Individuality, Repeatability and Computers

[r.e.]

In the last 24 hours, I've read every one of the recents posts about the implications of making a photograph by stitching together digital images.

I am working on a book, and one of the elements to which I've been paying a fair bit of attention is the typography. We are using a typeface that is generated by a computer instead of lead type. Similarly, we are using a programme called InDesign to set the type instead of forms and leading. Computer type and computer design have certain advantages. On the other hand, this past summer I spent a few hours with some people who use lead type and real presses to make limited edition books. I was struck by two things; first, the fact that the pages that they printed were three dimensional, due to the fact that traditional typesetting is a physical rather than virtual process, and secondly, the fact that every page that they printed, depending as it did on how much ink there was on the roller and how much pressure was applied, was different.

As a result of this experience, I went to a local library and had a look at some books that were carefully printed from lead. I am not talking about books that were printed 200 years ago. Indeed I specifically asked to see books that were published in the 20th century. And I am also not talking about typical, mass-market books. I am talking about books that strike one, at least if one is paying atteniton, as works of art.

I came to the conclusion that these books demonstrated craftsmanship and individuality, perhaps summed up as personality, that is not evident in the book on which we are working. I love our typography, I love our design, but it lacks the physicality of the work that I came to admire. Indeed, I feel this so strongly that I have decided that I want our book to have an insert that is printed by hand. That said, I am not at all hopeful that the publisher will agree. The cost of putting an individual stamp on every book that we print is probably too great.

About three years ago, I bought my first photographic print from a fellow named Geoffrey James. It was a contact print from an 8x10 original. I have reason to believe that Mr. James printed the photograph that I purchased more than once, maybe several times, before he was satisfied with what he was sending me. What he did was labour intensive, but that is just another way of sayiing that he created, and approved of, the print that he sent me. He didn't just push a button. There is something to be said for that.

I wonder about what is lost, if anything, when people adopt a process for creating a plastic work, whether a book or a photograph or a drawing or a sculpture, that distances an individual's physical hand from the creation of the template of the work and the copies that are generated. It seems to me that this is what has happened to book publishing, and it is an interesting question whether the same thing is happening to filmmaking and photography. And if so, does it matter?

[Struan Gray]

It matters, but not in any absolute moral sense.

I have two copies of Whymper's "Scrambles in the Alps", one is a cheap imprint on bad paper; the other is a first edition. The pictures are much, much better in the latter, but it's the former I read in bed, and lend to friends. The purpose of an artifact has to enter into any assessment of its worth.

Also, I don't equate 'hand made' with well made. And I don't equate well-made with irregularities. I once saw a Chippendale bed semi-disassembled, and the joints looked like they were made with a CNC mill. Precision is precision, however you acheive it.

I think it is human to look for a personal connection. The plywood wooden sewing box my grandfather made for my grandmother has far more attraction to me than any number of more practical or more beautiful boxes my wife could use. I have a pair of polarising filters - long seperated and fogged - which once belonged to Millikan, and have his name on the case. They're useless for optics experiments or photography, but I keep them tucked away all the same.

I think art buying and art owning is heavily invested with this spirit: people want to buy a personal connection to the artist. Limited editions, signatures, newsletters and all the other irrelevant but successful tricks of the fine art trade are there to provide a psychic patina, a back story, provenance, for something that according to cold hard, widely repeated theory ought to be able to stand on its own.

[GPS]

...
It seems to me that this is what has happened to book publishing, and it is an interesting question whether the same thing is happening to filmmaking and photography. And if so, does it matter?

Sure it matters. We have a physical as well as spiritual dimension. When we express ourselves we imprint the inner dimension into the physical world around us. Once we cut the physical expression from its inner cause using the physical in a anonymous, sterile, even if physically efficient way, we feel that we could not express ourselves fully. It's from there the "cheap" feeling over plastic cups made by a machine. The same goes for photography - the zillion of personal marks put there during the photo process makes for the satisfaction of the inner soul that could be expressed in a way no impersonal machine can imitate. Whenever the inner prevails it chooses a personal way over the anonymous to express itself.

[Marko]

I wonder about what is lost, if anything, when people adopt a process for creating a plastic work, whether a book or a photograph or a drawing or a sculpture, that distances an individual's physical hand from the creation of the template of the work and the copies that are generated. It seems to me that this is what has happened to book publishing, and it is an interesting question whether the same thing is happening to filmmaking and photography. And if so, does it matter?

Short answer: it depends. :) It depends on the purpose and intent of the work in question. If the primary purpose of the book is to present a work of literary art or even simply to convey verbal information of any sort, then I would say it does not matter. What matters in that case is the efficiency with which the book performs its task. The book in that case is a vehicle, if you will, not the object.

But if the purpose of the book is to be the work of art itself, the work of book-making and printing art, then all the qualities of the old-style printing and book-making process become very important indeed. Printing is only one aspect of it, though, there are other crafts involved in making a trully representative hand-made book as a work of art.

But once in that domain, it could easily be said that lead-printing and press-binding takes all the real soul out of the really hand-written and hand-made book! If you think lead printing has plasticity, you should definitely look into pre-press books, each piece individually written... no, caligraphed by hand, including the cover illustrations and the covers themselves.

Same thing can be said of photography. If the main purpose is the print, then how the print is produced is important, that's the art of the craft. But if the main purpose is to take and present a photograph, the art itself, then the technology becomes just a vehicle for the purpose and the best one is always the most efficient one.

[Kirk Gittings]

well said Marko....

[John Kasaian]

There is a difference, whether that is important or not I think depends on a lot of things, maybe the most significant would be the viewer's ability to discern and appreciate the difference.
As a long time bachelor I survived on fast food, hwever I used to search out social functions around town for bake sales since home made baked goods were a special link in my mind to life at home while growing up with my family.
Then, 13 years ago, I met a gal who actually baked a loaf of banana nut bread for me! I savored it, I appreciated it, I was nearly driven to tears over it.

So get to the point

My point is that that loaf of banana nut bread made in a small kitchen by a human was more pivotal, more important than any other banana nut bread churned out in a bakery and wrapped in cellophane.

I think of photographs in a similar way---but maybe that is because I can't bake worth a darn ;)

[Steven Barall]

Oh how I hark back to the days when I could get a carefully hand crafted plastic cup. A cup filled with the aura of the maker, sixteen ounces of spiritual dimension. And we do have machine made movies. We call it television and it's been around for 60 years and some of it's not half bad where as most of those hand crafted, sweated over films, the ones where the director personally puts his fingerprints on each and every frame are unwatchable and horrible.

If the sole point of your work is that it's a hand crafted thing and that in order for anyone to fully feel you the type has to be hand made and hand set that's great but don't go and blame the printing press if no one is interested in what are you doing.

There are certainly a lot of us who believe that content is king and if the content is worth it then the exact means of reproduction is less important. You can sit down and read Shakespeare and get a lot out of it even though you aren't Laurence Olivier.

Read Walter Benjamin and all the Post Modern stuff from the 1990s. Good luck to all.

[Dick Hilker]

What, then, are the implications for the genuinely gifted artists for whom the more personally-invested modes of expression are impractical? Are they foredoomed to a second-rate status in the world of art collectors? Will the finely-crafted digital print never achieve respectability?

Having printed from lead type on a hand-fed Heidelberg press and produced thousands of silver prints over the years, I have a great respect for the individuality of those products and understand the value of the perceived personal connection with the craftsman or artist. My concern is that an elitist attitude may stunt the growth and acceptance of photography as a form of art equal to any other. Or, are we to accept the notion of always being just photography instead of fine art, especially now that so much of it is deemed plastic and lacking the personal touch?

Before anyone springs for my throat, please understand that my comments are meant primarily to shed a different light on the subject and act in a way as a devil's advocate. I do treasure the feel of a fine book and fully appreciate the effort that goes into the making of a great print, but necessity now dictates that all my printing be done with "the push of a button." Should my future efforts be rebuffed by a "No digital need apply!" sign on the gallery door?

[Bruce Watson]

I have reason to believe that Mr. James printed the photograph that I purchased more than once, maybe several times, before he was satisfied with what he was sending me. What he did was labour intensive, but that is just another way of sayiing that he created, and approved of, the print that he sent me. He didn't just push a button. There is something to be said for that.

Well, there is. It says to me that your education is lacking. That you don't understand that printers of all stripes, including inkjet printers, all make work prints. That they all push and prod the media to make it say what they want it to say.

I know that I personally spend more time on each print using an inkjet printer than I did in the darkroom. In the darkroom I would settle for the little imprefections that you think of as "personality" because I learned what the limits were and accepted the diminishing returns. With inkjet the limits are higher. Which means if I'm willing to work more I can make a better print. So I work more.

"...just push a button" is just such rubish.

Now if you want to come out and say you like hand labor more than you like thought labor, OK. If you like a chair made by hand without power tools over a chair made with power tools, or even a chair made in a factory, that's fine too.

If you prefer a contact print made on hand-made paper that was hand-coated by the artist, I don't have any problem with that. Everyone has their preferences.

Where I have a problem is your implication that inkjet printing is somehow easy or automatic. It is not.

[tim atherton]

as has been mentioned, this is pretty much the same argument Benjamin made 70 years ago "against" photography (the silver gelatin type) in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

r.e. - how would you feel about one of Geoffrey's inkjet prints? Same world renowned photographer, just different process. Is it about the photograph itself or the print as fetish object?

[Martin Miller]

This is a facinating and important thread. In many ways it goes to the heart of the modern creative dilemma. The issue of irregularities or imperfections may be central. As inherently irregular and imperfect beings, we may have a real psychological need for such qualities in our cultural experience to quell feelings of alienation. At the same time, who among us does not strive to eliminate imperfections in our work. Part of the appeal of digital printing is the quantum leap in our ability (at least potential!) to control imperfections in the print. I think it hard to argue that it is somehow intrinsically preferable to use highly refined analogue tools such as grain magnifiers and darkroom photometers to achieve higher degrees of precision than to use digital electronic means to do the same. Yet each ratcheting up in achievable perfection results in a subtle increase in psychic dislocation or alienation, hence the distrustful and grudging acceptance of it. (Witness the hard feelings toward digital seen on this forum.) I think that this tension between our conflicting needs for perfection and imperfection is a manifestation of future shock, i.e., the uncontrollably breakneck pace of change and the removal of comforting certainty in our lives.

I also suspect that this conflict may play a role in the inexorable shift toward the conceptual at the expense of the aesthetic over the last hundred years. (The recent rise in our midst of a conceptual artist in what is surely one of the last conservative aesthetic bastions attests to the trend.) In all areas of production, technology has made routine what used to be unattainable perfection. The anti-aesthetic thread in contemporary art may be at least partly rooted in a distrust of the "easy" attainment of perfection enabled by technology. The consequent denial of the importance of aesthetic "perfection" may be fueling the shift to the
conceptual.

On the other hand, it seems to me that the conceptual mode of expression dos not necessarily have to sacrifice aesthetics. To my sensibilities, however, it mostly does. Maybe reconciling the two is the way forward.

[paulr]

There are a couple of separate issues. The first one, already raised, is whether the book is supposed to be an object itself, or whether it's supposed to be a container of images or information.

Second, even if it is supposed to be an object, there's the question of appropriateness of the design and craft to the content--what best serves the whole and what doesn't.

It's easy to get caught up in the romance and nostalgia of 3-dimensional letterpress page. I think they're beautiful and seductive, and love looking at them (and feeling them). But they are not appropriate for everything. If your work is contemporary, unless you are deliberately trying to be anachronistic for some purpose, or unless you are directly commenting on hundred-plus year-old conventions, letterpress isn't going to work. This is true for many reasons.

