"Master Printer" Definition?

[Ken Lee]

Exactly.

It becomes circular: a master makes masterful prints. Masterful prints are those which exhibit mastery, IE those made by a master.

It reminds me of the old Chinese patriarch: "Things are things because of Mind, as Mind is Mind because of things."

[Nathan Smith]

I wonder if Tim Rudman's book "Photographer's Master Printing Course" affects this term - after all, if you've taken the Master Printing Course you'd be a Master Printer right?

[mdm]

A master printer is someone who has mastered the craft of printing.

[Greg Blank]

A master printer in my book could make a master print quality repro multiple times and each would hopefully look close enough to the first that i would be satisfied, that is silver, platinum print or Giclee aka A la "Epson". So my R1800 qualifies, but then again it sometimes really sucks.

[Greg Blank]

A master is someone that can also make you believe they have instilled you with special skills,....even if it is only illusion.

[Andre Noble]

I will bite:

For a person such as myself who uses exclusively variable contrast fiber paper, a variable contrast fiber paper master printer in my judgment should be highly skilled at:

A) knowing his gear, including choice of light source type, use of easels, neg carrier, proper mechanical alignment enlarger stages, avoiding fogging due to stray light, etc.
B) Range of exposure skills for example burning, dodging, pre flashing, contrast masking printing, split grade printing.
C) Expert judge of contrast grade needed for visualized final image.
F) skilled Archival processing, including proper washing, selenium and sepia toning.
G) Experienced with using a handful of paper types and developer type combination to achieve a pre-visualized final look.
H) Able to create beautiful prints CONSISTENTLY from any reasonably exposed negative.

my darkroom print from yesterday (Shot on Aura IR820) ...



Ansel Adams meets my definition of a master printer. Henri Cartier Bresson (by his own admission) does not.

nor does Andre Noble (yet) - for example in print above would like to have gotten a more detail in hair highlight. A master printer would have gotten it within a matter of minutes using flashing, split grade printing, or some other means.

[Drew Wiley]

All that you are describing Andre is a competent commercial technician. And Ansel Adams
would fail your definition anyway. Sometimes he took all day to make a single "keeper" print. Some negatives land easily on target, some don't. And most skilled craftsment today
could easily make a much better print in the technical sense than Ansel ever could. We've
got better papers and chem, better lenses and cameras, and certainly a bigger bag of tricks. But all of that put together doesn't necessarily add up to equivalent impact. In this
game there are a lot of intangibles. If there weren't, you could teach a machine to do it.

[Jay DeFehr]

I don't think there's anything about printing photos that would prevent mastery with 10 years dedicated effort, or less -- like most things. If a person hasn't mastered printing within ten years of dedicated effort, that person probably suffers some form of disability.

I know of many master printers, and some are among us. I've seen prints made by several forum members that can only be described as masterful. Today I've been looking at prints made by Wolfgang Moersch, and I can't think of anyone offhand that has mastered more printing techniques and materials, but Moersch works hard, and incessantly, experimenting widely and methodically. He's a printing machine. The really strange thing about Moersch, I suspect, is that printing is a byproduct for him, the way making negatives is for other printers (and Moersch, too). I think Moersch's printing is proof-of-concept, and the concepts are chemical ones. All Moersch lacks to be an evolutionary process is selection pressure -- there is no right or wrong answer, just interesting variations. I don't mean to suggest he works randomly -- nothing could be further from the truth, he always has a well defined objective -- just that his work doesn't serve a larger aesthetic vision. Moersch isn't try to express anything, but to explain everything. I think this makes him one of the most interesting, and least appreciated photographers (for lack of a better term) working today.

Sorry for the detour, just rambling.

[Bill Burk]

Andre Noble,

I think your list is a good list of what you might assume a master would know, it isn't necessarily a prerequisite list.

To find a master printer, I think we need to have a competition. I loved this video when I first saw it (thanks to an APUG link)...

Luciano Corvaglia gives us the plan... the winner can be named "Master Printer"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHl3H...yer_detailpage

[jnantz]

he owns silver 68 ( 3+ years ) and before that worked at MV labs in nyc ( 5.75 years )
he's printed photographs every day commerically for nearly 10 years for people like gordon parks ...
if he wants to be called a master printer at 31, i'll call him a master printer.
age has nothing to do with skill or expertise.