The Value of a Fine Print?

[willwilson]

I must admit I'm pretty tired of the standard digital vs traditional debate. I find the conversation typically centers around print quality. Which process produces the largest range of tone, most permanent image, deepest black, brightest white, most detail, sharpness, etc. Personally I find that both traditional and digital processes can produce excellent images.

There is one aspect of this debate that I don't often see discussed. I find it to be one of the most striking differences between the two methods. Traditional wet darkroom prints are unique hand crafted one of a kind works, typically created from exposure to print by the artist. The traditional photographer may strive for consistency from print to print, but in the end each print is a one of a kind creation. A digital print does not have this unique quality. The same digital file can be used to print a cheap poster or make a fine inkjet print on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk, you can even email it to a printer and receive a "fine art print" in the mail.

Does the uniqueness of a traditional print and the process itself add substantial value to the work, or do you find that the quality and content of the image overides the method of creation? Is the medium an image is created in only a means used to deliver a photographer/artist's vision?

I am struggling with this topic in relation to my own work, especially considering some of the recent advances in digital and printing technology. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

-=Will

[Donald Miller]

You are going to find the answers falling into two camps...depending in large part on what the respondant believes...not any of the answers will be objective. Collectors of photographic art will be divided too.

[darr]

http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/2008/07/when_the_medium_becomes_the_me.html

This pretty much sums up for me how I feel about this whole argument.

Darr

[Daniel Grenier]

....Does the uniqueness of a traditional print and the process itself add substantial value to the work, or do you find that the quality and content of the image overides the method of creation?
-=Will

My small-ish photograph collection is worth over $10,000, I guess. All are either silver or platinum prints made by the photographer from LF cameras/film. These are the basic criteria I go from when considering buying. Call me crazy but I want the printer of the art I buy to be a human - not a machine (i.e. Epson, HP). And that human must be the artist himself/herself.

So yes, to me the hand crafted b&w print merits my hard earned money. I refuse to spend a dime on something that`s spit out of a machine. Hand-made, yes. Machine-made, no.

OTOH, I can (and do) appreciate a good eye - whether digital or traditional - when I look at magazines, web sites, books, etc. but I do not wish to partake with my cash for work not meeting my basic "standards".

[mrladewig]

If the craftsman has printed the print with the same time, same paper, same developing... Then the only differences in the prints will be in the coatings and imperfections of the paper. This is the part of photography that I consider the craft rather than the art. I don't mean that in a derogatory way by any means, but truly mean it with great respect towards those who have developed this skill.

I'm not really clear on how this differs from digital, where the same could be said about choosing the same paper for each print and using the correct profile and it just coming down to paper imperfections that create the uniqueness of an image. Granted, with digital I could have multiple printers running the same image simultaneously, where a single person in a darkroom can only realistically make one print at a time. But there are practical constraints to quantity in both methods and artificial constraints can also be applied to both methods of printing.

Granted, preparing an image in photoshop for printing is not the same thing as testing and printing in the traditional darkroom, but I would hope that a printer (of the human sort) would strive for consistency once the right formula has been determined.

[John Brady]

So yes, to me the hand crafted b&w print merits my hard earned money. I refuse to spend a dime on something that`s spit out of a machine. Hand-made, yes. Machine-made, no.


Isn't the camera a machine too?

No one can argue with where you are willing to spend your money and it is fine to have the criteria you have set for yourself, but I think the whole machine argument is a slippery slope.

Unless you are in the darkroom with the artist how do you know who made the wet print, the artist or the darkroom assistant?

I would tend to be more in Darr's camp on this one. I appreciate all photography when it is done well.

jb
www.timeandlight.com

[Merg Ross]

Does the uniqueness of a traditional print and the process itself add substantial value to the work, or do you find that the quality and content of the image overides the method of creation? Is the medium an image is created in only a means used to deliver a photographer/artist's vision?



-=Will[/QUOTE]

This is a question that only you can answer. What value do you place on your work?

[Toyon]

To me, the difference is that the silver print is an actual product of the interaction of light and chemistry, fixed within a matrix. Whereas, regardless of the relative esthetic merits of a machine (inkjet, sublimation etc.) prints, the process that creates the print is unrelated to the interaction of light and chemistry. The inkjet is a virtual representation of the interaction of light and sensors on the camera sensor, whereas a silver print is the direct artifact of the photographic process itself.

[gevalia]

I thought I had an opinion on this subject but now I have flip-flopped twice already today. So I'll just keep reading all of yours.

[Adam Kavalunas]

Toyon, I print using a LightJet printer, well not me actually, but prints are "spat" out of LightJet printer or machine if you will. It prints on true photo sensitive papers by using lasers, and then processed with RA-4 chemistry. This is certainly an interaction on the paper with light and chemistry, is it not?

Adam

[Toyon]

Toyon, I print using a LightJet printer, well not me actually, but prints are "spat" out of LightJet printer or machine if you will. It prints on true photo sensitive papers by using lasers, and then processed with RA-4 chemistry. This is certainly an interaction on the paper with light and chemistry, is it not?

Adam

I agree, it is.

[clay harmon]

What if you are able to make wet darkroom prints with such consistency that they are identical? I know that is what edition printers for limited edition books strive for, and to my eye, they succeed.

By your logic, any print that cannot be distinguished from its identical copy would lose this important 'unique, hand-made' quality that you assert may add value to the resulting print. In short, I am not sure one of the implicit premises to the argument at the beginning of this thread is valid. I think even a silver gelatin print can fail to have this 'one-of-a-kind, unique' quality if the skill of the photographer is sufficient.

[Michael Gordon]

I've seen lots of "handmade" prints (by LF and ULF toggers, no less) that bored the hell out of me. Would they be more valuable than the stimulating inkjet prints I have in my collection? :confused:

If we're going to be purists, I suggest that only photographers who create their own emulsions and coat their own plates and papers are "handmaking" their work. After all, an enlarger is a machine and there's no real craft in buying the same box of machine-made paper as everyone else :eek:

[Martin Courtenay-Blake]

If the craftsman has printed the print with the same time, same paper, same developing... Then the only differences in the prints will be in the coatings and imperfections of the paper. This is the part of photography that I consider the craft rather than the art. I don't mean that in a derogatory way by any means, but truly mean it with great respect towards those who have developed this skill.

I can't agree with this particular point at all and it is this very point that to me seperates the potential value between traditional and digital printing.

It is almost impossible to produce the perfect negative and as a result prints produced by the more traditional methods such as silver/gelatine will require a lot of work before a final satisfactory image is produced. This work...dodging, burning, pre-flashing, bleaching, toning etc. is virtually impossible to reproduce precisely print to print. Dodging and burning are particularly difficult to replicate. These adjustments in the traditional printing process can take some considerable time and have to be done for each and every print and the resulting slight variations mean that every print is unique. A limited edition of say 50 prints will take a considerable amount of time and effort to produce.

