important to you...image or print?

    The true sign of intelligence is knowing the right answer when shown it.

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    Re: What is more important to you...image or print?

    Quote Originally Posted by Alan Davenport View Post
    My prints are images...
    Semantically, I do not agree with you. Saying they are the same thing reminds me of the way people will look at a photo of their dad and say "That's Dad!", when it really is a picture of their dad. A print represents an image and this representation is placed in some manner onto a support of some kind (paper, cloth, glass, etc). An image, by my very unofficial definition, is a concept which is represented by a negative, positive, a print, or in some electronic form.

    But at the same time, considering Domenico's "According to my personal experience it is a continuum" perhaps one could consider the image and print as being one, just different places along a continuum.

    I can see others taking a very different approach to these definitions, and be just as logical and correct as I think I am.

    There is a lot of gray areas, too...a mounted transparency created by a camera for example. The transparency is a physical thing, so it is not an image, yet is not really a print.

    Many photographers create images, yet never create a print -- their images are only represented in electronic form...they never leave the computer(s). I am trying to think of an example of a photographer that creates prints, but never images, but I can not think of one now.

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