Three dimensionality of type is a particular esthetic tied to particular periods in history. Modernism was marked in part by different type designs, and in part by type that sat on the surface rather than below it (this could be achieved with letterpress, too). All contemporary type is actually designed for offset printing, so it simply does not work properly with letterpress. You can have a plate engraved from a computer file made with contemporary type, and hand-print it by letterpress on uncoated paper. But it will probably look like shite, because the type was designed for the way narrow strokes become narrower in offset printing, rather than fatter as they do in letterpress. Besides this the overall esthetic effect will be jarring--a bit like a team of horses hitched to an airplane. You'll be distorting the letter forms as well as the historical logic of the page by using a technologically and esthetically inapropriate process.

Saying that two-dimensional type lacks the soul of three-dimensional is like saying the Modernist photographers lack soul compared with the Pictorialists. That might be a reflection of your esthetic, but it's not an absolute. And it's worth recognizing that such an esthetic is tied to the norms of over a hundred years ago.

It's likely that more care went into type, in general, back in the days when it all needed to be set by hand and was only done by people who were trained. But it's no absolute. I see gorgeous type produced today (sometimes), and many of the worst examples of type and book design that I've seen date from the mid-to-late 19th century (probably the low-water mark for typography, at least from typographers who lacked the excuse of being completely untrained).

[Henry Ambrose]

Great thread!

“...the commercial article at its best is simply physically serviceable and, per accidens, beautiful in its efficiency; the work of art at its best is beautiful in its very substance and, per accidens, as serviceable as an article of commerce.”

from Eric Gill's "Essay on Typography"

Its a short little book that bears somewhat on this discussion. Here's a link to it at Amazon -- http://tinyurl.com/35vc2j

(Go read page 6 of the book at Amazon to get a real taste)

While I can go along with "if its art its art no matter how made" I can also feel the pull of process, whatever it is that the maker finds appealing. If you feel like a slave chained to your computer or your darkroom it won't be much fun to use either.

Perhaps at some point all this is buried in personality. I know that I like hands-on things that I can see, feel and touch. Sometimes I feel like a computer and inkjet can be another layer of distance or separation from reality. I use them every day for commerce. Sometimes I use them for personal creative tasks with success and enjoyment. But I rarely have the same feel that I have when I walk out of the darkroom after making some nice prints or even one nice print.

Sometimes the vastly improved possibilities of altering and perfecting digital work astound me and at other times I feel the need and pull to be restricted by old ways. I don't think either excludes art or craft being made.

The nearly unlimited ways that digital imaging work can be used to pursue perfection can seem nebulous, or almost unfathomable - where do you stop? The certainty of limit imposed by older processes seems to bring forth a feeling of magic being done or valiant struggle and slaying of dragons. Its more blood and guts than precise cauterization by laser.

For those familiar with woodworking, I think we might look at properly hand-cut dovetails versus those made with a finely machined template and router. For some one of those is hand made and the other is not. Good arguments have been and can be further made for both methods.

Is a trout caught on a tiny dryfly "more well caught" than one hooked on a glob of chicken guts or nightcrawlers impaled on a treble hook? Will the fish taste different in either case?

In photography the question might be this: Which has more value to you, a handmade carbon print that takes half a day to make or a handmade inkjet that can be, after its first iteration, spit out endlessly? Does the fact that you can ruin a half-days' work in one misstep in the darkroom and have to start over from the very beginning have any bearing on the final "art"?

I claim that the final object is always the "art" and it does matter how its made - all is included in the final object - the thing photographed and how it is translated into the object "art". Its all wrapped up together. In that bundle of art and craft are various parts that sum to the whole thing and in the end its "art".

[Oren Grad]

If your work is contemporary, unless you are deliberately trying to be anachronistic for some purpose, or unless you are directly commenting on hundred-plus year-old conventions, letterpress isn't going to work. This is true for many reasons.

Three dimensionality of type is a particular esthetic tied to particular periods in history...

Paulr, when these discussions play out, there always seems to be implicit in your contributions a principle that one should work with contemporary materials and approaches. You're very careful not to criticize those who choose otherwise for the mere fact of that choice, and I appreciate that, but you seem to be always at pains to emphasize the anachronistic character of such work.

The observation that most work at any given time will use contemporary materials and methods is hard to argue with. That shouldn't be any surprise: in most cases it's the path of least resistance, and certainly the availability of new materials and methods offers new expressive territory to explore.

But if one argues from a perspective that sees novelty or originality as an independent source of value in creative work (even if not the only source of value), it's easy to cross the line between the empirical observation that people do, and the expression of an implicit normative principle that one ought to work with contemporary materials.

I'd be interested in hearing more about whether you see this as primarily an empirical/descriptive issue or whether you do think there's a normative element in it. And if the latter, why.

[scott_6029]

In the last 24 hours, I've read every one of the recents posts about the implications of making a photograph by stitching together digital images.

I wonder about what is lost, if anything, when people adopt a process for creating a plastic work, whether a book or a photograph or a drawing or a sculpture, that distances an individual's physical hand from the creation of the template of the work and the copies that are generated. It seems to me that this is what has happened to book publishing, and it is an interesting question whether the same thing is happening to filmmaking and photography. And if so, does it matter?

To me the viewer, if it's 'fine art' (a whole nother topic) it matters a lot. I look at the historical, aesthetic and the craft. Do I like the image? YES, what is the historical context? I.e. is the image revolutionary for it's time?, Unique? What methods for making the image were available and how difficult was it to make? (Craft). I.e. Is the craft good? For the tools avail at the time it was made. My wife sells handcrafted silver jewelry...it's unique..it's very well crafted, but machines can solder and cut better, certainly machine casting does a better job....but do you want something unique, handcrafted, or 'push of a button' - Now we get to price :). IS it worth it to you to pay for something hand crafted? Some folks appreciate handcrafted and buy from her....others don't care and would rather have a machine punched out piece that is common to many....

Same for me in photography. I can appreciate the effort of a wet print and the tactile hand crafted nature (I am NOT critizising photoshop creativity/brilliance, etc....I personally just don't put it in the same 'handcrafted' category....

The more distanced the artist, the less 'value' I give it.. books are costs less than prints? I still buy lots of photo books, just don't pay print prices....

[tim atherton]

What methods for making the image were available and how difficult was it to make? (Craft). I.e. Is the craft good? For the tools avail at the time it was made...

Applying the notion of craft and how difficult something was to make to the value of a piece of art is often, I think, a mistake. (or are you making a distinction between "art" and "fine art"?).

There is little correlation between how difficult a work is to make and how good the work is (the true creativity in a photogrpah is in the moment of its making - surely then the more difficult the photogrpah was to take, the better it should be?)

Certainly, most good artists have mastered their craft in the course to producing their best work, but consider van Gogh. Certainly, by the time the last month of his life arrived, he had mastered certain techniques - even "classical" ones (though his approach was often idiosyncratic - the sketches often coming after the paintings), and much of his technique was close to revolutionary.

Yet in those last weeks he produced, literally, dozens of paintings - almost one a day, a pace he had kept up for a couple of months. Many of them his most important, turning traditions of painting and landscape upside down and defining many new directions. In terms of craft, they were produced at such a speed that it is unlikely they were technically that difficult for him to make. Conceptually, they were so difficult that they probably cost him his life.

The level and difficulty of craft in those works is secondary at best - handmade as they are.

(btw David Hockney argues quite strongly that photography as a whole is not quite a true art because it lacks the real connection from hand to eye to heart that is required - doesn't matter if it's digital or analogue. For every argument that is made that "digital" prints are somehow not as hand crafted or as individually created as an analogue photograph, a painter or sculpture can argue in essentially the same way about an analogue photogrpah)

[John Kasaian]

I think a major issue is the intimate relationship between a sender and a receiver. A great novel is a great no matter how it is printed, much like a great photograph is great whether it is a contact print or part of a mass produced calender. What changes however is when a work of art is transmitted by some method not part of the original scheme, and even this can vary depending on the situation.

When I was shoeing horses, I used factory made keg shoes--they were just as good (from a utillitarian view) and far more practical than forming shoes from bar stock. Higher up in the Farrier's hierarchy is the making of a special board demonstrating all the techniques a an experienced farrier has acquired for making special shoes---all from bar stock. These are special shoes that will never see the bottom of a hoof---very much "art for art's sake" beyond the intended purpose of fulfilling a requirement for professional advancement. It might sound wierd, but holding one of these beauties is a powerful, emotional experience if you understand what went into it---far more than any keg shoe can ever hope to provide. OTOH in a church in Belgium there is a baptismal font (I forgot which church) commissioned centuries ago by a famous artist. So many tourists came to see it that it was removed from the church to a museum and while it is a pretty nice piece of sculpture, I found it dissappointing in that it has ceased to be what it was made to be once removed from the service the sculptor and the family that commissioned it intended. Not unlike a hand printed book is is no longer read, or a fine shotgun that is no longer taken afield (or just maybe an 8x10 contact that is no longer held in the hand to "speak" to the viewer.)

[Oren Grad]

“...the commercial article at its best is simply physically serviceable and, per accidens, beautiful in its efficiency; the work of art at its best is beautiful in its very substance and, per accidens, as serviceable as an article of commerce.”

from Eric Gill's "Essay on Typography"

But Gill was wrong. A commercial article at its best can be beautiful in its very substance.

I'm pretty much allergic to inkjet prints myself. But my criterion for judging them is whether the particulars of their physical reality "work" for me on a perceptual level or not. I'm not interested in craft objects as bearers of an ideological program, regardless of whether the bias is toward the old or the new.


I claim that the final object is always the "art" and it does matter how its made - all is included in the final object - the thing photographed and how it is translated into the object "art". Its all wrapped up together. In that bundle of art and craft are various parts that sum to the whole thing and in the end its "art".

Art isn't any one thing, or any one weighted mix of things. It can and does play different roles and have different meanings in the lives of those who make it, those who deal commercially in it, those who purchase it and those who view it - and indeed, in the lives of different people within each of these categories.

[Greg Miller]

To me the repeatability that is offered by the computer means that the print more accurately reflects the artist/photogpraher's intentions. That certainly has merit in my book. Those differences seen in each print in a less repeatable medium aren't necessarily intentional - they are just variances given the artist's capability within that medium (or of the the medium itself given perfect skills of the artist). Which is preferable comes down to persoanl preference.

[paulr]

Paulr, when these discussions play out, there always seems to be implicit in your contributions a principle that one should work with contemporary materials and approaches.

My point here is that you should be aware of the historical context and implications of some of these choices. There are reasons someone might want to make an artist's book with 3 dimensional letterpress type. But "oooh, pretty!" isn't such a convincing reason. Neither is the (suspect) notion that one technology represents bettter craftsmanship than another.

I doubt I've suggested that anyone should be compelled to work with contemporary materials and approaches as a matter of course. Much of my own work has been done with chlorobromide papers that are typical of papers from seventy years ago, developed in formulas that are even older. My camera is older than I am.

I do believe that these issues of craft and technology should to be approached with the question of what best serves the vision of the artist. And I believe that if someone is doing work that's a true representation of their experience of the world, the work will look contemporary and fresh (at least in some ways), and not like the work of someone from a very different time and place.

In my case I felt that older materials served my vision; others may or may not agree that I made the best choices. I'm at least confident that I was asking some of the right questions.