This is even more so in areas such as pt/pl printing where each sheet of hand made paper will have subtle, or possible not so subtle differences. One cannot ignore the material cost of these printing methods either.

Contrast the above with the digital process, whilst it can be admitted that a lot of skill, experience and time may be required to produce a print of "exhibition" or "collector" quality it is then only a matter of outputting to a printer whatever edition size you choose while you pop off to the nearest pub for a beer or two. When you return you will be greeted by a neat pile of identical electro-mechanically produced prints. Save the file and next week you can knock off another hundred or two virtually without any effort at all.

I am in no way intending to say that one process is better at producing a beautiful print than the other, just, that in terms of putting a value on an individual image, the fact that a traditionally made print is unique and a lot of effort has been put into it's production should result in a higher value.

Cheers

Martin

[Bruce Watson]

I refuse to spend a dime on something that`s spit out of a machine. Hand-made, yes. Machine-made, no.

Then you can't buy any photographs regardless of print method. All production cameras are made with machines. Certainly lenses are impossible without machines. All decent film is made with machines. Nearly all production papers are made with machines. Harmon uses the same paper coating lines to make both photo papers and inkjet papers -- it's just a matter of what coating to lay down.

Photography is machine based; it would take an amazing amount of effort taking hundreds if not thousands of learning curves to do it all without machines of some kind or other, and the results would be highly inferior unless you really like defects (pin hole photographs on wavy hand-made hand-coated glass plates, printed on hand made hand coated papers, etc.).

But if that's what you want, more power to ya. Let us know if you find a photographer working completely sans machines. I would find that genuinely interesting and would like to see some of the results.

[willwilson]

I think even a silver gelatin print can fail to have this 'one-of-a-kind, unique' quality if the skill of the photographer is sufficient.

I agree with you that with enough darkroom skill print to print differences can be almost totally eliminated, but this does not mean each silver print is not a separate work generated by the artist.

It's not the amount of variance between prints that makes it more or less unique. It's the actual process. If an oil painter had sufficient skill to produce two paintings that were indistinguishable from each other; it would not make either of those pieces stand less on their own. For instance, if Mark Rothko had decided to paint 20 identical versions of "WHITE CENTER (YELLOW, PINK AND LAVENDER ON ROSE)" (http://www.askart.com/askart/artist.aspx?artist=30096) they would be visually similar but they would still be separate works by the artist, as opposed to additional copies of one work(however well done) where the print button was clicked repeatedly. They might not all sell for $72,840,000 (http://www.askart.com/AskART/interest/top_artists.aspx?interest=AskARTTopAuctionPrices&id=27) but I bet they wouldn't be treated as copies either.

I don't necessarily think this takes away from value of digital photographic work but I do feel that the digital printing process has a tendency to turn prints into more of a product of the original singular artistic work and less of an artistic effort in and of itself. If technology advances far enough electronically displayed digital images could surpass the quality of digital prints on paper. Would you then sell your prints in limited edition downloads?

[reellis67]

My own feelings run very much along the lines you described here. In my mind, the hand made print is the end result of the direct efforts of it's creator, and as such is the work itself and not a reproduction. I don't care how the idea was achieved, or where, but I do care if what I am considering purchasing is a direct product of the artist or a reproduction of their efforts. Materials or methods are of no real concern - I don't care that film and camera were made using machines any more than I can if the paint and brushes that a painter used was, but I do care if a machine made the strokes rather than the hand of the artist.

If the physical product generated from the original effort is not a consideration, why are high quality reproductions of powerful or moving paintings of less value than the originals? They show the same image that is shown by the original product of effort, so what else is different?

- Randy

[Bill_1856]

Piffel! (Piffle! if you're British.)

[Blueberrydesk]

It's funny. In a previous life, I spent almost 20 years in the Oriental Rug business. I must have gone over the differences between machine made and hand-knotted rugs 10K times. And in my mind the differences are much the same between the two mediums.

A machine made rug can be of exceptional quality. Karastan comes to mind; a fiendishly complicated axminster weave, done on machine in Eden North Carolina. Takes 6 hours to make 2 9x12 sized rugs. Lasts for 60 years, at least. Great rugs. Fairly expensive. Takes a lot of human labor just to get the mill set up to make a run. Lots of people like them for both aesthetics as well as functionality. Most machine made rugs, though, are lower quality, spit off the machine wilton weaves. Low cost, low functionality. Almost, well, disposable. Certainly not considered works of art.

A hand-knotted rug can also be low or high quality. A Karastan is better than a low quality handknotted, for example. But when you see a fine Isphahan or Tabriz, woven with silk and wool, taking upwards of 3 to 4 years to make a single carpet, well, that's art. And don't even get me started on a Fine Qum.

I think the thing is; being hand made does not necessarily make it art. There needs to be an intrinsic value as regards durability, reliability, etc. as well as sincere effort to create.

But Machines don't make art. They make stuff you walk on for a while, then throw away.

[Toyon]

It's funny. In a previous life, I spent almost 20 years in the Oriental Rug business. I must have gone over the differences between machine made and hand-knotted rugs 10K times. And in my mind the differences are much the same between the two mediums.

A machine made rug can be of exceptional quality. Karastan comes to mind; a fiendishly complicated axminster weave, done on machine in Eden North Carolina. Takes 6 hours to make 2 9x12 sized rugs. Lasts for 60 years, at least. Great rugs. Fairly expensive. Takes a lot of human labor just to get the mill set up to make a run. Lots of people like them for both aesthetics as well as functionality. Most machine made rugs, though, are lower quality, spit off the machine wilton weaves. Low cost, low functionality. Almost, well, disposable. Certainly not considered works of art.

A hand-knotted rug can also be low or high quality. A Karastan is better than a low quality handknotted, for example. But when you see a fine Isphahan or Tabriz, woven with silk and wool, taking upwards of 3 to 4 years to make a single carpet, well, that's art. And don't even get me started on a Fine Qum.

I think the thing is; being hand made does not necessarily make it art. There needs to be an intrinsic value as regards durability, reliability, etc. as well as sincere effort to create.

But Machines don't make art. They make stuff you walk on for a while, then throw away.

Beautifully expressed, Paul.

[John Kasaian]

Allow me to step on myself here! :)

The value of a hand made print is of primary importance (or "value" in this case) to two people---

1)The photographer who made the print because that is the way
"a" photographer really wants to produce "this" photograph.

2) The viewer who appreciates the manual effort put out by the artist in working by hand to produce "this" particular photograph.

If either the artist or the viewer doesn't value that reality, then that particular value isn't of any greater value than any other form of printing.

