LensWork: repro superior to original print

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

I beg to differ - such as it is, it serves a very important purpose. Without it, we would be having those "discussions" everywhere. A nice, comfortable place for those guys to breed themselves out without bothering the rest of us.

18 pages and it's all bashing LensWork??? I can only imagine how horribly they are degrading LensWork for accepting digital submissions. I can only imagine the things they say about Focus on there. If they're pro-traditional only magazines, why don't they start one of their own?

[Nigel Smith]

Marko, why are you so concerned with what others discuss?

[Brooks Jensen]

Please, please don't get sidetracked into yet another discussion of digital versus analog. I wrote this article to express a completely different point -- one that I think deserves a lot of thoughtful discussion, and this is clearly an excellent place to have that discussion.

I am not advocating one technology over another. The focus of this thread has been on whether or not my claim about the Bullock print is true, or valid, or meaningful, etc. That is not the point, not the discussion we photographer should be having, nor should it be the focus of comments about my article.

I am hoping to see photographers think and talk about the changes I see in the printing world. I tried to call attention to this by comparing the quality of printing of yesteryear to the quality of printing in today's world -- especially compared to original prints. Whether or not there is parity now is clearly based on judgment, opinion, and personal tastes. That is not really the issue -- and, IMHO, not even an important discussion. What is important is the narrowing gap between reproduction quality and original quality -- and let's set aside for the short term the tired argument about what is and is not meant by the slippery term "quality." Look at this through the eyes of the public -- the non-photographer who we all assume is the basis of our audience and market. How will they react to this narrowing gap? What will this mean for all of us? What need we do to prepare for, adapt to, or prosper from these changes?

I have some concern that we photographers are so busy discussing and arguing the analog/digital, or the silver/platinum, or the original/reproduction, or the traditional/new methods dichotomies so much that while we are doing so, all around us Rome may be burning. These are serious issues for all of us. I tried to raise serious questions. I certainly don't have any answers, but I do see the changes and hoped that my article might bring them to other's attention.

So, let's not be ostriches. Instead, let me ask specifically, what will your strategy be in light of the changes in the printing world? What role do you see for your original prints? What role do you see for your work in ink? What makes sense? What will make sense to the public? What will you do if this gap narrows even further in the next 5 to 10 years? How will this affect our efforts in traditional galleries? If you are a gallery owner, what will you do in light of these changes?

These are difficult questions and even uncomfortable ones. Sorry to be the messenger (and I hope not to be shot!), but anyone with any eyes can see the changes I'm talking about by simply looking at today's books and comparing them to the books of 40 years ago. So, as a community of creative souls, what are we going to do?

Brooks

[Gordon Moat]

If you look at the work produced by Alinari as an example of high end press work, then the level is quite different than what people might consider in the average magazine. Definitely Lenswork is not average in printing; it is in the high end. What I might compare this magazine to would be the book Cyclops, which is a collection of some B/W images by Albert Watson. The printing quality of B/W images in that book are by far the best I have seen.

There are those of us who enjoy images printed in magazines, or as books. Paper quality is a separate issue, as much important as how the press is run, or what type of screening (or even screenless) is used.

Would I rather have a framed silver print on the wall . . . . . . I suppose, though then the problem becomes that I find more works to like than I could hope to afford. So my way of having many examples of prints is through books and magazines.

With my own images, too often I have not enjoyed the quality of my work in newprint, and sometimes I have been disappointed with the printing quality in corporate publications. This is the downside of commercial imaging, that all the effort and work towards compelling images of high quality might be diluted through the printing process.

I can only hope that if some higher quality magazine reproduces my images that they put as much as they can towards making the images appear as best as they can. Then it would be up to the viewer/reader to enjoy them, or skip over them. At least Brooks is doing that with Lenswork, even if it is biased towards B/W imaging.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat

[Marko]

Marko, why are you so concerned with what others discuss?

I'm not concerned, I simply find it ridiculous, to the point of being hilarious.

It's all nice and dandy when they do it there, that's why they have that board in the first place. I practice both digital and traditional. When I go to any of the digital boards to read about digital, that's exactly what happens. But I can't seem to find useful information about traditional or even hybrid processes without having to wade through tons of whiny nonsense about digital, all from people who have no clue about it. And when it starts happening on this and other normal boards, it becomes annoying.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

So, as a community of creative souls, what are we going to do?

In my case nothing, posters have been around for a long time and regardless of how well they are made, they are still posters. As for books, well if you cannot afford a real print I guess getting the book, cutting off the print you like and frame it, it will do. Regardless of how much those doing digital want us to beleive the process does not matter, to some it does. In some processes no matter how well the photograph is reproduced it will never give the same feeling as the real thing.

[Brian Ellis]

I read Brooks Atkinson's essay. . . .

Let's make that Brooks Jensen, not Brooks Atkinson who spent a lifetime writing reviews but none in LensWork that I know of. Thanks Ted.

[Wayne Lambert]

Brooks, it's probably not what you wanted, but it would appear your article has set the stage for a whole new rancorous discussion of imaging technology. Now it will be "what's best, traditional/digital or offset printing?" See, we've already gotten into it here, and I don't think that's necessarily bad, this discussion of image quality and what constitutes it. (However, everyone's a little fatigued by the traditional vs. digital discussion, and it may take a while for us to warm up to this one.) However, if, as you say, the elephant is already here and Rome is burning, we ought to make some comments. Mine is this. At first thought it seems to me that the people who will buy these "better-than-traditional/digital" offset lithography prints will be the same people who buy posters today, the people who want something nice to hang on the wall and they want it fairly cheaply. I believe the "original print" (something more-or-less printed by the photographer's hand and not something printed in runs of 8000 by a giant machine) will still be what the serious connoisseur or collector wants. And I assume many of us would like to sell to serious connoisseurs or collectors. What I'm saying is that I'm not too worried about it. However, I am delighted to hear that offset lithographic reproduction technology has advanced to the point you have observed.

[Brian Ellis]

Same difference. In the end, the one to judge if the print was better would be Wynn, not the offset guy. I agree that LW is very well printed, stochastic screens have been around for quite a long time. In fact, Dan Burkholder when he started he whole negative from digital files relied on service bereaus to make the screens for him. While advances in ink might allow for greater Dmax, this is not the only basis for a good print. Many of us have not made a print with Dmax higher than 1.5 in years..

I think the principal point of the article have been missed in many of the comments posted here. The point of the article as I recall it had nothing to do with whether an offset print was "better" than the original. The main thrust of the article was to point out the tremendous improvements in technical quality that have taken place in offset printing during the last 50 or so years. There was some comparison of a darkroom print to the offset print, not to claim that the offset was "better" but rather that it had greater dMax and something else that I've now forgotten. In other words, in two technical ways the offset print had better numbers but I don't remember any claim that the offset was simply a "better" print. There certainly was no suggestion that higher dMax was the only basis for a good print.

Again, I don't have the article around any more to refresh my memory so if I've misstated anything about it, my apologies.

[Doug Howk]

Brooks doesn't get it. The quality of book reproductions may be improving to the point that some of us will be satisfied with them. However, the real paradigm shift is that most consumers of images will be satisfied with a digital display of digitized images. For the latter group, Bill Gates is the trend setter with his digital wall screens displaying his rather large collection of artwork. I suspect book purchases are not an upward trend in our anti-intellectual society. If you've spent most of your leisure time watching TV or viewing a VCR/flat panel, then thumbing thru a book of pictures will be too retro.