If I sound like I'm nagging on these issue, it's most likely that I'm trying to get people to ask more helpful questions. I'm not suggesting I know the answers.

[r.e.]

r.e. - how would you feel about one of Geoffrey's inkjet prints? Same world renowned photographer, just different process. Is it about the photograph itself or the print as fetish object?

Of the photographers who have embraced digitization, one of the principal reasons for many of them, although not all, is that once an image has been manipulated, and proofs have been made, the digital product is uniform and infinitely reproducible. As Chris Jordan pointed out in another thread, it may in some cases also reduce costs. For the photographer, the attraction is obvious; for buyers, perhaps less so.

I think that some people who buy works of art are struggling with their reaction to this phenomenon of uniform, infinitely reproducible prints. Why? Speaking only for myself, I don't think that my reservation has to do with elitism or fetishism. I think that my reservation has to do with the fact that I believe that the content and the print are interdependent. There have been suggestions, earlier in this thread, that the writing in a book, and the book as the vehicle, are distinct. That just doesn't fit with what is happening on the project on which I am currently working. As the writer on the team, I would be the first to acknowledge the importance of the work being done by our graphic designer, typographer and photographers. Indeed, in some cases I have made changes to the writing because the changes enhanced the book's design. I don't think that there is any doubt that a printed product - book, magazine, poster, whatever - can be enhanced by good design. McLuhan may or may not have been right when he said that the medium is the message, but for myself, I am satisfied that the medium and the message are interrelated.

I have not had the pleasure of seeing Mr. James's inkjet prints. Indeed, the last time that I saw a show of photographs, outside New York, it was your photographs, and that was a year or so ago. When I do see Mr. James's more recent work, it is entirely possible that my reserations about uniform, infinitely reproducible prints shall evaporate. At the moment, I'm not convinced, but I'm certainly prepared to listen. Indeed, that is why I started this thread.

[Henry Ambrose]

Oren wrote:
"Art isn't any one thing, or any one weighted mix of things. It can and does play different roles and have different meanings in the lives of those who make it, those who deal commercially in it, those who purchase it and those who view it - and indeed, in the lives of different people within each of these categories."

I was making reference to the single object, not art universally. Like a single print - that print is all that went into making it - method, craft, technique, materials, labor, conception.

[tim atherton]

I find myself confused by this repeatability thing.

Long before digital came along, whenever I talked to or read books by a master printer one of the main things seemed to be repeatablility. Detailed notes were taken of processes, times, materials. Charts were made of dodging and burning. Even special cutouts were made for certain prints.

The aim always seemed to be repeatability and to keep difference between prints from the same negative to a minimum.

The only times this changed were either when the photographers vision for a print changed, or materials became unavailable.

Other than that, differences between prints were generally seen as accidental and to be avoided if at all possible by means of superb technique and the best craftsmanship.

Now it seems a virtue is being made out of those differences?

[paulr]

To me the repeatability that is offered by the computer means that the print more accurately reflects the artist/photogpraher's intentions.

It's interesting to look at the changing history of standards in the era of mass production. In a lot of handicrafts, the ability to make absolutely consistent multiples has been a point of high honor. This has been true in pottery, wood working, printmaking, bread baking, darkroom printing, and many other crafts.

But when a mass-produced alternative comes along, suddenly the natural variation that was seen as a flaw in the handmade version becomes coveted as a sign of humanity.

I don't think this is really a point of irony; just an interesting example of how new contexts and perspectives can change standards. When the world changes, we can find ourselves missing something that we once tried to stamp out!

[Oren Grad]

There are reasons someone might want to make an artist's book with 3 dimensional letterpress type. But "oooh, pretty!" isn't such a convincing reason.

Can you give examples of reasons that you would find convincing?


And I believe that if someone is doing work that's a true representation of their experience of the world...

What does it mean for a craft object to be a "true representation of their experience of the world"? How can one judge whether it is or isn't?

[Oren Grad]

I was making reference to the single object, not art universally. Like a single print - that print is all that went into making it - method, craft, technique, materials, labor, conception.

But I think it's true of the single print too. Strictly speaking, a print is just a physical object. Once one gets into metaphors and projected meanings, anything is possible. And in reality we see a wide range of understandings of what the extra baggage consists of.

[tim atherton]

Can you give examples of reasons that you would find convincing?



What does it mean for a craft object to be a "true representation of their experience of the world"? How can one judge whether it is or isn't?


when it's art not a craft? And when any craft or technology serves the art and not the other way round?

[Oren Grad]

Other than that, differences between prints were generally seen as accidental and to be avoided if at all possible by means of superb technique and the best craftsmanship.

Now it seems a virtue is being made out of those differences?


It's interesting to look at the changing history of standards in the era of mass production. In a lot of handicrafts, the ability to make absolutely consistent multiples has been a point of high honor. This has been true in pottery, wood working, printmaking, bread baking, darkroom printing, and many other crafts.

But when a mass-produced alternative comes along, suddenly the natural variation that was seen as a flaw in the handmade version becomes coveted as a sign of humanity.

I don't think this is really a point of irony; just an interesting example of how new contexts and perspectives can change standards. When the world changes, we can find ourselves missing something that we once tried to stamp out!

Very nice point...

[Bruce Watson]

I find myself confused by this repeatability thing.

Long before digital came along, whenever I talked to or read books by a master printer one of the main things seemed to be repeatablility. Detailed notes were taken of processes, times, materials. Charts were made of dodging and burning. Even special cutouts were made for certain prints.

The aim always seemed to be repeatability and to keep difference between prints from the same negative to a minimum.

The only times this changed were either when the photographers vision for a print changed, or materials became unavailable.

Other than that, differences between prints were generally seen as accidental and to be avoided if at all possible by means of superb technique and the best craftsmanship.

Now it seems a virtue is being made out of those differences?

Excellent point, well said.

[paulr]

Can you give examples of reasons that you would find convincing?

Sure. Any case where you were aware of the range of implications of the choice (historical, metaphorical, esthetic, etc.) and felt they served the vision of the art or the text being printed.



What does it mean for a craft object to be a "true representation of their experience of the world"? How can one judge whether it is or isn't?

I was refering to art, not a craft object. If you're weaving baskets or making shaker furniture, then the point is typically to revere a tradition. Anonymity could be considered part of the point. But when we look at art, we're usually looking for someone to show us a perspective we haven't seen ... something an artist can show us because what fascinates them is a question that they've never quite seen explored to their satisfaction.

[Oren Grad]

when it's art not a craft? And when any craft or technology serves the art and not the other way round?

So there's "art" and there's "craft". How specifically does that shed light on what truth in representation of subjective experience is, and how you would recognize it?

I should say that in the end, I think discussions about what "art" is inevitably lead to an "I know it when I see it" that there's no way to dispute. But I'm interested in whether, within your own frame of reference, you can operationalize the distinguishing judgment that paulr referred to and that I'm asking about.

[Henry Ambrose]

But I think it's true of the single print too. Strictly speaking, a print is just a physical object. Once one gets into metaphors and projected meanings, anything is possible. And in reality we see a wide range of understandings of what the extra baggage consists of.

Yes, and that's why I say the object is the whole. Its not either/or, it is all.

Whether the viewer has any idea about how it was made or conceived is another subject. Ignorance or enlightenment of the viewer has nothing to do with the object.

A framed six ink offset printed 600 line screen print hung on the wall might convince a lot of folks thats its wonderful and amazing (and well it might be) but its still not the real thing if the real thing is an alt. print on handmade paper. (for instance)

Things are what they are. Its up to us to differentiate what that is. Knowing something about the object and its history or making can make a huge difference in appreciating it. If this does not matter to you thats fine and its just as fine for this to matter to someone else.

I'll add that digital photo art is the poor sister to manual photo art much like photography was considered an inferior craft and not really art. (wrongly or rightly, this seems true)

I'm saying both "sides" are wrong. Its the exclusivity of one view or the other that divides.

[Oren Grad]

Sure. Any case where you were aware of the range of implications of the choice (historical, metaphorical, esthetic, etc.) and felt they served the vision of the art or the text being printed.

This is a very intellectualized view of how art is done. Returning to the question of whether art is in the experience of creation or in the product, it's clear that doing art in this way provides satisfaction to many practitioners. It's equally clear that many others don't approach it in this way. And I would be surprised if there is much correlation between the presence of this mindset in the creator and the merit of the resulting work.


I was refering to art, not a craft object. If you're weaving baskets or making shaker furniture, then the point is typically to revere a tradition. Anonymity could be considered part of the point. But when we look at art, we're usually looking for someone to show us a perspective we haven't seen ... something an artist can show us because what fascinates them is a question that they've never quite seen explored to their satisfaction.

Perhaps. Operationally, you can't maintain this distinction without access to an independent source of information about the creator's intent.

[Oren Grad]

Whether the viewer has any idea about how it was made or conceived is another subject. Ignorance or enlightenment of the viewer has nothing to do with the object.

A framed six ink offset printed 600 line screen print hung on the wall might convince a lot of folks thats its wonderful and amazing (and well it might be) but its still not the real thing if the real thing is an alt. print on handmade paper. (for instance)

Things are what they are. Its up to us to differentiate what that is. Knowing something about the object and its history or making can make a huge difference in appreciating it. If this does not matter to you thats fine and its just as fine for this to matter to someone else.

I'll add that digital photo art is the poor sister to manual photo art much like photography was considered an inferior craft and not really art. (wrongly or rightly, this seems true)

I'm saying both "sides" are wrong. Its the exclusivity of one view or the other that divides.

What I'm saying is that value is subjective, and the sources of value are subjective. Within that frame of reference, an "exclusive" view can be legitimate. A viewer could decide that the physical attributes of the object are all that matters, and the history and mode of production and whether it's "real" by any particular standard is irrelevant. Such a perspective could result from ignorance or a lack of "enlightenment", but it can also result from knowledge and understanding.

FWIW, in my own practice of craft, the doing of it, and the particular way of doing it, are an essential part of what I find rewarding. In consuming others' craft, the object itself carries much greater weight, though the details of craft or the historical or cultural context are sometimes of secondary interest. And I know that on the occasions when I give a print to someone else, how they see it and how and why they value it will almost always be very different from the way I do.

[paulr]

This is a very intellectualized view of how art is done. Returning to the question of whether art is in the experience of creation or in the product, it's clear that doing art in this way provides satisfaction to many practitioners. It's equally clear that many others don't approach it in this way. And I would be surprised if there is much correlation between the presence of this mindset in the creator and the merit of the resulting work.


I don't think it's so intellectual. If it seems that way it's because i used bigger words than I needed to. I look at all the art that I think is great or important; the artist used whatever means were necessary to serve their vision. Sometimes those were traditional means and sometimes not. But the point is always that they had something to say. Hemingway might have liked his typewriter, but there was never a moment of confusion about its purely supporting role.



Perhaps. Operationally, you can't maintain this distinction without access to an independent source of information about the creator's intent.

You don't need to consider intent at all; you can just look at the means by which a particular work succeeds or fails. Is it a particularly fine example of something you've seen a million times before, or do you see something that's in some significant way unique? Is the craft tradition being used to support the subject of the work, or IS it the subject of the work?

[Henry Ambrose]

Oren wrote: FWIW, in my own practice of craft, the doing of it, and the particular way of doing it, are an essential part of what I find rewarding. In consuming others' craft, the object itself carries much greater weight, though the details of craft or the historical or cultural context are sometimes of secondary interest. And I know that on the occasions when I give a print to someone else, how they see it and how and why they value it will almost always be very different from the way I do.