Should this be of any great concern? Well, yes and no. For the hand printer, "yes" because printing using conventional methods is an act of intimacy IMHO, more so than a manipulation using machines that are far more complex than a simple enlarger or contact frame.

For the viewer, most likely "no" unless there is some "connection" with the photographer or the time when the photograph was crafted and it means something to the viewer that the artist "made" the print with his or her own hands. If the value of an image is based solely on content and not a personal connection or appreciation then there would not be any added value from being a hand made print that I can see.

My opinion and it's worth just about what you paid me for it! :D

[clay harmon]

Perhaps a little light reading before bedtime:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

I still think this whole argument revolves around speciously setting up a straw man to attack. The original proposition presents what in many cases is a distinction without a difference. If you can't tell one photographic print from another, what makes it unique other than this purported 'spirit of hand work' that supposedly inhabits the interstices of the paper fibers?

[Oren Grad]

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=23262

[Patrik Roseen]

How do you value your own work and which price do you put on it? Does it match the price levels of potential buyers/viewers?

My first LF exhibition ended a few days ago and my b&w photographs are now safe at my home. The photographs were not for sale...why?
Because they were made in my wet darkroom and I spent too much time 'creating' them until they satisfied my vision to just sell them off. I also realized they all became a part of a larger context that would be lost if half of them were to 'disappear'.

However, I also had three photographs printed digitally on canvas in size 80x100cm. They cost me a fortune to have printed by a professional lab and they were for sale.

So what was the difference? To reproduce a digital print is only a matter of money to me. If someone pays I can go print. To reproduce a b&w wet darkroom photograph is another matter as it involves so many steps, all being subject to different challenges of consistency in paper, chemistry, temperature, accuracy in focusing, removing dust, paper handling, etc... and most challenging of all - FINDING THE SPARE TIME TO DO IT!

It's not that I have a lot of money, I just do not photograph to survive physically.

So what is really the value of a photograph? The pleasure looking at it, and/or the effort creating it, and/or the possibility to recreate it?

[QT Luong]

> But Machines don't make art.

Yes, but the same way that "guns do not kill people". People do (using them).

[Bruce Watson]

Traditional wet darkroom prints are unique hand crafted one of a kind works, typically created from exposure to print by the artist. The traditional photographer may strive for consistency from print to print, but in the end each print is a one of a kind creation. A digital print does not have this unique quality. The same digital file can be used to print a cheap poster or make a fine inkjet print on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk, you can even email it to a printer and receive a "fine art print" in the mail.

A specious argument. Many well recognized and well respected photographers turn to other people for prints. Avedon didn't make his own prints for example (just to name one). He did in fact receive some of his "fine art prints" in the mail. So what?

Few of the master oil paintings of the Renaissance were painted completely by the masters -- the masters typically did the faces and hands while the apprentices and students did the rest. Again, so what?

This "hand crafted print" argument typically comes from people who have never tried to print digitally and have the completely misguided notion that it's easy. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As anyone who has made a successful inkjet print well knows. It's often more work than a darkroom print. There is often more of the artist's essence in a digital print than in a darkroom print. Because digital can (and that's the operative word -- "can") allow the artist to get closer to his/her vision by removing some of the limitations of the darkroom like toes and shoulders, reciprocity failures (the old CibaChrome papers were notorious for this), highlight dry down, etc.

But in the end, it's still variations of density on a substrate. And what makes it art isn't the substrate or how the density is created -- it's the vision of the artist and how well the artist presents that vision to the viewer.

This is as silly as debating oils vs. acrylics. Come on people -- quit wasting time here and go do something worthwhile -- like making photographs!

[Merg Ross]

I can not help but recall the earlier days, and the advent of Dr. Land's Polaroid process. It was not, of course, a "traditional" wet process. However, first in line to exploit its virtues was Ansel Adams, followed by White, Caponigro and a number of well known practitioners. Their work was exhibited and published without exhaustive debate about its worthiness. They were simply using this new process to convey their vision, without the necessity of a darkroom. All of them continued with the traditional methods and the Polaroid process is, for the most part, history.

Now, we have the digital process with which to convey our vision, along with the traditional wet process. We are very fortunate to have both available to us and should accept the fact that they are similar, while being different. They can by definition, never be the same, so any comparison as to superiority is senseless.

Each photographer must make that very personal decision of how he or she want to present their vision. The method chosen should be made with confidence and without reproach.

[Gary L. Quay]

Then you can't buy any photographs regardless of print method. All production cameras are made with machines.

I believe the issue was about the finished image, not what made the camera.

--Gary

[Gary L. Quay]

As anyone who has made a successful inkjet print well knows. It's often more work than a darkroom print.

I actually agree with this, despite being a strictly analog photographer. I use the computer to produce advertisements for shows and for color portfolio images. Yet, I've had so much trouble producing prints on my computer. The cost of equipment that will produce the kind of consistancy I want is well beyone my ability to pay, so sheet after agrivating sheet has come from my printer looking completely different than on the monitor, even after profiling my monitor, printer and scanner, and fine-tuning those profiles hour after teeth-grinding hour. I'm use the darkroom because I'm committed to the process, and because I find digital a frustrating mess.

--Gary

[Martin D.]

Photography is also a philosophical discipline. If you cannot put something special into your photos, then the technique is irrelevant, unless the technique helps highlight your philosophy. No one cares how a photo was produced.

Once I walked in into a gallery and was looking at a photo. The gallerist comes to me and starts explaining that the photo has a special value because it was taken with one of these LF cameras that only specially gifted people are able to operate. And that the cameras are so heavy that the photographer needs a team of assistants to carry them. And therefore the photo costs $5k. And additionally, that each photo is an original because each was printed on a different piece of paper with a "unique" emulsion. Well, you can believe in whatever you want, I would never buy a photo just because the guy got in the process poisoned by some chemicals.

As the art history proves, art works that were produced in just a few seconds can have a higher value aesthetic/philosophical than some other that took months to produce. One-two-three and finished, and it costs $5k in a gallery. I saw recently a documentary about Jonathan Meese. One-two-three and so a few times and the exhibition paintings are ready.

I would be more worried, when buying a photo, that if the guy uses only a wet process whether he can develop as an artist, since in my view he restricts his creative options.

I am more annoyed if I have a nice photo, and then I realize that the scan is not the best one and that the company cannot print e.g. yellows as I would like to see them. I still feel, that at the current state-of-the-art the process is still too restrictive. Hope, this will improve so that I have even more creative options.

[Patrik Roseen]

I am coming back to Art vs Craft.
In both the analog and digital process one needs both.

Yet there is something else I feel missing in this discussion - chaos, random, by chance,...

