Questions regarding George DeWolfe in View Camera mag

[Michael Chmilar]

Jim, I have to admit that I don't understand your point.

I guess my question is: where does "original" end, and "reproduction" begin?

If I make 100 darkroom prints from a negative, is the first print the original, and the remaining 99 reproductions? Perhaps only the negative is the original, and all prints are reproductions. Of course, the negative is only a reproduction of the scene I was looking at.

When I make a Piezography print, when do I stop having an original? The negative, the scan, the Photoshop file, a copy of the Photoshop file, the first Piezo print, the second?

To say that a Piezography print is a "reproduction" and a darkroom print is not makes no sense to me. Both are repeatable.

My original point was that photography was once considered a medium of cheap, mechanical reproduction. Now, most people seem to accept darkroom prints as "fine art".

Now, I see people implying that Piezography is a cheap, mechanical reproduction method. I think it is as valid as a darkroom, chemical print. Both are photography.

[Jim Galli]

Fair enough Michael,

I guess I truly am struggling with the new rules. I am about 6 years into filling a dumpster with bad prints. I figured when it's full perhaps by then I will have put enough blood sweat tears & time in to begin to see the art. But now all I've got to do is go buy a $200,000 scanner and a piezo printer and presto. Call me old school but I believe the blood sweat tears frustration disappointment and time are indeed part of the equation that ultimately = intrinsic value.

America is the land of the instant. Something in me is fighting against that.

I think I'm steering this discussion off course from the original question too. Sorry.

[Michael Chmilar]

Jim,

I don't know that there are any "rules", new or old. A lot the avant-garde art movement in the 60's and 70's was about throwing out the rules.

As to blood, sweat, and tears, if you scroll back up in this discussion, you can read about the blood, sweat, and tears involved in digital: computer crashes, software upgrades, etc. You can still enjoy all of the frustration, disappointment, and bad prints. Maybe more. Digital moves quickly - maybe too quickly.

Getting a good print from Piezography (or LightJet, Iris, etc.) is not "automatic". It requires some technical knowledge, just as darkroom printing requires technical knowledge. Only the domain has changed to computers, printers, inks, monitors, etc. instead of light sources, lenses, chemistry, papers.

Artistic knowledge (ie. where to dodge and burn, cropping, too much/little contrast, etc.) from darkroom printing is fully transferable to the digital realm. Some of the best digital printers have extensive backgrounds in traditional processes. Experience has value.

In a few years, it is likely that Piezography/LightJet/etc. will be obsolete. Knowledge of what constitutes a good print will not.

Digital is just a new set of tools to employ towards the same goal: Making beautiful prints. Time, evolution, and economics will determine which tools succeed.

[Brian Ellis]

I spent some time in Maine with George DeWolfe a year or so ago and saw a couple of his prints. They were very fine prints but they should be, he's spent years getting to the point he's at. I wouldn't say they were "better" than say John Sexton's silver prints, certainly not "better" than many platinum prints I've seen by people who really know how to do platinum, but they were very very good. We were supposed to visit his home but time got away from us so I didn't see his equipment. I do remember him telling us that he used several different printers. I believe the Epson 3000 was his principal printer at that time. Although the Epson 1160 is supported by the Cone materials, that wasn't what he was using then, maybe he is now.

I don't know whether he's being paid by Cone or not. There certainly seems to be a relationship over and above just someone who likes the equipment and writes about it. This is the third article he's written in the last year or so raving about Cone stuff (the first two were published in Camera Arts magazine) and of course Cone publishes the articles on his web site. George does serve as a consultant to at least one digital camera manufacturer so possiblyhe is a consultant of some sort to Cone. I think he goes off the deep end a good bit in his raves (if I remember it correctly the article in question said something to the effect that the Cone stuff was the biggest overnight sensation in the history of photography) and of course he does teach workshops on the Cone stuff so he certainly has an nterest in promoting it. Still, I don't think anyone who has seen his prints would deny that they are really very very good.

[abiggs]

(Stupid question coming)....

What is George DeWolfe's web site? I cannot seem to find it.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Andy, who cares? at screen resolution even if his prints are the best thing since sliced bread, they will still look like any other print!

Brian, thank YOU! I was wondering all this time wether it was wishfull thinking on his part or if it really was that good of a process! Since you have seen his prints and although as you said they are very very good, they are not anything better than say a Sexton or a Baer. You just clarified everything for me and confirmed my suspicions, I think that with piezography he probably has more control over the local contrast, middle tones, etc....you can't get any more white than paper white, or any more black than solid black, so comparing the output of a printer without the Cone software and the inks, then probably the piezo print is that much more outstanding, but to go as far as saying " as good as a platimum print and better than silver" I really don't think so!

