My Print Quality 10 Years Ago

[Andrew O'Neill]

Well...When I was in Japan a couple of weeks ago I visited a friend of mine. I noticed upon her wall a really dark print. I went over for a closer look and was shocked to see that it was a print of mine that I had given her about ten years ago. It was seriously over printed. It was gawd awful. Obviously ten years ago I accepted this print as good. Upon returning home I vowed I would reprint that image and send it to her. My printing has much improved over the years but what's not to say ten years from now I'll look at current prints with the same disgust? When are we "really" good? Anybody else experienced this before? Back then I gave out lots of prints...I shudder to think that they are hanging walls, too. Thank God they are all in Japan as none of you will ever get to see them!

PS. Now that I am home, I cannot make that improved print for her as most of you know my place was broken into while in Japan....probably happened at the same time I noticed that 'orrible dark print on her wall...!

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've done that too. Even Ansel said he went through a stage in which he later realized that he printed everything too heavy.

[paulr]

You might have had viewing light that was just too bright. Sounds silly, but it makes a huge difference. I did a lot of research before settling on a brightness for my print viewing area ... based on an average of brightnesses I'd measured in the kinds of places the work might be hung.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I had even a worse expereince Andrew. A few years back on one of my first tries to get a gallery show I sent some prints to a gallery. The owner did not comment on them and did not send them back until after a year later.......my first thought was, "what the hell was I thinking?!?". Thankfully things have improve since then.. :-)

[John Cook]

My printing experience has been slightly different. Like all commercial photographers, from Day One I have been a supplier of raw material to offset lithographers, rather than a maker of arty wallhangers. The final product has been the catalogue or magazine ad. Not my print.

And from Day One I have had to provide sufficient (read: oodles of) tonality in the deep grays and near-whites to survive the printing process on uncoated paper stock. When I failed at this, I was immediately forced to reprint the job before it was allowed to go to press. The client's printing charges were always much higher than the photography budget.

So, even today, I tend to habitually print my portfolio wallhangers too light, flat and gray. That exciting flashy snappy deep contrast which everybody seems to admire is very difficult (and expensive) to attempt to reproduce on the printed page.

My former clients would have bounced most of AA's work as non-reproducible without prohibitively pricey duotone lithographs on Zellerbach Chrome-Coat varnished paper.

[Tom Westbrook]

True for me, too. At my first Sexton workshop, he had to hold several of my prints about a foot away from some pretty bright halogen lights to bring out the shadow details and light up the highlights. Definitely a revelation. I got home and toned down the viewing light to about an EV7 (I think it was at about a 9 before) measured with a grey card and a Pentax spotmeter. Much better now, but I'm thinking an EV6 might work better for generic lighting situations. What illumination do others find works best?

[Ben Calwell]

I usually view my prints using the light from a 60 watt bulb that's in a floor lamp behind my comfy stuffed chair in the living room. Like John Cook, I tend to print with less contrast than most other photographers. I like an "open" print without garish contrast. On a side note, photographers are always talking about getting "good blacks." But isn't that the same as saying no shadow detail?

[David Karp]

Tom,

Ahh yes, the Sexton stun gun. A few of my prints were hit with that baby too. He diagnosed a leaky safelight. Tests at home proved he was correct.

Others might have the same problem, so it is worth checking. My print quality went up, and my darkroom sessions became much easier, once I purchased a good safelight.

[ronald moravec]

One needs to establish a viewing light the same brightness as the illumination where it will be displayed. If color, the color temp needs to be close also. Even with black and white, color temp is more important than you would think. I saw some nice warm tone prints at a photo expo by a famous photographer. He told me what materials were used and I followed his advice. No they were not warm, until one day I looked at them under flouresent illumination just like the expo.

Of course, never judge prints wet or damp.

Many take a sample print and compare it to one being produced at a later date to match density.
It need not be from the same neg.

Sometimes I make a sample and wait a few days to judge it before the final print.

Pardon my spelling.

[Ellis Vener]

My former clients would have bounced most of AA's work as non-reproducible...

Which is why Adams was very careful about making prints that would reproduce well when he printed for commercial clients or for any of his books.

[John Cook]

Thanks, Ellis.

But my former clients would have butchered them. Bigtime!

Did I ever tell about the time my boss shot a mahogany piano bench? Knowing what the lithographer would do to it, he beefed-up the highlight along the edge of the bench with a heavy stripe of white china-marker grease pencil.

Then there was the time the printer, needing a b&w shot of a fried egg, "recycled" an ad for sliced bologna by having the in-house airbrush artist add a "yoke" to it.

[Randy Becker]

John,

Don't forget about putting Arid Xtra Dry deoderant on car tires to get a "highlight" on the flat rubber!

Randy

[John Cook]

Randy, you are absolutely correct. I had forgotten about doing that. Or the aerosol shaving cream substituted for the head on a stein of beer. (This is getting embarrassing.)

Do I sense a fellow traveller from those days?

[paulr]

Andrew and Jorge, I just remembered seeing an interview with Gordon Willis, who was the cinematographer for The Godfather. The interviewer asked him about his decision to make the movie so dark. Willis said it was deliberate, but looking back at the movie 30 years later he couldn't believe that he'd shot it THAT dark ... or that anyone had let him get away with it at the time.

Seems like perspectives change ... and an artist's ideas about what looks right can change dramatically over the years.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

and an artist's ideas about what looks right can change dramatically over the years.

This is one reason, and I guess the most relevant one. But IMO at least in my generation I think it was the Adams/Weston curse where one is trying to emulate them and confuses a high contrast print with a dramatic print.

[CP Goerz]

I have seen a great number of Ansel dogs, the Hasselblad pics were particularly nasty and I always had a sneaking suspicion that he printed from too thin a neg too often as the haze or veil is apparent in a number of his better known pics. Eddys prints though tend to look flat but kinda sneak up on you, difficult to describe but if you have seen a few you,ll know what I mean.

CP Goerz