Is it not interesting to see that many artists after years of education both in artistic vision and craft, 'suddenly' apply their own method of craft, another way of seeing, and in many cases explore the facets of what the specific material they are working with is capable of so that they can use the full potential of it to their liking.

Now this is where chaos, random, by chance...comes in. I have experimented with my own different techniques to produce my prints in the wet darkroom. And much of it is the result of chance, i.e. I look at the image and there is something there which I had not planned for, yet it pleases me. So I try to understand how it happened and to see if I can achieve it again. And so I develop the skill for this particular effect.
But, the more I learn, the more I try to control the effect, try to position it in the image, with the right density...sometimes with a poor result until I realize I have to let go of the control.
Many painters paint in seconds 1, 2, 3 finished...for the same reason. They do not want to be in control of the creative process. If they think too much the art becomes a product of the brain rather than the soul.

I think many people who buy art do it also for the story behind it. Especially if you had the chance to visit the artist in person in his/her studio. The background story becomes part of the image and the value.

To me the digital workflow is too much trying to take control and leaving very little opening to random and chance. But then again I am not an expert in the digital darkroom.
Please excuse my ignorance, I do not know the digital workflow enough to understand if there is any 'by chance' or 'chaos' involved in the process. Can someone please explain?

[Brian Ellis]

I find it ironic that people here seem to think of a print made in a darkroom as having been "hand made," when for so many years one of the big knocks on photography as an art form was that photographs were made by machines and so couldn't be true "art." Now for some reason a print that came from a camera (machine) and that was printed by use of an enlarger (machine) and other mechanical equipment is somehow considered to be "hand-made."

[Oren Grad]

What Brian said.

For those who argue that value arises from the possibility of random variation in the output from one print to another, what happens when someone writes a Photoshop plug-in with a random number generator that introduces variations in the printed output from a digital file?

[Martin D.]

What Brian said.

For those who argue that value arises from the possibility of random variation in the output from one print to another, what happens when someone writes a Photoshop plug-in with a random number generator that introduces variations in the printed output from a digital file?

No need to write. The Gaussian noise filter is pre-installed. :D

[domenico Foschi]

I used to be bias toward digital, but my position has changed.

However, for what is concerned the final stage, namely the print, Inkjet has one major problem, which is metamerism, where different colors shifts at the exposure with differrent light sources. This is a major problem especially for me that I use a lot of sepia tones which seem to be more vulnerable to this effect creating unwanted greens and magentas.
A silver print also change its color at different light sources but at a constant rate throughout the scale of tonalities allowing the brain to adjust to the situation.
As long as this problem and a few others won't be solved I will still prefer a silver print to an inkjet.

[Lenny Eiger]

A lot of fine comments. I'll add a thought or two.

First of all, printing with inkjet is like playing the guitar - it's easy for beginners. There are a lot of levels to professionalism, and lots of extra levels for the mad scientists out there. For instance, there is making a b&w print with color inks. No serious b&w printer would do this. The next level up is to dedicate a printer to use only b&w inks and try that. You might have to learn how to use a RIP, you will find out all sorts of info you never wanted to learn about crossovers and the like. You might have to learn how to linearize. You will certainly need to learn about the different qualities of paper. I am one of those mad scientists out there who has actually mixed up his own b&w inks. It isn't for the impatient, I can tell you that... I am now reformulating my own mixture based upon Jon Cone's Piezotones. (BTW, I don't have any metamerism.) This stuff is hard.

Second, repeatability is a joke. When you are dealing at the top level of printing, one can never assume that you can repeat a print. Perhaps one right after the other. But tomorrow is another day. It might be a different temperature, different humidity, etc. and those things affect the absorption rate of the paper. If I did a print for someone a month ago and they ask for another, I make a test print to see where things are. They never match exactly. The good news is that I usually have all the adjustment layers set to modify different areas of the print and making the modifications is easy - most of the time. Same as having a sheet of paper to remind you how you made that print in the darkroom.

Third, with all this technology, it isn't printing devices that make a good print, it's humans. One either has a rich sensibility or one doesn't. I'm a big fan of history and have studied the styles of a lot of different printers. I know what a gravure print looks like (they are amazing), I made platinum prints for Avedon, and I own a few albumens, etc. It's important to know what's possible to be able to stretch the medium to its best. This is true of any medium.

Years ago, when the cameras first came out it was "any monkey with a camera" can do xyz. Now it's any monkey with a computer and an Epson printer. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now. There are good (and great) photographers and there are those who simply document what things look like, and have nothing to say. There are people who print to see what the image looks like and there are those who print with every fiber of their being.

Lenny

[PViapiano]

A lot of fine comments. I'll add a thought or two.

First of all, printing with inkjet is like playing the guitar - it's easy for beginners. There are a lot of levels to professionalism, and lots of extra levels for the mad scientists out there. For instance, there is making a b&w print with color inks. No serious b&w printer would do this. The next level up is to dedicate a printer to use only b&w inks and try that. You might have to learn how to use a RIP, you will find out all sorts of info you never wanted to learn about crossovers and the like. You might have to learn how to linearize. You will certainly need to learn about the different qualities of paper. I am one of those mad scientists out there who has actually mixed up his own b&w inks. It isn't for the impatient, I can tell you that... I am now reformulating my own mixture based upon Jon Cone's Piezotones. (BTW, I don't have any metamerism.) This stuff is hard.

Second, repeatability is a joke. When you are dealing at the top level of printing, one can never assume that you can repeat a print. Perhaps one right after the other. But tomorrow is another day. It might be a different temperature, different humidity, etc. and those things affect the absorption rate of the paper. If I did a print for someone a month ago and they ask for another, I make a test print to see where things are. They never match exactly. The good news is that I usually have all the adjustment layers set to modify different areas of the print and making the modifications is easy - most of the time. Same as having a sheet of paper to remind you how you made that print in the darkroom.

Third, with all this technology, it isn't printing devices that make a good print, it's humans. One either has a rich sensibility or one doesn't. I'm a big fan of history and have studied the styles of a lot of different printers. I know what a gravure print looks like (they are amazing), I made platinum prints for Avedon, and I own a few albumens, etc. It's important to know what's possible to be able to stretch the medium to its best. This is true of any medium.

Years ago, when the cameras first came out it was "any monkey with a camera" can do xyz. Now it's any monkey with a computer and an Epson printer. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now. There are good (and great) photographers and there are those who simply document what things look like, and have nothing to say. There are people who print to see what the image looks like and there are those who print with every fiber of their being.

Lenny

Great, great, great post!

"It's not about the bike...." - Lance Armstrong

[willwilson]

First of all, printing with inkjet is like playing the guitar - it's easy for beginners. There are a lot of levels to professionalism, and lots of extra levels for the mad scientists out there.

I might say - printing with inkjet or in the darkroom is like playing the guitar - it's easy for beginners.