[abiggs]

No, silly. I don't think I can get a good feeling of what is prints are like from the web. I just want to see other factoids and get an overall overview of what his work is like. Perhaps some of his own comments on Jon Cone's B&W system.

what was that web site again?

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Andy, I also made a search and could not find a web site for him, so I guess he does not have a site. I did see his article on the piezography web site and some of the pics he shows, they are nice, of course in screen resolution is hard to tell, but to tell you the truth I have seen better scans and the pics, although very nice, were not somehting I would open my wallet for. Also in my search I found other sites that were showing people who are printing with piezography and it confirmed my initial suspicions, although the process might be wonderful, is all in the hand of the artist. Some of those prints looked like crap...worse than freshman photography...lol.

[Jonathan Brewer]

There are a couple of websites that I audit and they may be old hat to most everybody but then again some folks may not know about them, so for what its worth I recommend checking out http://www.wide-format-printers.org/ and http://www.large-format-printers.org/ for an overview of the relative vices and virtues of your better scanners, printers, and RIPS.

These folks don't seem to be on anybodies payroll, they recommend stuff that is cost effecdtive, which systems are trouble and/or trouble free. They'll recommend what you should and shouldn't get based on your budget and skill level. They show examples on their website of terrible prints from the high end printers of some very big name outfits and they go into detail about inks and they tell you which stuff to stay away from.

Jim if you haven't visited these folks, I strongly recommend that you do. I don't plan on buying anything digital at this time but I audit these sites anyway to see if anything jumps out at me in terms of having the capacity to be operated cheaply, with very little hassle, and something so good that it's going to hang around awile.

I've got this feeling I can't shake after a few months, years, whatever, that something will rise to the top, become very cheap, and simply cannot be beaten. Well, maybe something so good it will take ten years to be beaten, and with a price of several hundred dollars not several thousand.

I don't like the idea of $20,000 backs,$20,000 printers, $20,000 scanners, and I expect and/or hope the day will come when all of this stuff will be very cheap and easy to operate. May be a pipedream, but it may come true.

[Tim Klein]

This is certainly an interesting conversation and one that is very timely for me personally.

Like many other long time photographers, I was a digital naysayer who swore I'd never cross over to the dark side. There was no way, in my mind, that an inkjet printer could possibly deliver output that compared favorably to a fine archival silver print. I held to this conviction for quite a while despite seeing several inkjet prints at local galleries that were quite stunning. I was occasionally surprised when I looked at the tag on a print and found that it was ink based rather than archival silver. As time went by, I found myself looking closely at prints to try to determine the process prior to looking at the tag. I won't lie to you and tell you the difference wasn't noticable because, for the most part, it was. I did notice, however, that the difference in well done prints was minor. In no way did the digital process detract from the strength of the image and, in some cases, the digital printers ability to use matte surface and watercolor papers made the images stronger and more interesting. Basically, I guess I'm saying that I finally realized that I was wrong (that's something you won't hear me say in public very often!). Digital is a damn fine process that gives results that, while different, are no less valid or exciting than those achievable with traditional processes.

I spent years doing traditional silver processing. I've also dabbled with platinum and carbon printing of some of my 8x10 work. Years ago (after adding a wife, a few kids, and pets to a house that is far too small to accomodate my clan AND a darkroom) space and safety concerns led me to pack my darkroom away. Unfortunately, this situation will continue until my children are older or my wife finally convinces me buy a bigger home. I definitely miss wet processing and when my life gets back to a place where I can restore my darkroom, it will be very high on my priority list. In the meantime, digital has been a godsend for me.

I started digitally printing my work with an Epson 1270. Later, I equipped it with MIS quadtone inks so that I could focus on black and white work. I'm in the process of testing and installing a bulk ink system on an Epson 1160 that will become my quad printer and I'll return the 1270 to color duty. The 1160 printer is no longer manufactured, but units are still available from a couple of sources for $200 to $300. It's well suited to quad work because it's a 4 color printer rather than the 6 color cartridges that are used in the newer printers (6 color "hextone" sets are made for the new printers that give similar results to the "quads"). The bulk ink setup I purchased isn't required (you can get quad ink in prefilled cartridges), but I paid $125 for the convenience of easy refillability. The inks themselves were $42 and a starting paper supply ran another $30 or $40. Photoshop 6.0 was available direct from Adobe for $299 as an upgrade from the LE version that came with my printer. I already had the computer (as, presumably, most of the people on this board do!), so my out of pocket cost was around $800.00 to get started. This seemed like a reasonable expense to get in on the first floor (I think we've left the ground floor!) of a process that's obviously showing a lot of promise. It was cheaper than many workshops and it's been just as exciting a learning experience.