Absolutely!

Whether an RC silver print or a platinum print, mom will likely appreciate it. On the other hand if mom's a dedicated darkroom worker she may like it either way but -marvel- at the platinum print of her child.

[Henry Ambrose]

I went back to the original post and read it and the first reply. I think Struan nailed this pretty well early on. Its been a fun and stimulating discussion.

[Oren Grad]

I don't think it's so intellectual. If it seems that way it's because i used bigger words than I needed to. I look at all the art that I think is great or important; the artist used whatever means were necessary to serve their vision. Sometimes those were traditional means and sometimes not. But the point is always that they had something to say. Hemingway might have liked his typewriter, but there was never a moment of confusion about its purely supporting role.

The issue wasn't the size of your words, it was the central role of conscious awareness of these contextual considerations, and of explicit conceptualization and articulation of "artistic vision" and purposeful selection of means in light of these. This is a quasi-academic model of art as applied scholarship. But there are other ways.


You don't need to consider intent at all; you can just look at the means by which a particular work succeeds or fails. Is it a particularly fine example of something you've seen a million times before, or do you see something that's in some significant way unique? Is the craft tradition being used to support the subject of the work, or IS it the subject of the work?

True, your knowledge and experience will affect what you see in a work. But if that's the operational definition, then you've established the distinction between "art" and "craft" as relating to the subjective experience of the artifact, not an objective attribute of it. That's fine with me.

So again, how do you judge whether something you consider "art" is a "true representation of [the artist's] experience of the world"? That question got lost on this tangent.

[Oren Grad]

Whether an RC silver print or a platinum print, mom will likely appreciate it. On the other hand if mom's a dedicated darkroom worker she may like it either way but -marvel- at the platinum print of her child.

Oh dear... I'll just say that in my universe a platinum print doesn't automatically get assigned a higher subjective value, nor is it automatically more marvelogenic, than an RC silver print. I guess I'm a mutant. ;)

I agree, Struan's post is a gem. He has a wonderful - I'd even say marvelogenic - talent for cutting elegantly to the heart of the matter.

[Henry Ambrose]

I was using that platinum thing as an example. A wonderful print is a wonderful print. Oren, there's lots of agreement here.

[r.e.]

...But the point is always that they had something to say. Hemingway might have liked his typewriter, but there was never a moment of confusion about its purely supporting roll...

I don't think that many people would allege that Hemingway had any original ideas. For that matter, there haven't been any truly original ideas in literature in a long time. There haven't even been original plots. Not that it matters. The point about literary work is that how something is said is at least as important, frequently more important, than what is said.

To my way of thinking, your second sentence is about an irrelevancy (the typewriter), but addresses the issue if you say "Hemingway might have liked the English language, but there was never a moment of confusion about its purely supporting roll."

I think that that statement is a hard sell, and that the equivalent, in the plastic arts, is not, for example, something that one might call "photographic language", but rather the plastic materials themselves.

I just come at this as a buyer who appreciates photography. I know that I am not the only buyer who has reservations about a direction in photography that appears to be oriented toward mechanized, mass production.

I may be wrong to have that concern, but I think that this discomfort is sufficiently widespread that photographers who make art prints would be well-advised to address the discomfort rather than dismiss it.

[scott_6029]

Applying the notion of craft and how difficult something was to make to the value of a piece of art is often, I think, a mistake. (or are you making a distinction between "art" and "fine art"?).

No, remember it's all three elements, you can't take one out of context, THAT is EXACTLY my point, thank you.......I wouldn't have placed much value on Van Goghs craft at that time, but certainly a high amount on his revolutionary vision - - see my comments on historical perspective both in craft and vision...ala Ed Weston, as he photographed so many things ahead of his time. Yes, his craft was good (at least the final print in most cases, as some argue his negs were not of the best craft...), but it was his way of seeing, so aesthetics and the historical perspective...

No, you MUST use all three elemtents, exaclty my point.

There is little correlation between how difficult a work is to make and how good the work is (the true creativity in a photogrpah is in the moment of its making - surely then the more difficult the photogrpah was to take, the better it should be?)

Certainly, most good artists have mastered their craft in the course to producing their best work, but consider van Gogh. Certainly, by the time the last month of his life arrived, he had mastered certain techniques - even "classical" ones (though his approach was often idiosyncratic - the sketches often coming after the paintings), and much of his technique was close to revolutionary.

Yet in those last weeks he produced, literally, dozens of paintings - almost one a day, a pace he had kept up for a couple of months. Many of them his most important, turning traditions of painting and landscape upside down and defining many new directions. In terms of craft, they were produced at such a speed that it is unlikely they were technically that difficult for him to make. Conceptually, they were so difficult that they probably cost him his life.

The level and difficulty of craft in those works is secondary at best - handmade as they are.

(btw David Hockney argues quite strongly that photography as a whole is not quite a true art because it lacks the real connection from hand to eye to heart that is required - doesn't matter if it's digital or analogue. For every argument that is made that "digital" prints are somehow not as hand crafted or as individually created as an analogue photograph, a painter or sculpture can argue in essentially the same way about an analogue photogrpah)

BTW I think Hockney is so wrong its not even funny. lack connection? IT takes eyes, hands to make and heart to come up with the image...perhaps I don't understand what he is saying.....

And, I don't think digital is anywhere near as hand crafted...silver, platinum, palladium, collodian, carbon, etc.....period.

[Oren Grad]

I was using that platinum thing as an example. A wonderful print is a wonderful print. Oren, there's lots of agreement here.

Nothing like a vigorous agreement! ;)

A question for r.e, which relates to another recent discussion here around inkjet prints: to what extent does having the creator sign the final work remedy the defect of "distance from the creator's physical hand"? Certainly when it comes to photo books, there's a long tradition of charging extra for a subset of the print run signed by the photographer.

[r.e.]

A question for r.e, which relates to another recent discussion here around inkjet prints: to what extent does having the creator sign the final work remedy the defect of "distance from the creator's physical hand"? Certainly when it comes to photo books, there's a long tradition of charging extra for a subset of the print run signed by the photographer.

When I purchased a print from Mr. James, I told him that I couldn't care less whether the print was part of a limited edition nor whether it was signed.

I have continued to take that position with subsequent purchases.

I think that it is ridiculous to tie an artist to a limitation on the number of prints that can be made of one of his works. It is also unrealistic.

As for a signature, a work is either authentic or it is not, and a signature doesn't change that. In the event, Mr. James did sign the print, because he wanted to. He did it outside the image (I don't have it in front of me right now, but it may be on the back), a placement that I happen to respect.

I think that if I were to purchase an inkjet print, I might be more concerned about this issue of edition size. And that is a problem, because it is a discussion and an issue that I have no interest in being involved in.

[Oren Grad]

OK, so the physical crafting of the work is truly the central issue here.

In the other discussion, the artist's signature was proposed as a form of certification that the machine-made object indeed met the creator's standard of quality and accurately reflected his intentions. But that's a different issue.

[r.e.]

If a gallery owner or photographer tried to pitch me on that basis that you are describing, I'd be out the door, and in short order.

[neil poulsen]

To me the repeatability that is offered by the computer means that the print more accurately reflects the artist/photogpraher's intentions. That certainly has merit in my book. Those differences seen in each print in a less repeatable medium aren't necessarily intentional - they are just variances given the artist's capability within that medium (or of the the medium itself given perfect skills of the artist). Which is preferable comes down to persoanl preference.

I think Greg's comment is interesting. The more consistent the production process, the easier it is to capture and keep small improvements that can make a significant difference in the image as an example of art.

I may want to make small change that I think will improve the image as art. But if I'm silver printing, the inherent inconsistency of that process makes it difficult to capture that improvement in a meaningful way. In my experience, small changes can make a big difference in an image's appeal as art.

[paulr]

I don't think that many people would allege that Hemingway had any original ideas. For that matter, there haven't been any truly original ideas in literature in a long time. There haven't even been original plots. Not that it matters. The point about literary work is that how something is said is at least as important, frequently more important, than what is said.

I think many people would, and in fact, have, and in fact continue to allege that Hemingway had original ideas. I wrote my thesis on him, as it happens, so I remember wading through library stacks of critical writing devoted to just this topic.

Probably the stumbling block here is the world "original" ... everyone challenges it, because for some reason there's this assumption that for work to be orignial it has to spring from the head of Zeus, with no imaginable earthly precedent. I think we can probably do better with a more reasonable criterion.

How about this: look at the work and see if it allows us to experience something about the world in a new way. Hemingway fits this criterion for me. He was of the first generation of American modernists who experienced the destruction of their pre-modern values in world war I. Previous conceptions of language failed his vision, so he rethought all the conventions of literary language. The effect is unique: anything he wrote is obviously his. His style and his vision are unmistakeable.

I could say make the same kinds of statements about Edward Weston, Picasso, Duke Ellington, Igor Stravinsky, Shakespeare, the Beatles. All had precedent. All worked with familiar elements. And all produced something uniquely, unmistakeably theirs.

If you contrast these examples with workers in pure craft-- those concerned with making perfect examples of particular styles of pottery, furniture, baskets, men's shirts, breads, etc. etc.--a fundamental if sometimes subtle difference emerges. The first group is producing work that points beyond itself; the second group is producing work that point back to the tradition. Gray areas abound (as they always do) but i find the distinction is a helpful one.

[r.e.]

Probably the stumbling block here is the world "original" ... everyone challenges it, because for some reason there's this assumption that for work to be orignial it has to spring from the head of Zeus, with no imaginable earthly precedent...How about this: look at the work and see if it allows us to experience something about the world in a new way. Hemingway fits this criterion for me...

The effect is unique: anything he wrote is obviously his. His style and his vision are unmistakeable

Hey, I am not a Hemingway basher. I agree entirely with the above, even taking into account that he learned plenty from Clemens.

But for me, the point is that he had an original way of saying something, not that what he was saying was original; indeed, perhaps not even a world view that one might want to adopt.

I'm not just talking about Hemingway. I'd say the same about Joyce or Faulkner or whomever. They were all pretty good at putting a new spin on an old story.

Your comments about art and craft, if they are intended to be responsive to me, don't have much to do with what I was saying.

I'd be interested in knowing what your reaction is to what I had to say about your typewriter analogy.

And let me say something, because I've watched from a distance while a lot of discussions on this forum go south (and saw the warning signs in an earlier post, in which I was told that what I have to say is "uneducated" and "rubbish"), I'm in this for a dialogue, not one-upmanship.

[paulr]

But for me, the point is that he had an original way of saying something, not that what he was saying was original;

Well, I'm not at all convinced this is so. But even if it were ... if all he had was a new way of saying something, that's more than good enough for me. A new way of saying something can lead an audience to a new way of seeing something, which seems to me part of the magic of this whole artistic endeavor. And it seems to me to be pretty rare.

I get that you're not a Hemingway basher; I'm responding much more to the "nobody's original" sentiment, which crops up often. It may be true that nuthing's new under the sun, but some things can make the world seem new, in vivid contrast to the vast backdrop of haggard clichés.

As far as the typewriter, I'm not sure what you're getting at. You said to substitute the English language for the typewriter in that analogy, but I don't see why. Language was something H. pretty well reinvented in the service of his vision (which is what great stylists do in any medium, for what it's worth). I was making a comment on the relevence of tools and technology. Am I missing your point?

[r.e.]

if all he had was a new way of saying something, that's more than good enough for me. A new way of saying something can lead an audience to a new way of seeing something, which seems to me part of the magic of this whole artistic endeavor. And it seems to me to be pretty rare.