I remember teaching my sister how to make a silver print of a snapshot she took in about 10 minutes. I would say, however, the divide between making a snapshot type silver print and a finely crafted silver print is larger than with digital methods. You can make a pretty nice looking 13x19 on a $300 Epson with a new Digital Rebel right out of the box in auto mode just by reading the manual. For me, this fact is what undermines the value the public and the art community to some extent places on a digital print.



There are people who print to see what the image looks like and there are those who print with every fiber of their being.

Perfect, very well said.

[Lenny Eiger]

I might say - printing with inkjet or in the darkroom is like playing the guitar - it's easy for beginners.


I agree wholeheartedly. However, you seem to contradict this in your next statement.



I remember teaching my sister how to make a silver print of a snapshot she took in about 10 minutes. I would say, however, the divide between making a snapshot type silver print and a finely crafted silver print is larger than with digital methods. You can make a pretty nice looking 13x19 on a $300 Epson with a new Digital Rebel right out of the box in auto mode just by reading the manual. For me, this fact is what undermines the value the public and the art community to some extent places on a digital print.


Pretty nice? How is that different from your sister's effort? I am not particularly interested in "pretty nice" (altho I do take pictures of my family as well, just like everyone else, that I print out on inxexpensive paper, etc.)

I AM interested in museum quality prints - and those are hard to do, no matter what you use. Black and White is always harder, of course...

Lenny

[Annie M.]

If Picasso wanted something all he had to do was draw a line around it...

The value resides in the artist... the medium is secondary.

[John Kasaian]

If Picasso wanted something all he had to do was draw a line around it...

The value resides in the artist... the medium is secondary.

Yeah, but "Mr. P" was way overrated IMHO.
If a Picasso squiggle line brings umpteen million dollars on e-bay it is likely because it is Picasso's squiggle, squiggled by Mr. P himself. You can probably get a calender of Picasso's squiggles at an bookstore for a pittance when the calenders are on clearance.

Is what is "valued" the ink from Picasso's pen and the labor of the old spaniard or the calender?

I maintain that it likely was valued by Picasso. It is certainly valued by the museum or collector who will fork out the moo-lah for an original Picasso (and those who wished they had the moo-lah) but for the squiggle loving art enthusiast the value is more likely in the calender which can also be cut and framed when the year is up :)

[Annie M.]

allow me to clarify my concept...

The value resides in the artist... the artist's medium is secondary.

[Lenny Eiger]

allow me to clarify my concept...

The value resides in the artist... the artist's medium is secondary.

I think the concept here is quite sound.

Picasso may be an odd example. What about Ansel? I saw older prints he made that are platinum prints and they look nothing like his later work, nothing like what most people imagine as an Ansel Adam's print. The only constant is Ansel. He used two different (at least) modalities in which to work. Neither is lesser. You can like whichever you want.

It certainly is as difficult, if not more difficult, to make an exquisite print using digital printing methods. It takes just as much vision, and seeing to be able to do it. They can't be less, unless the overall quality is less. The overall quality is at least equal, with the right materials and tools. What remains is whether the artist exhibits some genius or not.

Lenny



Lenny

[John Kasaian]

allow me to clarify my concept...

The value resides in the artist... the artist's medium is secondary.

Please clarify further as I'm not getting your drift.
Is the value in the artist---as in say, an organ donor? Or is it in the artist's work? Or name? Or vision?
Certainly I'd agree with you on any of the above. But the artist's medium, while secondary (and I agree with you on that point as well) is a manifestation of the artist's vision---a phantasm that is given a form.

I think the OP's question was regarding a value applied to that form.

Like a wood sculpture whittled with a jack knife as opposed to a wood sculpture made with a Dremel. Assuming both are desireable is one worth more than the other?
Is the satisfaction an artist might get from using more primitive tools a "value" that translated into money (if indeed that satisfaction can exceed the satisfaction taken in a wood carver using a Dremel?) Any added monitary value because of the medium rests with whomever is paying the fare.

I don't mean that monetary value is the only value--far from it---but that was the line of thought which I understood from the OP's question

[Annie M.]

"Does the uniqueness of a traditional print and the process itself add substantial value to the work..."
no... thus my reference to Picasso and the drawing of a line... anyone can draw a line... the value in this instance is that it is Picasso's line.

"... do you find that the quality and content of the image overides the method of creation?"
no... quality,image & method should coexist as one cohesive entity... each of these are the artist's choices to manifest an idea.

" Is the medium an image is created in only a means used to deliver a photographer/artist's vision?"

no it is integral... but is a matter of artistic choice... however you can't tapdance a painting.

[John Kasaian]

"Does the uniqueness of a traditional print and the process itself add substantial value to the work..."
no... thus my reference to Picasso and the drawing of a line... anyone can draw a line... the value in this instance is that it is Picasso's line.

So is the value the line that Picasso drew, the very same line on the very same paper?
Or
Is the value in the line drawn by Picasso which can be reproduced anywhere on anything?
If so then the original is more valuable than the calender, isn't it?
What needs to be determined in order to make this relevent to the question at hand is what constitutes an original photograph?
A image printed digitally can certainly be original.
But it can never be an original silver print.
So do we value the originality? Or the silver?

These kinds of issues are why I photograph in my own parallel universe ;)

[willwilson]

I think the squiggly line makes a good point. What if Picasso supervised the printing of the squiggly line calendars and they were a limited edition? Then the museum crazies would be buying them up like mad. Where's the added value in relation to a mass produced calendar?

I think what gets me about the digital printing thing is you can't supervise the enlarger and the chemicals while they make your fine print. You have to make the thing yourself.

Go watch this video on Joel Meyerowitz. He even has an assistant running his digital printing. Apparently Edward and Ansel were compromising their images by printing wet (minute 3:30 in the video below). You wanna talk about overated...I do like some of his landscapes though.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lv_qE_J_mHg

[domenico Foschi]

I think the squiggly line makes a good point. What if Picasso supervised the printing of the squiggly line calendars and they were a limited edition? Then the museum crazies would be buying them up like mad. Where's the added value in relation to a mass produced calendar?

I think what gets me about the digital printing thing is you can't supervise the enlarger and the chemicals while they make your fine print. You have to make the thing yourself.

Go watch this video on Joel Meyerowitz. He even has an assistant running his digital printing. Apparently Edward and Ansel were compromising their images by printing wet (minute 3:30 in the video below). You wanna talk about overated...I do like some of his landscapes though.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lv_qE_J_mHg

COmpared to the control we have now with Photoshop, SIlver printing does go through compromising.

[Tim Hyde]

This thread is interesting and valuable for a range of reasons, but if you measure "value of a print" by its marketplace value, then this discussion is largely irrelevant. Serious photo galleries have long since settled the debate about analog vs. digital in favor of digital. There are some major artists who still produce (though not exclusively) wet darkroom prints--Sally Mann and Hiroshi Sugimoto for example--but they are increasingly rare.