The piece of the puzzle that's still missing for me is the scanner or camera. I've got a consumer level (3.3 megapixel) digital camera that I'm playing around with and I've had negatives and slides scanned with consumer level scanners. So far, I'm not really thrilled with either option. There are pricier solutions, but I'm not quite ready to take that plunge yet. I've gotten excellent results from drum scanned images, so my general conclusion is that the film/scanner route is the direction I'll probably be heading. Digital capture is definitely still the weak point (or cost bottleneck) in the digital darkroom process. I can't tell you what to figure for a cost because it's literally anywhere from a few bucks for individual scans up to tens of thousands of dollars for a drum scanner.

The process required to balance your digital darkroom equipment and materials is remarkably similar to the testing necessary to establish exposure and processing parameters for the zone system. When starting out, I decided against using the Piezography system; Not because of any perceived weakness in Jon Cone's solution (in fact, the Piezogrpahy system results are pretty astonishing), it's just that I wanted to learn the whole thing inside and out. Jon's process struck me as more of an "out of the box" solution, as opposed to the raw inks I decided to buy. The lower entry cost was a nice side benefit to my choice, but not my major concern. I wanted something where software WASN'T part of the deal so that I'd have to learn, myself, how to manipulate ink laydown (Looking back now, that was pretty ambitious. I was coming at digital with absolutely zero experience, and the learning curve is quite steep). Gradually, over time, I've managed to beg, borrow, steal, and develop adjustment curves and workflows that are generating very nice results. I definitely would have been up and printing sooner if I'd chosen the Piezography system, but comparing my output to that of Piezography users, I feel that the results I'm getting are nearly equivalent and I feel like I've learned a lot more about quad printing than I would have with an out of the box solution. Another interesting possibility with the MIS inkset is the ability to replace one of the grays with a specially mixed "toner" ink that allows a user to vary the tonal qualities (cold to neutral to warm) of the output. There are a couple of workflows that describe this process, though I haven't yet had a chance to give it a try. I don't believe that this is currently possible with the Piezography system, though I'm certainly no expert on Jon's system.

Regarding comments that digital processing is somehow "easier" or merely the equivalent of pressing a copier button; I can safely tell you from first hand knowledge that this notion is simply bogus. Getting really strong prints from a digital process can be every bit as painstaking a process as traditional "wet" processing. Sure, there's software available that will download Joe Newcomputeruser's JPG file from his digital point & shoot and dump a passable printout to an inkjet printer. Comparing that result to a fine print from an accomplished digital artist is like comparing a Wal-Mart one hour photo to a fine archival silver print from a master printer though. Heck, I developed my first roll of 35mm film in my bathroom when I was around 10 years old. I bought the chemicals and equipment with money I earned on my paper route, and I taught myself how to do it from a couple of books my grandfather owned. How "hard" is a process that a 10 year old can figure out with no supervision? (I didn't get to try my first print until a couple of years later when a retired gentleman down the street asked my parents if it was OK for him to teach me a little about printing in his basement darkroom. Mr. Miller is probably long gone from this earth, but I owe a lot to the instruction he gave me).

It takes a mastery (or at least strong competence) of your equipment and processes to make full use of your medium. In this, there is no difference between wet darkroom processing and digital. I really look forward to having a darkroom again, but I doubt that I'll dump digital when that happens because each process has its strengths and weaknesses. Combining the strengths to minimize the weaknesses will only serve to give better results. I'm especially intrigued by the prospect of digitally enlarging my 4x5 negs to make unusually large alternative process prints (so, combining digital with platinum or carbon). Why would anyone want to ignore any process that can open up new areas of experimentation? Why would anyone turn their back on something that could potentially make their work better?

Photographers who look down on digital ought to reconsider their position. It may not be the solution for them now, but at some point, digital processing will enter their work in some way. Gain some understanding and familiarity now, and it will be that much easier when you really need it. Along the way, you might find something that you can use to make your work better today.