Why prints so small ?

[QT Luong]

a better mongraph on kertesz, i think, is "His Life and Work" by Pierre Borhan.

adrian

Because of text or reproductions ?

[adrian tyler]

Because of text or reproductions ?

the reproductions in the princeton edition are beautiful, the paper is nicer too, and given the big gun photo-curator author no doubt it's got good text, however your question regarding small reproductions is because "unlike other works on Kertész, it (printeon) presents only vintage prints and includes several seldom seen photographs from throughout his career" whereas the borhan book just slaps 'em on the page nice'n'big, no academic worries, like a book rather than a catalogue. it also covers the 5 major "periods" of his work, so, after looking at the princeton edition - although tempted - i couldn't see anyhting that was not in the borhan.

i was tempted by the reproductions, but in the end kertesz, brassai even bresson - who subcontracted - were not master printers in the sense of say adams or weston, so it wasn't enough to swing it and certainly not nescessary to appreciate their work.

[QT Luong]

Besides my reservation about choice of prints, I was actually very pleased with the NGA/Princeton, in particular with the text. Regarding prints, starting from the 30s, Kertesz was unable to work in the darkroom due to a medical condition, and it wasn't until fairly late in his life that he was able to partner with a printer who was able to satisfy him.

[Henry Ambrose]

QT, you should buy the Borhan book. And yes, Kertesz did a lot of large format here in the U. S. for his magazine work. Architecture, particularly interiors, was a large portion of his commercial career.

[paulr]

I've always loved small prints. They engage people in a completely different way from big prints or medium ones. When confronted with a battleship-sized photograph by someone like Gursky, people generally back up across the room to take it in. They behold it. But if there's a 4x5 contact print, like one of Stieglitz's Equivalents, they walk right up to it and experience it personally, one-on-one. They practically press their noses against the glass.

Books in particular suit themselves to this kind of intimate viewing.

In addition, different sizes/scales emphasize different aspects of an image. There are some images that will work both big and small, but they rarely work the same way at different scales. Small images emphasize bold graphical strokes; large ones emphasize detail and space.

Henry asked who decided that prints have to be big to be good. I don't know who decided originally, but today it's perpetuated by gallery owners in Chelsea, who have 30 foot ceilings and walls the size of supertankers. It's a practical matter ... a contact print like the ones I admire would look like smudge in that setting. It's also an economic matter ... the people selling photographs are competing with the people selling paintings. And the paintings are huge!

[rdenney]

They practically press their noses against the glass.

They have to. Their bifocals aren't strong enough.

I think these guys making fine contact prints of medium-format plates must have done so while young. A gallery showing should provide magnifiers for people who can no longer focus at six inches.

I like what you said about some images working at various scales. I've always been happiest with my images when the bold strokes read well small and the detail and space makes it worth getting close even though it's a big print. But my definition of "big" is nowhere near the naval descriptions you used. I don't know about Chelsea, but here in Virginia, lots of the rich folk live in houses built by not-rich folk a couple of centuries ago, and the big prints can't find sufficient wall space. Our house is not ancient, but the architect who designed it understood efficiency, and I have to put most of my prints in portfolios or a map drawer. That means they have to "read" at arms length.

Even in the good galleries here, I rarely see paintings larger than 20x30, and at least one artist in our circle specializes in miniatures.

Despite the genius of Kertesz, one wonders why an astute observer such as our esteemed founder would have found it necessary to bring the topic up if the images worked optimally at the small size. Sometimes even the great artists need some editing.

Rick "thinking a crowd at that showing might have made it impossible for anyone to seem the images" Denney

[Bruce Barlow]

I sure agree with you on this. In other times the way of evaluating photographs was to hold them in your hand and look at them. If you do this you can appreciate the quality of the image, even if it is very small, and especially a contact print that has a lot of detail. It was a much more intimate way of looking at an enjoying photographs.

Nowdays the size of print appears geared toward placement in large banks and exhibitions halls. My personal opinion is that any print larger than 20X24 is fairly obscene.

Good part is that all this large trash will be destroyed within a few decades because it will be too expensive to store.

Sandy King

20x24? Spoken like someone who uses one!!

I've never made a print bigger than 8x10 (and sales reflect that!). I rarely enlarge 4x5s larger than about 6x8, and never enlarge 35mm larget than 5x7. I desperately love 5x7 contact prints. And all because I want the viewer to have that intimacy with my work. Viewing from across the hall just isn't my preference. That said, I've seen and enjoyed bigger prints (Ansel! Paul Strand!), I just don't like them for my work...

It's interesting, then, for me to find that I "see" pictures that will look good in my smaller sizes when I'm out photographing. I've learned to "visualize" (remembering Richard Ritter's thread that there's no such word as "previsualize") the final work in the print sizes I prefer.

Looking at proofs, few, if any, of my images would hold up to being blown up big. If I saw them big, I'd probably blow them up. Boom!

Fred Picker used to say that the print is the size the artists wants to make it, and there is only one size. "Don't sell prints by the square yard!" he said.

[Mark Sampson]

I've seen some of those same tiny Kertesz prints, about ten years ago, at a SoHo branch of one of the NY museums. They may have been all Kertesz could do at the time, and they were beautiful in their way, but I thought then (and now) that they were too small to be on gallery walls. I've seen early Walker Evans prints that were contact prints from roll-film negatives, and I felt the same way. I'd guess that they were both penniless artists, doing the best they could at the time. Those small prints are beautiful, and valuable, in their own right, but to assert that they are superior smacks of after-the-fact rationalization to me.

[Diane Maher]

I'm not sure who decided that prints had to be big to be good? I am pretty sure they're wrong.

They're the same people who think that big camera = professional photographer.

Diane

[Henry Ambrose]

snipped........... Those small prints are beautiful, and valuable, in their own right, but to assert that they are superior smacks of after-the-fact rationalization to me.

Wow.

Here we are (some of us) discussing the prints of one of the founders, shapers, and maybe geniuses of modern photography as if somehow we know better than he did how to present his pictures.

Its like saying that the Wright brothers didn't really build that good an airplane or Henry Ford should have made the Model T in something other than black.