[JBrunner]

The first criteria of a print for me is if I like it. I consider nothing else at that point.

I don't purchase a print because of how it is made, but I am more likely to be impacted by, and purchase a print where the photographer has taken full advantage of the medium they have chosen as part of the expression. Not because of the medium, but the medium has it's contribution if the print is well conceived and executed. That the artists who produce work I like tend to work in traditional or alt process says much about my own tastes, and not much at all about anything else. I do own a couple of inkjet prints, because I like them, and they are well executed.

Denying that the process of a print has an impact on the presence or appearance of a print and that all process is somehow homogeneous in conclusion simply denies reality.

Persons insecure about their own methods usually take this simpleton position, or the opposite, elitist viewpoint, but no process nor denial of process will fix a bad idea or execution.

The process is an undeniable contributer to the context and presence of a well done print, so in that sense it is entirely relevant.

[Patrik Roseen]

This thread is interesting and valuable for a range of reasons, but if you measure "value of a print" by its marketplace value, then this discussion is largely irrelevant. Serious photo galleries have long since settled the debate about analog vs. digital in favor of digital. ..
Interesting...why is that?

[Brian K]

This thread is interesting and valuable for a range of reasons, but if you measure "value of a print" by its marketplace value, then this discussion is largely irrelevant. Serious photo galleries have long since settled the debate about analog vs. digital in favor of digital. There are some major artists who still produce (though not exclusively) wet darkroom prints--Sally Mann and Hiroshi Sugimoto for example--but they are increasingly rare.

I assume that you're talking color here, because in the case of B&W that goes against my experience in the gallery world.

[Tim Hyde]

I assume that you're talking color here, because in the case of B&W that goes against my experience in the gallery world.

Yes, that's right and color is what is driving this shift--that and the fact that collectors want prints BIG these days. Still, in b&w, the trend is definately shifting toward digital. I was in a major gallery on Friday inquiring about some Sally Mann pieces from her Deep South work. I was told that some of the images are so difficult to print in a dark room that they are unavailable currently, but she is willing to try them digitally. Now, if Sally Mann who is one of the finest and most accomplished printers on the planet, is thinking about producing some digital prints for galleries, digital has come of age. This fact saddens me a little, but it is what it is.

The key point for this board is that how prints are produced--at least in the current gallery world--has little to do with either edition size or price, even in B&W.

[Brian K]

Yes, that's right and color is what is driving this shift--that and the fact that collectors want prints BIG these days. Still, in b&w, the trend is definately shifting toward digital. I was in a major gallery on Friday inquiring about some Sally Mann pieces from her Deep South work. I was told that some of the images are so difficult to print in a dark room that they are unavailable currently, but she is willing to try them digitally. Now, if Sally Mann who is one of the finest and most accomplished printers on the planet, is thinking about producing some digital prints for galleries, digital has come of age. This fact saddens me a little, but it is what it is.

The key point for this board is that how prints are produced--at least in the current gallery world--has little to do with either edition size or price, even in B&W.

I agree that big color is the current fashion in collecting, but it is that a fashion. The tastes of the buying public come and go, who knows what the fashion will be in 5, 10, 20 years. Then again if digital prints start to fade or deteriorate, and it will be color digital that has issues first, the buying public may abandon that technology sooner.

Also the gallery world has little to do with the advancement of art and everything to do with the procurement of money, there are far more people working with digital gear today because it has a shorter learning curve and doesn't require the commitment of a dedicated darkroom and the equipment involved. I think at a certain point those who still produce silver prints will be more highly prized because of the now uniqueness and hands on aspect of the older processes. Also with optically produced prints there are affects and manipulations that are not available to digital printers.

[Patrik Roseen]

...I was in a major gallery on Friday inquiring about some Sally Mann pieces from her Deep South work. I was told that some of the images are so difficult to print in a dark room that they are unavailable currently, but she is willing to try them digitally. ...

Tim, I guess what you are saying is that digital has the advantage of being more time efficient thus also more cost efficient from a production point of view. Which is something that is repeated several times in this thread. This to me would mean that the few silver prints Sally will continue to produce will boost in price due to being even more rare than understood before.
(The few first digital prints would also be high depending on how many she will produce ofcourse.)

It would seem we are running through the old lane of handmade vs machine made, as with clothing, cars, boats, furniture until the few remaining skilled people can nolonger survive due to too few being able to afford the cost for the labour involved in their work. And most people would not even reflect on what they might be missing.

Looking at many of Sally Mann's photos I would say she would have alot of challenges creating and printing them digitally. Digital reproductions of already handmade wet prints is ofcourse possible, but to me only copies of her own work.

[gbogatko]

let us assume the following print making steps:

1. I take my 4x5 original and scan it in.
2. The scan is cleaned for dust etc. and basic imperfections removed
3. Various manipulations are performed, dodging, burning etc.
4. More manipulations are performed, but this time ones that can only be done in photoshop, such as very selective brightening, darkening, sharpening and so forth.
5. I enlarge the result to 11x14
6. I then print the result on Pictorico film, using techniques from the various books on the subject of digital negatives etc.
7. I contact print the result on the photo paper of choice, perhaps I then go back and make adjustments to the digital negative and try again.
8. I now have a digital negative that produces the 'perfect' print by merely exposing it in a light box for a known amount of time, plus development for a known amount of time.
9. I now proceed to produce 100 of them -- all identical.

(The paper used could be silver gelatin, azo, plat/pal, van dyke brown. POP -- whatever your paper of choice happens to be.)

Is each print worth a significant amount more (not a few bucks, I mean $1000's more) than if I had bifurcated after step 5 and produced 100 prints using ink? If I sold the chemical versions as 'unique hand made prints using traditional printing methods' would I be lying? Does my creating a digital negative (vs. a process involving a chemical inter-positive, touching up the positive, then making a 3rd generation negative) diminish the value of the result?

Suppose after all this I destroyed the 4x5 neg, the 11x14 neg, and the file on the computer. Did the 100 just gain in value? What if I burn all but 10 copies and number what's left ("1 of 10", "2 of 10" blah, blah, blah)? Is each one is now worth more?

Sorta clouds up the issue -- huh?

gb

[David_Senesac]

Van Camper >>>"...I also like the idea that the first or the 1000th copy is identical. I see it as a flaw (chemical printing) when I pay for an image, but get something delivered a bit different, not exactly what I saw on the gallery wall."

