Where to sign a print? Where to write the legend?

[james mickelson]

Yes Sal. People like Michael Kenna, Sally Mann, ect. are in the bussiness of photography. They use the editioning of prints as a marketing strategy just like graphic printers do. It is their way of making a living and a collectors way of buying a commodity that has a built in value. Some don't like it but it works. After the print has been bought and is in the market place it rarely matters which number the print was when it was sold originally. The practice isn't new but is used much more now. In the days of Stigletz and Bresson photography was not as collectable as today and there was no benefit in numbering an edition. Today the market has been developed to the degree that numbering is an accepted part of the market. As a collector I value an image that will be limited in it's printing. Makes sense.

[chris jordan]

Just to clear up an error here, Michael Kenna does not use limited editions as a marketing strategy. He limits his prints to 45 with 5 proofs, as a way of forcing himself to continue producing new work. He wants the editions to sell out, so he doesn't get stuck printing the same images for his whole life, as AA did (AA spent a year of his life printing "Moonrise"). I know these things because he told me himself.

I personally am not in favor of limiting editions, because I want as many people as possible to own my work. Artificially inflating prices by limiting the editions goes against this desire for me, so my process is to number my prints but not limit the editions. So far I haven't run into the "Moonrise" problem (it'd be a nice problem to have though...!)

~chris jordan (Seattle)

[mark lindsey]

If you have to force yourself to shoot new work then why do it at all?

speaking of A. Adams, he was against limited editions-feeling that this was not true to the medium, I agree.

It is hype. and thats the last thing that I would like to introduce to my work.

[N Dhananjay]

The other side to the coin is that it might not be a question of forcing yourself to shoot new work, but being prevented from doing so by obligations to print old work. All of us are aware of the tyranny of the urgent over the important. I also don't know if limited editions are necessarily good ways to make money - a recent Photovision had an interview with Newman and he was commenting on how Adams and he would have never made money if they had limited editions of Moonrise and Stravisnsky. I can't see an easy answer to the issue. I guess one answer would be to be true to your working methods and yourself i.e., honesty with oneself, I guess. But since that is such a hard thing to do itself, that might be another can of worms. DJ

[Sandy Sorlien]

Chris, just to clear up your error here, I didn't say Kenna uses numbering as a marketing strategy (though I'm sure his dealers appreciate it). I said he stops at 45. I was giving the original poster, Awsiya, some examples so s/he can decide how to number prints. I think DJ hits the nail on the head for most of us --- nothing could be more onerous than having to print the same damn thing over and over again. "The tyranny of the urgent over the important" -- brilliantly said. Personally, I wouldn't trade all the money AA made on his zillions of Moonrises for the chance to print a new image instead.

Regarding the origins of numbering, yes, in engraving (drypoint on metal, or woodcut) the plate or block gets progressively more squashed down in the press so the lowest numbers are most true to the artist's handiwork. That's not true of the photographic print, but it's also not true of lithography or serigraphy. It took photography a while to join the rest of the printmaking arts, but in my opinion that's where it belongs, if we are to become part of any sort of tradition or accepted standard when it comes to collecting.

[neil poulsen]

In printmaking, limited editions are a real issue, because a plate, whether it be wood, copper, etc., is capable of making only a certain number of reproductions before image quality begins to decline. This is not true in photography.

Interestingly, Harrison Branch at Oregon State University shoots mostly in 8x10 and some in 11x14 and prints in platinum, and he reproduces only one contact print per negative.

[Aaron Ng]

Don't mind if I ask some questions because I never understood it. Hope it doesn't sidetrack too much from the original question.

Why can't the photographer get someone to make identical prints for sale, so that he can proceed to make new photographs. For the audience, it is a visual enjoyment of a beautiful image. Why does it matter who did the printing. Supply & demand thing, I once read. If photographs are going to become a commodity, need the photographer get involved in the physical process? His dealer/manager can manage that (probably better). If the photographer gets the business, will it affect his creative process? Will he lose his "assignment from within", mission?

Aaron

[Aaron Ng]

Sorry. "Gets into the business" and not "get the business".

[Sandy Sorlien]

Aaron, You ask, Why does it matter who did the printing?

For some of us printing is a crucial part of the creative process. The process is not over when the negative is made. Some of us will never give that over to someone else. I could imagine having to have exceptionally large color prints made by another printer, simply because I do not have the equipment, but I would work closely with that person. That can be very time-consuming as well, and drains energy from making new images.

For others (Cindy Sherman, e.g.), printing is not part of their own vision and they can entrust it to competent others.

To a collector, an image printed by the artist is more valuable than one printed by a surrogate.

[pudge]

Now, if you're really serious about the business of editioning, it seems to me you have to be willing to "cancel" the negative at the end of the run (unless, of course, you're holding out for another version, perhaps in another size or process...). Who's ready to take a hole punch to that precious negative? Seems to me that willingness to destroy one's own work in order to make it is emblematic of the degree to which photographers have had to put themselves in the hands of the art world to make a living, when they do. (Sounds a bit like Abraham and Isaac, put that way, and maybe it is.)

Walter Benjamin thought photography's revolutionary cachet lay in its extreme reproducibility. The old habit of open editions paid lip service to this ideal, though the point is well taken many "master" photographers had next to no market for their work. I love fine prints as well as the next bloke, but it's sobering to see the predicament we're in, in this art world photographers fought to enter.