Web presentation of platinum print

[Drew Wiley]

Jim - for me it's more like the Russian saying about listening to a symphony with earmuffs on (I won't repeat the rest of the context)... quite a bit just doesn't get thru. Just think of how impoverished our heritage would be if our knowledge of art history were based on the web. Let's be thankful that it's one invention which
DaVinci didn't have a premonition of! ... obviously it's good for certain things in our modern world, and maybe for cataloging commodity information. But as a photographic tool, it's about as useful as double-bit axe and spiked ball would be to a cabinet or violin maker.... you can perceive that it came from a tree, but not
much else. ... but I'm not stating this as a philosophical posture or as an abstract argument.... it would just be a waste of time to put things on the web that are
inherently capable of being communicated that way. More static than music. I don't care if it's eight million pixels, it still is not the same visual experience ... what
ya gonna do, click around enlarging thirty different sections of a 30X40 print and them try to reassemble them in your imagination... Or post them on one of those
garish digital big displays like outdoor advertisers now do? The web was inherently designed to be limited in color capability and detail capacity, and even if it were
hypothetically equal to the quantitative content, the qualitative content is an entirely different subject. ... So in short, it's more like a kazoo with half the teeth
missing than a real orchestra kazoo.

[Drew Wiley]

But per your personal example, Jim... you're picking out a black and white image with a conspicuous graphic element that comes across on the screen. That's part
of the problem... One has to selectively delete a major part of one's work which doesn't do that... where the dominant theme requires a lot of elements than are not going to translate into a secondary of tertiary medium (I say, tertiary, because I'm assuming the print has to be digi copied somewhow inbetween). I'm working on a print like that right now... It comes alive due to the interaction of very subtle and tiny element of color, sometimes only a mm across on a 20x24 print ... the subtle modulation of the colors is downright intense, but would look utterly bland on the web, meaningless really. Not everything relevant in a photograph is necessarily blatant. And a lot of my work bucks stereotypes of either the cutesy Bambi nature crowd or the effete snobbery mentality of art academia (for those of you old enough to remember that colorful phrase!). Missing a tiny blade of grass a tiny hint of color somewhere loses the whole image. Nowadays the web is just
a big whorehouse anyway... anything and everything goes there.

[Vaughn]

...How about a well recorded MP3 of the Bach piece?

Have MP3's reach the quality level of records yet?

It's like thinking obsession with fine bookbinding and typography and rare editions is about literature.

Interesting, hand-made books can be art pieces -- and something can be lost when mass-producing them.. And heaven have mercy on the editor who 'corrects' the work of e.e.cummings!

[paulr]

Have MP3's reach the quality level of records yet?

Plenty of blind tests say so, but it doesn't matter. You don't need a perfect illusion to hear the music. My composer friend enjoys listening to my (pretty decent) stereo, but at home listens to the thing he got used in college. He says, "if I can hear the notes and rhythms, it's all good." Made it clear to me that loving audio isn't the same as loving music.

Interesting, hand-made books can be art pieces

Sure they can. I've designed books, so I'm happy to agree. But admiring a book object isn't the same as admiring literature. All the hundreds of editions of Macbeth, from hand-scribed to paperback to e-book, have been Macbeth. The medium influences the message but should not be confused with it.

I'm waiting for someone to point out that you can't make this same argument for sculpture, or for a theatrical production, or any number of other art forms. Hidden in that protest would be an interesting (but maybe not new) thesis about the nature of photography.

[Jim collum]

By now it's pretty clear that you will be working the way you do, and probably won't post any quality images to the web... which is fully within your right. You could have work that changes how people feel about photography/art.. but no one will know (Just as I'm pretty sure that there were peers of Rembrandt who painted, possibly surpassing his work, who have been lost in history).

I have just browsed through both Christopher Burkett's and Charlie Cramer's site.. and from the jpgs they have posted, I know what kind of work they produce, I can see 'quality' in their work... both from their compositions and use of color. I don't see the individual leaves on the trees.. but then.. that shouldn't be *all* that defines an image (If so, then having it hung on a wall in a gallery isn't an adequate presentation either.. viewing a 40x50" print at a distance to see the entire image, you won't see the stems on the leaves until you got close enough). I see enough of their work that I'd be motivated to see actual prints.

I live under the delusion that more than friends and family may want to be customers or just see my work. (frankly .. friends and family don't make very good customers.. most expect prints .. ) . The Galleries and Museums that I have spoken with, all feel they can determine quality of work based on web presentation.. at least enough to produce interest enough for them to ask for prints.

In order to do this, I've had to learn how to properly process, both size and quality, to best display my work online. For my platinum prints, i've found that using a high end flatbed scanner has been a good way of doing this .. scanning the final print. I usually scan a step wedge to help with contrast and color balance.

(as an observation on the audio level of 'nuance'. I had a friend who's dad owned a couple hundred thousand $ worth of analog stereo gear. Tubes imported from Russia, massive isolation stands. He insisted he could hear the difference in music by placing a dime size magnet on the top of a speaker, and moving it around. He said he could discern if it was moved an inch. Of course, he never did a blind test of it.. and there was only one place in his house where he'd allow music to be listened from (a chair in his 'room')). I'm sure he'd of considered the live performance as 'McDonald quality')

[Drew Wiley]

The philosophical argument is one thing, and perhaps deserves the talents of some wordsmith, the practical reality something else. Only about 5% of my color images come across on the web, mostly the 5% I least want to represent my intentions - and these come across poorly, even if I upped the JPEG's to current standards. Maybe in black and white the percentage is hypothetically higher, if this were worth my time at all. Right now I'm working with three different gloss levels of color paper, because which image fits which gloss can itself make a giant different in what is or in not being communicated. Scale in very important. Some images need to be small to feel right, some large - it's isn't like differentiating a Weston Pepper #1 restrike from Pepper #2 - a known visual and commercial commodity. Now I'm not implying that the web cannot be a legitimate artistic vehicle of its own, even will all its foibles - it's just not my chosen medium!