Exactly! Today unlike just a few years ago this is a tremendous advance and boon to pro photographers because it used to be one had to print out a stack of prints in one lab session to ensure they had a chance of coming out consistently. So a lot of money up front to make a stack of prints. If for any of several business reasons, one did not sell enough of thsoe prints to break even, one had a stack of dusty prints at a considerable loss. Many prominent galeries in fact have had such prints stored for years now with no hope of recouping costs. Being able to consistently print out from a master digital file over elapsed time is an absolutely HUGE advance today beneficial to pro fine art photographer's bottom lines. So at some show if a customer wants a print they see exhibited, a photographer can have their lab make a fresh new print and delivery such later as an order, knowing it can be cranked out consistently from the same print file one had used to make the master print exhibited...printing only on demand.

As to the original post, are these prints inferior to one of a kind chemical enlargement process prints because of some duplication issue? Well I certainly cannot address those that make such Black & White prints or smallish color prints. It is true that Cibachrome prints especially in smaller sizes can still be produced for some color subjects that look absolutely wonderful with media that has reasonable lifetime. But by and large for large color prints, digital print processes have considerable quality and resolution advantages and that has been the situation for over a decade now. An end to end process without duplication as you mention might only be compared for value if the two output processes were otherwise equivalent. Even if there is something valid in your consideration, if the resulting print quality is mediocre it simply doesn't merit consideration.

[Kirk Gittings]

FWIW draw what you might from this experience.

I recently sold, to a local museum, the last traditional silver print I made from a well known negative before it was damaged by some unknown stain. I wanted the print in a safe place and this museum has a major photo collection. In all honesty my rep and I asked a premium price for it (2.5X my normal price), because it was the last traditional silver print, I could make of it. I made it clear that I would continue to print it, but digitally where I could correct the stain. It was always extremely difficult to print anyway and IMO printing it digitally solves many problems besides the stain that I could not adequately (to my complete satisfaction) solve traditionally anyway. So in my opinion the digital prints are clearly superior. I never feel obligated, when making digital prints from images I previously printed traditionally, to try and make them match the earlier prints.

At this point, if you accept my premise that the digital print is superior (I'm not the only one who accepts this view), what justifies the higher price of the earlier traditional print. a vintage print?, more archival. rarity, clever salesmanship?

[Tim Hyde]

Tim, I guess what you are saying is that digital has the advantage of being more time efficient thus also more cost efficient from a production point of view. Which is something that is repeated several times in this thread. This to me would mean that the few silver prints Sally will continue to produce will boost in price due to being even more rare than understood before.

No, that is not what I'm saying. I am saying that, according to one of her galleries, she is not offering some of her published work as silver prints because it is beyond her prodigious powers to print these particular images in her dark room. She had told her gallery that she might be willing to attempt them digitally however.

My larger point wasn't that Sally Mann is migrating to digital--she almost certainly is not--but that even she is willing (apparently) to consider offering some of her work to collectors in digital format. And while I agree that B&W in galleries is still largely analog, digital is gaining manifestly. Pricing is irrelevant to this discussion. George Tice sells his silvers, with a few exceptions, for less than $3,500. The same images printed as large digital prints sell for $12,000 and up. For galleries, it generally has to do with reputation, print size, edition size, and so on, but not the delivery mechanism of the art--i.e., how they were printed.

I don't want to overstate this because it is hardly a scientific survey of current gallery practices, and off the top of my head I can think of a couple of major galleries that won't touch digital. Non-digital work is not going away, for sure. My point is that in the fine-art photography collecting and gallery world, digital is legitimate and here to stay...indeed, increasingly prominent.

[Patrik Roseen]

No, that is not what I'm saying. I am saying that, according to one of her galleries, she is not offering some of her published work as silver prints because it is beyond her prodigious powers to print these particular images in her dark room. She had told her gallery that she might be willing to attempt them digitally however.

...

Tim, this is where you lost me. What is meant by published work in this context? I understand it as if there is a silver print already in the gallery, but that she is not capable of reproducing it in a darkroom so that is can be offered to collectors, i.e. today the published image is a one-of-a-kind of that particular negative.

So, to offer it in numbers she would turn digital? No?

[Lenny Eiger]

Being able to consistently print out from a master digital file over elapsed time is an absolutely HUGE advance today beneficial to pro fine art photographer's bottom lines. So at some show if a customer wants a print they see exhibited, a photographer can have their lab make a fresh new print and delivery such later as an order, knowing it can be cranked out consistently from the same print file one had used to make the master print exhibited...printing only on demand.


This is simply not true. Not for any print that is worth the paper it's printed on.

This whole conversation is a bunch of ideas past their time. This will be over when galleries realize that they won't be able to get silver prints anymore. Some of the galleries are just being ignorant and overly conservative and stuck up. It will all be over soon.

Lenny





Lenny

[willwilson]

So in my opinion the digital prints are clearly superior. I never feel obligated, when making digital prints from images I previously printed traditionally, to try and make them match the earlier prints.

I think Kirk's example makes a very interesting point and one I believe is at the heart of this discussion; this is also something Merg Ross hinted at early on.


This is a question that only you can answer. What value do you place on your work?

It really does just comes down to the artist. All this talk about what galleries like is a bunch of crap. The artist should be the ultimate decision maker, not a gallery or the buying public. We are not making widgets. I am not hauling my gear out into the dunes of Death Valley at 4am so I can have the highest profit margin on my gallery sales (side note: I don't have any gallery sales, lol).

Christopher Burkett says it well, and he is one damn fine printer:
http://www.christopherburkett.com/pages/articles/veracity.html

[Tim Hyde]

Tim, this is where you lost me. What is meant by published work in this context? I understand it as if there is a silver print already in the gallery, but that she is not capable of reproducing it in a darkroom so that is can be offered to collectors, i.e. today the published image is a one-of-a-kind of that particular negative.

So, to offer it in numbers she would turn digital? No?

No, Patrik, that is not exactly what I mean, though it may be close. What I am reporting is this. Sally Mann produced a book of her work called Deep South, part of a larger ongoing series about the South. The fifty or sixty images in the book were captured with an 8x10 camera and old, damaged lenses. She used a cupped hand as a shutter, as I recall, and the images appeared cracked and streaked and be-clouded with light leaks. Haunting, really. She was trying to recreate a 19th Century look. I asked to see what was available in the gallery and was told: "she cannot print some of these in her darkroom." We can speculate what that means exactly--damaged or difficult negatives, perhaps some other reason beyond my experience--but they are unavailable in silver prints for galleries. She IS willing, apparently, to consider printing these particular images digitally. (She works in editions of 25 for everything.) THAT is my point, not the process. Even Sally Mann is not innocent of digital.

[steve_782]

Wankers...wankers...wankers....

How you make the print is totally dependent upon the aesthetic and NOT the process. In my photographic schooling, I had to make multiple prints of the same negative. If they didn't match they were torn up and I was graded down.