Yup.

[Struan Gray]

Henry, Oren: thank you. I'm blushing.

I love good craft. Although I love a good National Gallery, I'm happiest grubbing around in the basement study rooms of the museums of applied arts. When I say that craft does not matter in any absolute sense, it is an observation of the head, not the heart. I still believe it to be true though.

But as a scientist I also live and work in a world of ideas. Ideas that are exchanged via a decidedly imperfect apparatus, and which require a degree of education and experience before you can grasp them, much less understand their import or consequences. However, despite the imperfect communication, we physicists get by on mutual trust and a willingness to work at extracting the message from whichever medium it arrived on.

This second attitude is one that the Art world has embraced with enthusiasm, perhaps a bit too often without the instinctive critical facilities that always underpin Physics. The Fine Art world eschews it altogether, preferring the admantine reality of kicking the rock at their feet to any hoity toity notions of concept. I think this is sad.

I can learn about photography by looking at jpgs of Edward Weston's work online. As an autodidact I *did* learn a lot about photography by looking at jpgs of Edward Weston's work online. I still do. The few original prints I have seen are indeed another thing altogether, but they are not the whole thing or even - IMHO - the most important part of the thing. You can plausibly construct a hierarchy of status of ownership running from masters-of-photography.com, through the Lodima Press editions and ranging all the way to an original print found under Tina Modotti's matress and stained with her tears. But I cannot see that you can construct a worthwhile hiearchy of information, or of concept, or example to follow: the work is too layered, too good, too much Art to allow it.

People moan about the lack of respect for photography. I don't see it. True, there are not many B+W prints of aspens on display in major art museums these days, but who says art is only in art museums. People similarly moan about how nobody writes romantic classical music any more, and get huffy if you suggest they go to the movies. It's the same thing: the problem is not that their beloved is no longer made, but rather that it does not get the right sort of respect from the right sort of people. Tough.

I stumbled on the Smithsonian's painted portrait competition while looking for a good Cornell link:

http://www.portraitcompetition.si.edu/exhibition/PeoplesChoiceAward/AllFinalists.aspx

Amazing how much these painters - even the abstract ones - have been influenced by photography, both contemporary and modernist. Which is the prostrate artform now?

[Henry Ambrose]

I stumbled on the Smithsonian's painted portrait competition while looking for a good Cornell link:

http://www.portraitcompetition.si.edu/exhibition/PeoplesChoiceAward/AllFinalists.aspx

Amazing how much these painters - even the abstract ones - have been influenced by photography, both contemporary and modernist. Which is the prostrate artform now?

-Wow- and especially the link.

Henry

[John Kasaian]

In re authorship: While I agree that much of prose are meant to be read in book form,, but there is a profound difference between a magazine article, paperback or hardbound, and an original manuscript in longhand. If you have held an original diary in your hands, or read handwritten letters you'll know what I'm talking about. There is way more something going on than what comes out of a computer printer. I think whatever it is should be on the endangered list if its not yet extinct.

Our loss and a loss for future generations :(

[paulr]

I ... there is a profound difference between a magazine article, paperback or hardbound, and an original manuscript in longhand.

I'd be curious to see a poll of authors to see their opionions on this. especially regarding how profound they consider the physical format to the power of their own work.

At the very least, you can be sure the results wouldn't be unanimous. A certain number of writers who do care about this kind of thing include typography in their medium. e.e. cummings comes to mind, along with many others of his generation, and many of the postmodern poets and novelists.

Going farther is the hypertext novelists of the 90s, like Cathy Acker, who depend on computers and hyperlinks for their open-ended fictions to work.

[Marko]

Struan,

Thank you for expressing so eloquently and succintly what I have been trying to say with far more effort and much less success!

This is, in general, the most lucid, eloquent and, above all, civilized discussion I have seen here in a long time! It is really encouraging to see that such a debate is still possible without any of the disruptions, shallowness and ad hominems that so many other threads so quickly degenerate into.

I would like to thank all the participants for making it so enjoyable. :)

[Brian Ellis]

I can see that nobody here has ever worked as a type setter. I have (well, o.k., I didn't make a career of it but I did learn it well enough to help out a little on the college newspaper). I can tell you it's the most tedious, boring, pain in the neck (literally) work around, pretty much like working on an assembly line except worse because you sit for 8 hours a day face down and your back curved so that you're pretty much guaranteed to have serous back problems at some point in your life. If you told an old time type setter about the personality in his work he'd think you were crazy. Perhaps hand setting type is a big deal with books that are in themselves works of art, I don't know, I've never seen such a book. But I can tell you that in general there's nothing romantic about setting type by hand. The couple type setters I met who made a career out of it did so because they couldn't do anything else that paid as well.

[Martin Miller]

If you contrast these examples with workers in pure craft-- those concerned with making perfect examples of particular styles of pottery, furniture, baskets, men's shirts, breads, etc. etc.--a fundamental if sometimes subtle difference emerges. The first group is producing work that points beyond itself; the second group is producing work that point back to the tradition.

Paul, this is the best, most succinct characterization of the differences between art and craft that I have seen. While distinguishing the objectives of art, it maintains respect for craft. Bravo!

[John Kasaian]

I'd be curious to see a poll of authors to see their opionions on this. especially regarding how profound they consider the physical format to the power of their own work.

At the very least, you can be sure the results wouldn't be unanimous. A certain number of writers who do care about this kind of thing include typography in their medium. e.e. cummings comes to mind, along with many others of his generation, and many of the postmodern poets and novelists.

Going farther is the hypertext novelists of the 90s, like Cathy Acker, who depend on computers and hyperlinks for their open-ended fictions to work.

Paulr,

Certainly there would be differences and the medium can be in important element in some prose, but that dosen't mean that the medium takes a precedent over the one who uses that medium for expression. Copies of Ansel Adam's prints are widely popular, but seeing a real Ansel Adams print is quite a bit different, as is watching 'The Civil War" on PBS as opposed to reading the actual letters writen by the troops. Tim Atherton posted a link that featured a recorded interview with Walker Evans awhile back. The voice of Walker Evans I think illustrated how unique a dimension a presence (other than what can be held as a 'given') adds--or maybe even detracts---from a work. Live music I think is always better than recorded but with some music the recording is 'instrumental'(sic) to the work---so I see your point but I think that is, or at least has been--more of an exception than the rule. If it were so, then the marble statues in the Louvre and other collections of antiquity would be niegh worthless because we have exact duplicates of them at Ceasar's Palace in Las Vegas and antiquities such as original manuscripts could well be utilized as scratch paper---hey it's all on CD somewhere. This is probably true, but there is much, often very much more to be gained from original resources, partially perhaps because all the senses might be able to be utilized when examining the work. My 2-cents anyway.

[paulr]

I see your point but I think that is, or at least has been--more of an exception than the rule.

Well, it's an exception that could be broadly thought of as multiples. Some art media are about one-of-a-kind objects or events (scultpures or live performances). Others are about reproduction (printing, including books; photography, studio music).

Your example of live music vs. recorded is an interesting one, because i think music includes examples of both. Even if you spent more on your stereo than you did on your yacht, a recorded symphony orchestra is only a shadow of the live performance. But on the other hand, many kinds of music are actually created in the studio, layer upon layer on tape or hard drive, from acoustic instruments or from synthesized sounds. The recording IS the final product; any sense of a live performance that's been captured is illusory. When this music gets performed live, it's often a live simulation of the actual studio creation. This is just an interesting case to consider ...where the mass-produced multiple in an important sense is the original.

Handling an author's manuscript can be enticing, because we feel we get a window on his or her process, but I don't think we can generally call this a more profound (or authoriitative) experience than reading the printed book. Especially in modern printing; if the author really felt the manuscript form best served the novel, he could have it designed to resemble the manuscript, handwriting and all. But few make this choice. They seem, in general, to think of the book as the medium, not the end--something that does its job best by getting out of the way of the words.

[Henry Ambrose]

I can see that nobody here has ever worked as a type setter.

I have not worked as a typesetter either but my father did for some time. He also worked at every other job connected to commercial printing in the middle of last century and taught the skills and craft at the Southern School for Printing which his father owned.

Although largely frustrated by working for a big printing company later in life, my father had, for a while, a small press at home that he used for small jobs like flower show programs and such. He did the whole thing, by hand, himself. I so remember the lead type in its cases and the strict instructions to -not- bother it. I think he actually liked it - this hobby printing at home - having the entire process in his control. You'd think that he'd have gotten enough of it at work but its a different situation when you're doing something because you love it or because you're paid for it.

I'm pretty sure the process mattered to him on at least the same level as the product. I am also pretty sure that he probably never made any art in our garage. I'm just as positive that he saw things in examples of the printer's art that would never be even imagined by those not on the inside of the craft.

For some people there is a way of making that is -in- them and its not something you'll likely ever argue them out of. Its not dogma they learned in art school but something deeper.

Anyway I bring this up to illustrate the difference between the commercial grind and art or craft done for personal reasons.

[paulr]

hand-set lead type is a wonderful medium for small production artist's books, if the particular look of the process is warranted, and if the worker cares to sweat incessantly over every detail.

It's a lousy medium for commercial printing. This is why it was abandoned for other alternatives, and why average quality plummeted in the 19th century well before the alternatives showed up.

[Oren Grad]

hand-set lead type is a wonderful medium for small production artist's books, if the particular look of the process is warranted, and if the worker cares to sweat incessantly over every detail.

I'll agree with Henry's and paulr's points; the best small-production books I've seen are exquisite, and the typography is an inseparable part.

Brian's objection could be raised against many craft media that are technically demanding, and time and labor intensive. Why would anyone bother making a photogravure, for example? It's a huge hassle. Well, you wouldn't - unless something about the medium happened to catch your fancy, and then you couldn't imagine not making them.

[John Kasaian]

Handling an author's manuscript can be enticing, because we feel we get a window on his or her process, but I don't think we can generally call this a more profound (or authoriitative) experience than reading the printed book. Especially in modern printing; if the author really felt the manuscript form best served the novel, he could have it designed to resemble the manuscript, handwriting and all. But few make this choice. They seem, in general, to think of the book as the medium, not the end--something that does its job best by getting out of the way of the words.


Not so much a window on the writer's, or any artist's process. Looking at a platinum print really dosen't give us much of a clue about the process involved if we aren't platinum printers or at least knowlegable in the craft.

I was thinking in terms of energy, which is profound---or at least more interesting. As far as modern printing technology making a manuscript "look" a certain way, that is certainly an option but more often than not I find it theatrical & well, fake. A real nautical chart is far more satisfying to look at than a promo from "Pirates of The Carribbean" IMHO. There is certainly no energy to be had from an e-mail transmitted by selecting a "calligraphy" font from Word. Looks nice, maybe even appropriate for a given use, but nothing like the work of a skilled calligrapher. Perhaps the work I'm looking for is "authentic." In my experience, things that are a advertised as being "authentic" rarely truely are. "Virtual" seems to me to be another misnomer, especailly "virtual reality." Dosen't make sense to me.

[Martin Miller]

After careful consideration of all the contributions to this thread, I thought up a strategy to have it both ways, i.e., how to make unlimited numbers of perfect ink-jet prints yet investing each with its unique mark signifying "the hand of the artist". I will henceforth stop trying so hard not to kink the large prints as they come off my printer. This approach will have the added advantages of producing less material waste, lowering blood pressure, and not driving my wife away with all the cursing.