[Drew Wiley]

Jim - as far as museums and galleries now demanding web submissions ... I just regard this as so much, "don't bother us, we already have enough to do" mentality.
Plus they want something edgy anyway... might as well be the Byzantine era or dark ages as the web gradually erodes both visual literacy and tactile skill sets.
I've had my share of curators and museum people at my dinner table, and know how well they can poke fun at their own profession. It's been awhile... but what they're really thinking can be quite a bit different than what their paid day job tells them to say and write. All a game. Get funding, get more funding. Do whatever
stunt is necessary to get funding. ... Funny, but today the SF paper had about a five page spread about the Palace of Fine Arts hosting the Art Academy graduating
class exhibition, and some writer made a deal about how one student actually had the creative genius to discover a 35mm film camera in his grandpa's attic, figure
out how to make it work with real film, and then have the boldness to submit a film photograph to the exhibition! Then he garbled on what an amazing landscape
the silly snapshot was (I'm mean, it might have been a real Costco RA4 print, and not even inkjet!), and then reproduced it in color in the newspaper, which might
possibly be the only form of reproduction actually worse than the web ...

[paulr]

I couldn't be more excited about digital submissions. And I say this as someone who has a lot to gain from the print submission process—I'm proud of my prints. And I live in a city that gives me access, by public transportation, to many institutions that I want to show work to. More than what exists in any other one place.

But making appointments and hauling boxes around is tedious. Without multiple portfolios, you have to show to one person at a time. Leaving original prints after signing liability waivers gives me the creeps. And there are other institutions all over the world that I want to show work to. I'd have access to some of these by spending thousands every year to attend portfolio review events, but not everyone attends those.

I think the democracy of digital submissions is amazing. It means if you can afford to make a photograph you can afford to show it to anyone, even halfway around the world. Photographers in China and India and Peru can send work to the Tate or MoMA or the Biblioteque Nationale. They might never have been able to in a previous era.

And the web means people can discover the work on their own. Most of the shows I've been in in the past year resulted from people approaching me. Organizations I didn't know about sent an email. How awesome.

The old-time alternative was sending orignal prints—and money—to enter a jurried show or contest. I did that exactly once. The rejection letter came back with a dented print.

The real issue is that I make work so people can see it. The web lets a lot of people see it—people I wouldn't have even thought to show it to. Thousands of times more people than before.

[Jim collum]

+1 (many times over)

I couldn't be more excited about digital submissions. And I say this as someone who has a lot to gain from the print submission process—I'm proud of my prints. And I live in a city that gives me access, by public transportation, to many institutions that I want to show work to. More than what exists in any other one place.

But making appointments and hauling boxes around is tedious. Without multiple portfolios, you have to show to one person at a time. Leaving original prints after signing liability waivers gives me the creeps. And there are other institutions all over the world that I want to show work to. I'd have access to some of these by spending thousands every year to attend portfolio review events, but not everyone attends those.

I think the democracy of digital submissions is amazing. It means if you can afford to make a photograph you can afford to show it to anyone, even halfway around the world. Photographers in China and India and Peru can send work to the Tate or MoMA or the Biblioteque Nationale. They might never have been able to in a previous era.

And the web means people can discover the work on their own. Most of the shows I've been in in the past year resulted from people approaching me. Organizations I didn't know about sent an email. How awesome.

The old-time alternative was sending orignal prints—and money—to enter a jurried show or contest. I did that exactly once. The rejection letter came back with a dented print.

The real issue is that I make work so people can see it. The web lets a lot of people see it—people I wouldn't have even thought to show it to. Thousands of times more people than before.

[Drew Wiley]

The game has never changed, Paul.... It's still about who you know. Always has been. What are the odds of the hundred dozen wannabees getting a curator to take
their work seriously.... .00000000003%? The lottery has better odds than that. And how on earth can anyone sort out cell phone quality from the real deal?
When I was younger and ambitious, I did haul a portfolio box around, and oddly, it was mostly me rejecting the venue more often than them telling me to get lost.
I always wanted to see how they handled things in the back room first. Real prints, real impact, then and there. ... but to change gears, did anyone happen to see
the Charlie Rose interview of Ellsion last nite? It was extremely interesting to me for a couple reasons. Ellison reiterated in unequivocal terms how the whole consumer end of software and electronics is totally geared to rapid fashion changeover and obsolescence. The other interesting thing it that they were sitting in Port Orford cedar furniture made by my former art agent (Ellsion's entire mansion is Port Orford cedar. I merely supplied the tools and finishes, but do keep in contact with many of the crew who built that place, some of whom were transferred to the current racing catamaran facilities. My friend has retired, having bounced between being a curator himself, a commercial agent, and an excellent wood craftsman. He is currently writing a book on traditional Chinese architecture after working alongside the maint crew in the Forbidden City in Beijing).