[paulr]

[QUOTE=John Kasaian;217632As far as modern printing technology making a manuscript "look" a certain way, that is certainly an option but more often than not I find it theatrical & well, fake. [/QUOTE]

I just mean printing a book in the author's handwriting, essentially as a photocopy of the manuscript. It's not fake; it's a truer reproduction of the nature of the manuscript, a few steps less removed from the 'original' than a page that's been set in type either physically or digitally.

It's been done. But I find it telling that most authors don't hold this as an ideal. They see the hand-written manuscript (if there is one ... not all that common anymore) as a step on the way to the finished page, not as a true expression that's doomed to be inadequately and soullessly reproduced.

If I wrote a novel, that's how I'd feel. One look at my handwriting and you'd probably agree ;)

[paulr]

After careful consideration of all the contributions to this thread, I thought up a strategy to have it both ways, i.e., how to make unlimited numbers of perfect ink-jet prints yet investing each with its unique mark signifying "the hand of the artist". I will henceforth stop trying so hard not to kink the large prints as they come off my printer. This approach will have the added advantages of producing less material waste, lowering blood pressure, and not driving my wife away with all the cursing.

You might be onto something.

I can't wait to see the marketing ... "hand kinked" ... "undusted" ... "individually smudged" ...

[adrian tyler]

Great thread!

“...the commercial article at its best is simply physically serviceable and, per accidens, beautiful in its efficiency; the work of art at its best is beautiful in its very substance and, per accidens, as serviceable as an article of commerce.”

from Eric Gill's "Essay on Typography"

interesting article about the various editions of this very work:

http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=134&fid=601

[Oren Grad]

Adrian - thanks for the interesting link. It would be illuminating to dig deeper into the context of Henry's quote to understand better Gill's thoughts re art vs commerce. For sure, he devoted an important part of his life, and of his "art", to furthering the sort of beauty in articles of commerce that he characterizes as "per accidens".

[tim atherton]

Adrian - thanks for the interesting link. It would be illuminating to dig deeper into the context of Henry's quote to understand better Gill's thoughts re art vs commerce. For sure, he devoted an important part of his life, and of his "art", to furthering the sort of beauty in articles of commerce that he characterizes as "per accidens".

as well as doing rather unmentionable things to his daughters... (rather put me off his "art" after that)

[Oren Grad]

as well as doing rather unmentionable things to his daughters... (rather put me off his "art" after that)

Life is complicated; creative talent sometimes comes packaged together with moral depravity. During his life, one would have had to think hard about whether it was right to reward such a person by purchasing or otherwise supporting his craft, even if the craft was not linked directly to the depravity. Generations later, when that's no longer an issue, does it stand in the way of seeing clearly those things that were - are - excellent in his work?

[adrian tyler]

as well as doing rather unmentionable things to his daughters... (rather put me off his "art" after that)

not only his daughters, but i have also seen in print mention of sheep too...

but you gotta admit it he elivated his graphic work to high art, i don't know about if he managed the same with sheep though, an't say it detracts me from his work ...

[tim atherton]

Life is complicated; creative talent sometimes comes packaged together with moral depravity. During his life, one would have had to think hard about whether it was right to reward such a person by purchasing or otherwise supporting his craft, even if the craft was not linked directly to the depravity. Generations later, when that's no longer an issue, does it stand in the way of seeing clearly those things that were - are - excellent in his work?

well, I don't think it was rweally known at the time.

I find it does detract from his work - much more, say, than the argument that Eliot was perhaps somewhat anti-semitic for example.

[Oren Grad]

I find it does detract from his work - much more, say, than the argument that Eliot was perhaps somewhat anti-semitic for example.

I'm curious as to whether you can articulate why one and not the other - though I understand if it's something that's happening on an intuitive level, and is difficult to unpack.

[paulr]

Some of my favorite art/literature/music was made by monsters. I don't see what can be gained by letting art get spoiled because old so-and-so had his way with an altar boy, maried his wife's stepdaughter, spanked his secretary, or dated sheep.

[tim atherton]

Some of my favorite art/literature/music was made by monsters. I don't see what can be gained by letting art get spoiled because old so-and-so had his way with an altar boy, maried his wife's stepdaughter, spanked his secretary, or dated sheep.

I guess in part it's that, if you go by his writings, he seemed to put the same care and attention into (and derived similar pleasure from) regularly buggering his daughters as he did from designing his fonts etc. All the while living a public life of pious religiosity

I suppose I don't mind my art from deviants and monsters when it's fairly obvious that's who they unashamedly are. And sure, every one's a hypocrite to some extent, but this seems of a different order

I suppose that's just me... in then end, his underlying character does ultimately takes away from the art. (whereas, in the case of Caravaggio, for example, it adds to his art - it's who he was)

[Martin Miller]

I wonder about what is lost, if anything, when people adopt a process ... that distances an individual's physical hand from the creation of the template of the work and the copies that are generated.


I find myself confused by this repeatability thing. ...

Long before digital came along, whenever I talked to or read books by a master printer one of the main things seemed to be repeatablility. Detailed notes were taken of processes, times, materials. Charts were made of dodging and burning. Even special cutouts were made for certain prints.

... differences between prints were generally seen as accidental and to be avoided if at all possible by means of superb technique and the best craftsmanship.


Let me narrow the focus to photography, and further, to inkjet prints versus silver gelatin prints and ask the following question. Do inkjet prints represent any greater "distance from the individual's hand" from the final print than do silver gelatin or do they merely extend the photographer's toolbox to achieve "superb technique and the best craftsmanship" which have always, as Tim suggested, been used to minimize differences between prints?

My guess is that everyone on this forum who currently prints digitally has learned and, in most cases, even excelled at conventional darkroom work. My guess is also that NONE of these digital printers would say that they spend less time making that first keeper print than they did in the darkroom. The real creative effort is spent in getting this first keeper print in both cases. After that, one normally employs all one's experience and wiles in keeping the next print as nearly identical to this first keeper print as is possible. (Of course, you may find that you prefer a "failed" print to that first keeper in which case you have a new keeper to match subsequently.) My point is that one must compare the creative effort between the two approaches in getting the keeper print when deciding if there is greater "distance from the hand of the individual".

So what are the differences in hand work between the two processes? You may agitate the trays by hand and even, as I used to like to do, get your hand into the soup to help. However, this is not really the creative part of the work. The creative part is first using your analytical brain to get an adequate work print and then your imagination+analysis to start the process of realizing a print that is expressive of your prior (or newly formed) concept of the image. Of course, you have to use your hands to take care that the emulsion side of the paper doesn't get scratched, that there is no dust on the paper prior to exposure, that the paper is not cocked in the easel, that the paper doesn't get buckled, etc., etc. But the only "creative" hand work that I can think of is in burning and dodging. Personally I never did extensive work of this sort because of the difficulty of reproducing the effect on subsequent prints. I prefered to give up on the negative in most cases. Of course, some folks are more dogged (including St Ansel), but, in most cases, I would wager that they pride themselves on doing the job consistently on each copy print.

How about the hand work required to make inkjet prints? I would argue that the creative hand work, done with a dry mouse hand, probably far exceeds that done in making that first keeper silver gelatin print. Personally, I become much more invested in the image by virture of seeing it constantly before my eyes on the monitor over the course of long hours/days. I think that you have to have had the experience of this process to appreciate the strong sensation of manipulating the image with your hand. Of course, the hand needs to do the same kind of careful work to insure that the coated side of the paper doesn't get scratched, that there is no dust on the paper prior to loading in the printer, that the paper is not cocked in the printer, that the paper doesn't get buckled, etc., etc.

So, in terms of the proximity of an individual's hand to his creation, we come down to a comparison of waving your hand (possibly with an aid) between the light and the print to waving your hand on a mouse. The creative essence of both processes is the imagination and judgment brought to bear on test images and the knowledge and intelligence to produce a subsequent image closer to a realization of the concept. Whether you are standing in the dark with wet hands or sitting in the light with dry ones has no bearing on the issue. In both cases prints made subsequent to the keeper print are done mechanically (if more laboriously in the darkroom) with the intent to replicate as nearly as possible that first keeper print.

[Oren Grad]

I suppose that's just me... in then end, his underlying character does ultimately takes away from the art. (whereas, in the case of Caravaggio, for example, it adds to his art - it's who he was)

But the interesting thing about Gill in this context is that his work is all around - especially in the UK, where his typefaces seem to this distant observer and very occasional visitor to be near-ubiquitous. Does seeing a utilitarian application of Gill's craft always bring all the rest of it to mind?

[Dick Hilker]

Bravo, Martin!! My thoughts, exactly, but much more eloquently stated than I might have done.

[Oren Grad]

So, in terms of the proximity of an individual's hand to his creation, we come down to a comparison of waving your hand (possibly with an aid) between the light and the print to waving your hand on a mouse.

That's a nice fleshing out of an argument that's been made here frequently. But I don't think it's responsive to r.e.'s "metric" of distance. Once you've used your skill and judgment to set up the file, the artifact that the purchaser gets is churned out by a machine without further intervention other than making sure the paper input is supplied and the output removed.

One could further "unpack" this by looking at different cases. So here's another question for r.e.: in which among the following scenarios is the hand of the photographer excessively removed from the final product?

(1) The photographer exposes the print under the enlarger and manually tray-processes it all the way through the wash.

(2) The photographer exposes the print under the enlarger and manually tray-processes it all the way through the chemicals, but puts it into a machine to wash.

(3) The photographer exposes the print under the enlarger and inserts it into a processing machine, which takes care of the rest.

(4) The silver-gelatin paper is exposed by a laser machine guided by a file created by the photographer, but is then manually tray-processed by the photographer.

(5) The silver-gelatin paper is exposed by a laser machine guided by a file created by the photographer and is then machine-processed.

One could think of further permutations, but you get the idea. Where in the process lies the essence of the photographer's involvement? How far does the photographer have to be involved in the physical processing of the print for it to count as a "real" print?

[Martin Miller]

Oren, I believe that your many (but not comprehensive) cases illustrate the meaninglessness of trying to differentiate among the distance-between-hand-and-creation steps beyond the meaningful creative part of the hand work. After all, many photographers employ darkroom assistants to do much of the repetitive work. So far as I know, Ansel's print prices are not valued according to how much of the dog work he actually did.

[Oren Grad]

Oren, I believe that your many (but not comprehensive) cases illustrate the meaninglessness of trying to differentiate among the distance-between-hand-and-creation steps beyond the meaningful creative part of the hand work. After all, many photographers employ darkroom assistants to do much of the repetitive work. So far as I know, Ansel's print prices are not valued according to how much of the dog work he actually did.

I understand that that's the point you're trying to make. Based on how this thread has evolved so far, r.e. does not agree. Without taking a strong position one way or another myself, I'm interested in whether r.e. can define more precisely the contrary proposition that he would like to assert.

[Henry Ambrose]

A couple of things:

First, I didn't bring Gill into this as an example of how to live or be. In addition to all the other perverted things he was quite the Socialist maybe Communist, which alone is almost enough to put me off any reference to him. There's not much to admire about him as a human, but he was quite the designer. I brought him in simply because he made some arguments about the questions r.e. brought up in the original post.

Second, I can't speak for r.e. but part of what I've tried to say is that the distance he writes of is something that may not be rational. If you feel or sense distance - it is there none the less. If you feel a connection - that could be just as irrational.

A much simpler way to say this is that if you feel right about using a riving knife to split hickory for chair parts then do it. If it feels right to sling paint like Jackson Pollock, please do! And if hours with the keyboard and mouse do it for you than have at it.

And there's no reason to call "wrong" the others who do differently. "Liver, yuck" usually does not bring on a strong defense of eating liver. But "inkjet - yuck" or "darkroom- yuck" sure will get a long disagreement started. ('round here at least)

"Individuality, Repeatability and Computers" is this thread's title and I offer that each person may have a different way to deal with the possible contradictions implied - or not. Some folks do not even recognize it as a subject to consider. Which may be why it seems absurd to them when it is raised as a question.

:)

[Oren Grad]

Second, I can't speak for r.e. but part of what I've tried to say is that the distance he writes of is something that may not be rational. If you feel or sense distance - it is there none the less. If you feel a connection - that could be just as irrational.

Perhaps it will help to note that something can be arational (non-rational) without being irrational (which carries the sense of being unreasonable or absurd).

[Henry Ambrose]

I've never used the word "arational" - and it is the precise word here.
Without ration.
Thank you Oren.

[r.e.]

I'm not quite sure how to react to the latest references to my views, but here's a shot at it.

Every writer that I have ever known, and I do know a few, would prefer that his or her book was well-designed. In other words, writers would rather show their friends a well-designed book than a piece of junk. If a writer has to say, "the words are great, despite the fact that the design is crap", it is an exercise in putting one's best face on a bad situation. And you can bet that the writer's agent, if he or she has one, and publisher, will hear about it.

When a writer is stuck with a badly designed book, there are one of two reasons. The first is that the writer has no power and winds up in the hands of people who either don't care or don't know any better. The second is that the writer has power, but doesn't have the knowledge to weigh in. Myself, I think that the latter is more common. There are very few writers who go to bed at night with Bringhurst under their pillow. They rely on their agent and/or publisher to ensure that there is good design behind the packaging of their words. Sometimes the writer is well-served, sometimes not. Then, of course, there are writers who are heavily involved in the design of their books. Contrary to some of what has been said in this thread, this is more common than one might think. And that has been true for a long time. To take an obvious example, there are some very important poets who have insisted that their words be laid out on a page in a particular way.

My personal view, a view that I think is shared by just about anyone who is going to publish a book, is that the overall design of the book, the typography, the photography and the quality of the printing is extremely important. It is not just a matter of marketing, but a matter of personal pride.

Because of an earlier comment, it is important to distinguish between typographic design and typesetting. As was pointed out, typesetting can be tedious work. Let me go further. In the 19th century, and of course beforehand, many typesetters were illiterate. This does not change the fact that there were people who designed the books and the type. In the case of books that were not mass-marketed, there was a great deal of care put into both both issues, design and physical typesetting.

At the present time, we are blessed by the fact that there are some very talented people who continue to design type. Indeed, there are important schools in the Netherlands and the UK, and to some degree in New York, that continue to attract typographic designers. The difference is that the trade of typsetter, as distinct from type designer, has largely disappeared. The interesting thing is, the young type designers that I know love to work with hard type. I am talking about people who are 20 years old who want to go to places like the University of Redding, which happens to have one of the world's best typography programmes, because they love typography, and part of that love, which I have witnessed first-hand, is about setting lead type.

Indeed, to take this full-circle, I spent a good part of last August with a prominent writer who works, from time to time, on books that are produced with graphic artists, including photographers, and that are set in a small shop on an island just off the east coast of North America. One of his sons has been involved in making books by hand, courtesy of the woman who owns that shop, who is from Texas, since the age of 13, and he is probably off, next year, to Redding.

Myself, I am pretty sure that the book that I am working on is going to be published. For various reasons, it will have a lot of images (most of them done by a photographer more talented than I am, I hope), and I have every intention of ensuring that my co-author and I have input into how those images are printed. Indeed, if the book is published in China, for example, we intend to be there when the proofs are done. Believe it or not, writers do care what their books look like. And one of the things that has struck me about this process is that I get e-mails from the people who designed our typeface that talk about two important things: first, that the next time that we are in Europe, where they live, we have to share some good Gruner Veltiner, and secondly, how important the relative roles are of what they call "the crafts".

And yes, everything that we are doing is digital. An experience that has made it possible to do a project that involves people in three countries and two continents (as I said in my original post, there are certain advantages), but that has also given me pause.

[Struan Gray]

But the interesting thing about Gill in this context is that his work is all around - especially in the UK, where his typefaces seem to this distant observer and very occasional visitor to be near-ubiquitous. Does seeing a utilitarian application of Gill's craft always bring all the rest of it to mind?

It's not just that Gill's work is ubiquitous, Gill himself had a place in the national consciousness equivalent to William Morris or more direct contemporaries like Benjamin Britten, Tom Piper, Barbara Hepworth. Even if you had no direct connection to his art, you knew his name and his public face, and he was referred to in tones of awe by those in cultural authority. Part and parcel of the post-war reconstruction pride in home-grown art and traditional fine crafts, which was still in full swing when I was a nipper in junior school (aged 9 or so): we were given felt tips with calligraphy nibs and set to writing out sonnets in shakey imitations of famous typefaces.

Britten and Pears' homosexuality is now completely unremarkable (rightly so), as are Larkin's dirty old mannish habits and John Betjeman's last words. To me at least, Gill is of a different order. It is impossible to avoid his legacy, but it is also impossible not to regard that legacy as tainted, if only by gross hypocrisy.

[adrian tyler]

the advent of the computer typesetting programs made what was once a specialised trade a free for all, sure the upside of this was that type and "desktop publishing" was available for all but of course in general quality suffered.

however, these tools in the hands of emigre, david carson, johnothan barnbrook on one hand or say johnothan hoefler, foundry type founders and many many more on the other more classical side make the transition a fantastic success. just take look at the new fontworks catalogue:

http://www.fontshop.com/products/fontbook.cfm

i mean it really says it all, we must consider digital type, infact type period a flourishing field of art, and it's down to computer tools like fontographer. i don't think gill or any of the great typographers would have rejected this technology or considered it a lesser art whre they around today.

as an independent typographer and book designer of 25 years, i have worked on artists books for the met in ny, the prado here in madrid, done major projects with coprorates like morgan stanley and although i work fluently with the computer i have never once done the typsetting, i don't consider it a designers job.

however as a photographer i like to do my own printing and rejecting digital technology would be as foolhardy as rejecting digital type for a typographer. pigmented inks on cotton rag is really a dream come true, and in the right hands how could anyone deny this...

[Henry Ambrose]

Well, I've largely ignored collaborative work like r.e.'s book venture. I've mostly been thinking of individual work.

Of course the way to make a commercial project happen is to employ every modern technique and craft. And r. e.'s book is a commercial project - isn't it?

[paulr]

the advent of the computer typesetting programs made what was once a specialised trade a free for all, sure the upside of this was that type and "desktop publishing" was available for all but of course in general quality suffered.

What happens is a bit more complex than just general quality suffering. A lot goes on when a specialized trade becomes democratized. Look at photography. The hand camera made the ubiquitous disposable snapshot possible, but it also made Cartier Bresson and Andre Kertezs possible. And the casual esthetic of untrained hand camera photography went on to influence mainstream art, including photo and painting.

Typography has run a similar course. Much of the type you see today is amateurish and bad, but there's also a lot of innovation and excitement in both type design and typography. I'm willing to bet that more typefaces were designed in the last fifteen years than in all previous years dating back to guttenberg. Some of these are attrocious, but that's typically the price of adventurous innovation.

[tim atherton]

Struan summed up my experience visi a vis Gill exceptionally well - very much the ethos of my upbringing too.

On typography - I know almost nothing about it, but stumbled across this fascinating article recently (while hunting out how to make a sushi "Happy Feet"....)

http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/03/24/akira-kobayashi-transcending-typographic-boundaries/

[Oren Grad]

I'm willing to bet that more typefaces were designed in the last fifteen years than in all previous years dating back to guttenberg. Some of these are attrocious, but that's typically the price of adventurous innovation.

Much of this activity - I can't say specifically what proportion, because I'm not close enough to the field - has been driven by technology in two ways. Not just because computers are powerful design tools, but because the display of fonts on computer screens, with their so far quite crude quantization, places different demands on a typeface. So just as lens design has been evolving to meet the distinctive needs of electronic image sensors, so has font design been evolving to meet the needs of computer displays.

Designing documents for display, too, is a different challenge from designing documents for print. Partly it's because of the constraints of the display, but partly it's because certain key hard and soft parameters of the display vary considerably across devices and users, so ideally one must design a document that is robust to a wide range of situations. My bias is that principles of parsimony that seem to motivate many of the best typographers and print designers are even more important in this environment than they are in print. But at any rate, for those of us who share r.e.'s concern about the precise physical manifestation of the things we want to create, these are challenging and interesting times.

[r.e.]

Yes, I am working on a commercial project. Let me explain what that means. We care plenty about the quality of what we are doing, but at the end of the day, this book will get published because people think that it will make money.

Adrian,

We seem to be familiar with a lot of the same type designers. Back to this in a minute.

Oren,

You are right that there has been an explosion in the number of type designs. However, I do not think that this is because there is a demand for type that is designed to be seen on a computer display. I think that it has happened because there are programmes, one of them referred to by Adrian, that make it easy to punch out a design. The problem is, most of these designs are junk. On the other hand, there is some good work being done that would have been prohibitively expensive before type design became a virtual exercise.

Tim,

You mention that you are not terribly knowledgeable about type. If you want to pursue the subject, I'd suggest that you start with Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style (the title no doubt in homage to Strunk). Bringhurst is a Vancouver poet whose book, now in its 2nd or 3rd edition, is pretty much the bible for the field. Not necessarily a book to be read straight through. More a book to be savoured, and sometimes argued with.

Martin,

I don't take an anti-digital position. I just have some reservations about it, and started this thread because I want to learn.

To get back to Henry's observation, let me say that if one is doing a book that is going to be published on a commercial basis, there are huge advantages to ensuring that the writing, the graphics and the design are all digital.

That said, I am very interested in including an insert in our book, if the publisher will go for it, that is analogue. And I do have reservations about digital fine art printing, partly because of my experience working with this book, and partly because of the time that I spent last summer dealing with people who work with traditional letterpress and sculpture.

I want to add something else. Adrian mentioned Hoeffler. One of his designs wa on our short list. In the end, we went with another type designer (not, Adrian, for financial reasons - the type that we bought was at least as expensive as Hoeffler's designs). The people who designed the type, who among other things still run a fine art letterpress operation, have been incredibly helpful. They are a class act, and proof that there are still typographic designers out there who care about craft, and what happens with their type after it has been transferred in an e-mail.

So to go back to the beginning... One of the reasons that I purchased a print from Geoffrey James is that he is a class guy. As Tim has more or less pointed out, at the time he was talking about moving to inkjet. I wonder about inkjet, but like I said in an earlier post, I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing one of Mr. James's inkjet prints.

Cheers

P.S. This is written on a BlacBerry and is an edit of my original post. This site does not seem to be BB friendly. If my post has been duplicated, the moderators should just get rid of the repetition.

[r.e.]

How come nobody has picked up on my statement, as a buyer of prints, that I think that buying a print on the basis that it is part of a limited edition is ridiculous, but that I might (and I stress the word might) take a different view when it comes to inkjet prints?

One might argue that that statement is nonsensical. Or alternatively, that it reflects where the rubber hits the road.

For what it is worth, I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of print buyers are thinking about this question.

[tim atherton]

How come nobody has picked up on my statement, as a buyer of prints, that I think that buying a print on the basis that it is part of a limited edition is ridiculous, but that I might (and I stress the word might) take a different view when it comes to inkjet prints?

One might argue that that statement is nonsensical. Or alternatively, that it reflects where the rubber hits the road.

For what it is worth, I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of print buyers are thinking about this question.

welllll - almost anyone who sells silver gelatin prints already editions their work - whether it's an edition of 5 or 45. The few that can get away with not editioning can basically do so because they are well known enough (Friedlander I think for one? Or maybe Frank), but their numbered but un-editioned prints often seem comparatively sell for somewhat less.

You specifically mention inkjet, but what about digital C-Prints or (or digital silver-gelatin)? (in addtion, there's a very good case to be made that the best colour inkjet work will outlast the current Dye Coupler or Cibachrome processes in terms of longevity - so should a colour inkjet print sell for more or less than a C-Print if it lasts longer, but is made in a dimroom and is considered - correctly or not - more "reproducable"?)

I think even Gursky editions his prints, even if his digital C-print was only an edition of 3 or 4, but it still sold for $3 million +...

As artificial as it is for photography, editioning has essentially become the standard over the last 30/40 years for art and fine art photography. In fact you would be hard put to find a gallery - whether mid or high end, just photography or contemporary art in general that will represent a photographers work that isn't editioned - digital, hybrid or analogue

[Oren Grad]

welllll - almost anyone who sells silver gelatin prints already editions their work - whether it's an edition of 5 or 45. The few that can get away with not editioning can basically do so because they are well known enough (Friedlander I think for one? Or maybe Frank), but their numbered but un-editioned prints often seem comparatively sell for somewhat less.

David Vestal doesn't. He never has. No, he's not one of the superstars who get $$$$$ for their work, but at this point even his prints aren't what you'd call cheap.

He's pointed out on a number of occasions what a crock the whole "limited edition" thing is, at least with traditional silver prints. The typical "limited edition" in fact entails far more prints than most photographers, left to their own devices, would ever make of a picture. It might as well be called "mass production".

r.e.: Thanks for the pointer to Bringhurst; I'll be ordering a copy.

[r.e.]

Oren,

Yes, order it, I can't recommend it highly enough.

There are three things to know about this book:

First, Bringhurst is a very good writer - this is a good poet who has written a book that is very highly regarded on a techical level;

Secondly, you will not get what he is saying by reading it once from beginning to end - this is a book that really rewards repeated reading, not necessarily in the chapter order - and a book that rewards analysis as an example of what Bringhurst is talking about u don't hesitate to look at his book as an object;

Thirdly, you might or might not agree with what he says on any given issue, and what he has to say goes well beyond typography, but he will make you think.

Myself, I did a quick tour of this book because I needed some immediate technical information. Then I started to read the book more carefully. All I can say is that my copy, the second edition (which I suggest) is pretty beat up at this point.

Cheers

[tim atherton]

David Vestal doesn't. He never has. No, he's not one of the superstars who get $$$$$ for their work, but at this point even his prints aren't what you'd call cheap.

He's pointed out on a number of occasions what a crock the whole "limited edition" thing is, at least with traditional silver prints. The typical "limited edition" in fact entails far more prints than most photographers, left to their own devices, would ever make of a picture. It might as well be called "mass production".

r.e.: Thanks for the pointer to Bringhurst; I'll be ordering a copy.

Oh - I agree. My point was, it's now "standard practice" whether folks like it or not. To not sell your stuff in editions, you either have to be a maverick or a big enough name you don't care. Either way, the work probably sells for less apart from the odd exception that proves the rule

Personally, I'd rather just go with numbered (but not limited) editions, as the practice essentially evolved to be say a couple of generations ago.

I wasn't answering based on what I felt was right or wrong, good or bad, but on what's essentially the reality of the thing is as it stand now

[Oren Grad]

you either have to be a maverick or a big enough name

OK. Just so long as we're allowing for the "mavericks" as well as the "big enough names". ;)

[r.e.]

Tim,

The reality that I'm dealing with is that I expect to be told, at some point in the next few weeks, that the 6x7 and 4x5 photographs that we did, and that cost us a pile of money to scan and print, are very pretty, but that the rest of our book needs to be done with a Canon digital camera.

Now here is the funny part. The 6x7 and 4x5 photos are what are selling the book in the first place.

Just an observation.

[paulr]

I'll second the Bringhurst recommendation. It would be an interesting read even if you didn't cares specifically about type.

I wish more designers would read it.

[Oren Grad]

I'll second the Bringhurst recommendation. It would be an interesting read even if you didn't cares specifically about type.

I wish more designers would read it.

I'll look forward to it. I have a small handful of books on typography but don't know the field well enough to know what people consider the standard references and/or the most enlightening reads. I'd welcome any other suggestions.

[Gordon Moat]

I have mostly stayed out of this thread, though with the mention of typographers and designers, and some interest being generated in them, I want to suggest investigating Philippe Apeloig. I feel he is one of the best of modern typographistes.

http://www.apeloig.com

http://blog.pentagram.com/archives/2006/06/pentagram_talk_philippe_apeloi.php
A short bio at the Pentagram Blog.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio (http://www.allgstudio.com)

[Mark Sawyer]

I think we're arguing personal preferences, perceptions, and prejudices as much as anything. While the issue was raised in regards to lead-type vs. more modern methods, a calligrapher/illustrator could condemn both as impersonal mass production.

A wet-plate-and-albumen-print photographer could claim superiority over the Kodak-using darkroom photographer who is claiming superiority over the inkjet-printing photographer...

And an oil-painter could look down his nose at all of us, while another painter who hand-grinds his own pigments could look down on the first painter for squeezing his art out of a Windsor-Newton tube...

I suppose we gravitate to the materials and process and outcome that speaks to us. As photographers ourselves, we bring our own working experiences with us when we view another's work, whether it gives us a deeper appreciation or a quicker dismissal, deserved or not. The eyes of other audiences will seldom be so educated or appreciative or prejudiced...

Personally, the darkroom feels like my own artist's studio, although I know to others it's just a smelly little room. And I have a special appreciation for darkroom made prints, simply because I make them myself and understand the materials, skills, knowledge, and process involved. It's what I know, what I like to do, and it gives me the means of expression I want...

But that's just me. You're you, and everybody else is everbody else...

Still, if we really didn't care about the medium or means of production, we wouldn't differentiate between different formats, and this forum would lose much of it's reason for existing.

[Henry Ambrose]

Tim,

The reality that I'm dealing with is that I expect to be told, at some point in the next few weeks, that the 6x7 and 4x5 photographs that we did, and that cost us a pile of money to scan and print, are very pretty, but that the rest of our book needs to be done with a Canon digital camera.

Now here is the funny part. The 6x7 and 4x5 photos are what are selling the book in the first place.

Just an observation.

If these illustrations were paintings do you suppose they'd tell the painter which brushes to use?

I guess you're gonna be told to switch to digital because of cost?
How will that affect the pictures? Will they still be 100% what you and the photographer want and mean to say?

I did a large project last year that was almost entirely used on the web, the rest small size reproduction in print. It could have been accomplished easily with proper digital gear - accomplished meaning completed and fully functional. I shot the project largely on 4x5 because the resulting photos looked different/better and the client thought so too. That 's part of why I got the job and the others who auditioned didn't.

No one told me what tool to use on a given day or portion of the work. I used what I thought would give the desired result we had agreed on. But plenty of other times I've used the method that was requested over my preference. But here we've slip over into commercial craft work.

If I read you right, I say if you can get 100% of what you want (or enough to make you happy) then the tool used doesn't really matter to you, does it? You're apparently not the person who'll be using the tool anyway - right? So if you get what you want and its true to what you want to say the tools used don't matter.

Now if I was the guy who was gonna finish shooting this for you we'd have to have a long discussion about what the desired result was going to look like and I'd have a lot to say about how it was going to happen. It is at this point my job to make sure you get exactly what you want from me. I do reserve a right as the maker to decide how to make it and when asked to do something foolish or bound for failure I'll argue the point out of self preservation if nothing else. When its over I want 100% of my money and I want you to have 100% of your pictures. If I see anything else likely to happen, I squawk loudly.

[tim atherton]

Tim,

The reality that I'm dealing with is that I expect to be told, at some point in the next few weeks, that the 6x7 and 4x5 photographs that we did, and that cost us a pile of money to scan and print, are very pretty, but that the rest of our book needs to be done with a Canon digital camera.

Now here is the funny part. The 6x7 and 4x5 photos are what are selling the book in the first place.

Just an observation.

Is this commercial work or art? Is it a book of artists/photographers work - a monograph? Or are are the photographs serving the purpose of illustrating the the book?

If it's an artists book, then imo, the artist should have a major say in what type of work they do for it. If the photographer is essentially an illustrator, then - depending on the forcefulness of their character - whoever pays the bills usually gets the final say, surely....

That said, you don't usually hire Stephen Shore to shoot a story for Details and then demand he uses a Canon Digital Elph. It all depends on whether the photographers reputation and ego outweighs that of the editor (I doubt anyone ever told Avedon in the end how he should actually "do" his work....)

[scott_6029]

giclee vs. an original?

[tim atherton]

giclee vs. an original?

you sell your negatives?

[tim atherton]

giclee vs. an original?

oh - what's a giclee?

[adrian tyler]

I'll look forward to it. I have a small handful of books on typography but don't know the field well enough to know what people consider the standard references and/or the most enlightening reads. I'd welcome any other suggestions.

the alphabetic labyrinth by johanna drucker

[Dick Hilker]

oh - what's a giclee?
A giclee print is an inkjet reproduction of an original painting, usually watercolor, but sometimes other media. The term itself is just what the French call the inkjet process, but has a cache that gets a few more bucks per print. <g>

It's become a nice little business for me with the other members of our art guild who would rather sell prints of their work than the originals. With the right equipment and paper, the reproductions are almost indistinguishable from the originals.

[tim atherton]

A giclee print is an inkjet reproduction of an original painting, usually watercolor, but sometimes other media. The term itself is just what the French call the inkjet process, but has a cache that gets a few more bucks per print. <g>

It's become a nice little business for me with the other members of our art guild who would rather sell prints of their work than the originals. With the right equipment and paper, the reproductions are almost indistinguishable from the originals.

Sorry Dick - it wasn't clear that was a rhetorical question...

Though it's not actually French for inkjet, it's Franglais. In French usage, as I recall, it's actually a veterinary term for ejaculate or spurt....

[tim atherton]

A couple of additional thoughts

A major impetus driving the invention of photography was for a cheap mechanical means for reproducing images (of several different sorts). This relatively quick, cheap means of mechanical reproduction is at the heart of photography as a medium.

Following on from this, most of the early attempts turn photography into art (and they did start very early on) centred around trying to diminish the mechanical reproduction aspect of photography and replace it some amount of mental and physical "work" (very closely tied to the definitions the Academies had developed over the years to differentiate the artist from the artisan/tradesman).

Among other approaches, there was the movement towards the excessive combination of multiple images in the darkroom (culminating in Rejlanders excessive Two Ways of Life in 1857, combining 30 separate images in the darkroom). It was also responsible for the popularity of the gum bichromate process which allowed for a great amount of "hand work" and manipulation - the greater the better to confirm the medium's status as an art.

In the end, most of these attempts failed as a way of defining photography as "art"

[Dick Hilker]

"as I recall, it's actually a veterinary term for ejaculate or spurt....

I recall that, now that you mention it, Tim -- thanks! The French always manage to make the mundane seem kinda sexy, don't they?