I've also printed fine art lithographs which make printing photos look like a kindergarten exercise. You would print an edition and then turn the prints over to the curators. They would compare the print to the "proof' (bon a tier) - and they would rip up any print that did not match the BAT.

I'm a print maker - both photographic and fine art - and I can tell you that to make a fine digital print takes as much work as any other kind of print I've made.

Digital printing is as sensitive to weather related effects as a lithograph. The print changes depending upon the amount of humidity (that affects inking) - so, depending upon the day you're printing, you make have to make corrections to the print.

If you are not sensitive to that, and think once you have final file it's just print, print, print - you're a nimrod in ink print making.

[John Kasaian]

I think Kirk's example makes a very interesting point and one I believe is at the heart of this discussion; this is also something Merg Ross hinted at early on.



It really does just comes down to the artist. All this talk about what galleries like is a bunch of crap. The artist should be the ultimate decision maker, not a gallery or the buying public. We are not making widgets. I am not hauling my gear out into the dunes of Death Valley at 4am so I can have the highest profit margin on my gallery sales (side note: I don't have any gallery sales, lol).

Christopher Burkett says it well, and he is one damn fine printer:
http://www.christopherburkett.com/pages/articles/veracity.html

Burkett says it quite eloquently!

[John Voss]

I've only read a bit of this thread, but it seems to speak to something I've wondered about.

Some years ago I had the privilege of visiting John Paul Caponigro's home in Maine during an "open house" weekend during which his studio (and his home as well...at least as far as the bathroom ;) ) was open for a tour. He had some large exhibition prints on view and for sale (in fact, one was an early example of an HDR photograph...several exposures with different light of the same view on film... he had made of Zabriske Point I believe), but also some smallish digital prints rendered as posters. I happily paid $15 for one which he graciously initialed in pencil.

So what I wondered was, apart from the quality of the paper, what was the difference between what his Epson printer spit out as a "souvenier", and what it would eject, at a much higher price I'm sure, as a "fine print" of the same size. In fact, I wondered, would it even have been possible then for him to make a better quality print at any price other than one on a higher quality of paper (the one I have looks very good to this day.). And, as I said, it's "signed".

I also own a Burkett print that I paid a very reasonable price for (Edward Carter Gallery back when it still existed in NYC) that is drop dead stunning. but a helluva lot more than $15. It's hand made, and the end result of a lot of printsmanship (as was Caponigro's in PS for which he showed us the galleys for his guide to version 6). The difference is that CBs print had to be remade by hand each time, and JPCs didn't. For that aspect alone, in my view, it had every reason to be more highly priced than would a similar sized print from JPC's Epson printer.

[Lenny Eiger]

I've only read a bit of this thread, but it seems to speak to something I've wondered about.

The difference is that CBs print had to be remade by hand each time, and JPCs didn't. For that aspect alone, in my view, it had every reason to be more highly priced than would a similar sized print from JPC's Epson printer.

You obviously didn't read much of the thread. A number of professional printers, including myself, spoke up and pointed out that 1) digital printing is just as difficult, if not more , than darkroom printing. 2) it is not repeatable. On any given day absorption rates of paper and coating are very different and you can't make a print that matches. If you aren't good enough at printing to begin with you may not notice, but professional printers do. 3) Printing is an art, just like taking and choosing photos. Some people are amazing at it. What paper you print on is just the means to express the art.

There are plenty of examples of people selling artwork that's printed digitally for quite a bit of money. I think JPC can't command the prices because of other reasons. I'm not really a fan, so I'll stop there.

Lenny

[Kirk Gittings]

Lenny's point is well taken IME and I have made the same exact point in earlier threads. Exact repeatability with ink prints is a myth unless they are all done at the same time and nothing changes as you are doing it, like paper from different batches or changing humidity (using a swamp cooler in the summers here can create fluctuations in humidity that can change how ink is absorbed over the course of a day).

[John Kasaian]

Is a Caponigro worth more than a Burkett? Or vice-versa? And whom is it worth more (or less) to? The buyer? Or the photographer? If one is serious about their prints I'd suppose the value would be high irregardless, but there is something I find more satisfying in a hand made traditional silver print. What it is I cannot describe. I'd guess there is something about a digital print which some would find more satisfying. If there is would you pay a premium for it? The OP's question works in both directions, does it not?
If a photographer decided to start printing optically because he felt he could get a higher price for prints, isn't that as strange as a photographer deciding to start printing digitally because he didn't want to futz around in the darkroom anymore?

Niether scenario takes into account the photographer's original premise---to satisfy his own artistic desire which is eventually shared with the viewer?

Switching horses mid-stream is the perogative of the artist, but asserting a perogative and preserving fidelity seem to me to be at odds with one another--and fidelity is what make photographs "sing" (to me anyway.)

If I owned an original Adams, I think one of the things that I'd find most intriguing is that this very same print would have been pulled by the hand of Ansel Adams.

Does that make it worth more?

You decide.

To me, an unsigned print which I would have known to be hand pulled by a notable photographer, would be far and away more desireable than a signed print pulled by an assistant. Maybe it wouldn't be worth as much dollar-wise but I don't look at an artist's work that way.

If I owned a digital print by Caponigro I would certainly be moved by the elegance of his work (I always am) but I wouldn't feel any corporeal connection any more than I would an Adams print pulled by an assistant, or a digital reproduction of an Adams print. My imagination cannot connect these acts--the photographer seeing this image appear under the oc---with an assistant seeing "this" image appear under the oc---or "this" image emerging from some ink spurting machine.

It wouldn't make the image any less desireable. If digital printing was the modus of the photographer I think the integrity of seeing a digital print would be how I would want to see the image (as opposed to one of those digital picture frames or whatever medium is lurking in the future)---just as I'd prefer to see a cave painting on the ceiling of a cave rather than from a book (even a very finely printed book) or on a dorm room poster.

[John Voss]

Exact repeatability with ink prints is a myth unless they are all done at the same time and nothing changes as you are doing it, like paper from different batches or changing humidity (using a swamp cooler in the summers here can create fluctuations in humidity that can change how ink is absorbed over the course of a day).


I didn't intend to denigrate digital prints per se, but my post did attend to what I saw the day I was at JPC's studio. He did, in fact, pull a number of prints right then and there for those of us who wanted to buy them, and all were as close to identical as my eyes could discern. For all I know, in fact, he may have printed his exhibition prints all at once as well in whatever size edition he had chosen to make since I'm sure he knew whatever he needed to know about the difficulty of doing them identically over time, and chose to avoid that hassle. In any case, Burkett couldn't have done that with his traditional methods period.

I also had no intention of comparing one artist's work with another beyond their means of production.

[Brian K]

Do autograph collectors prize autographs produced by the AutoPen?

I think the whole move to digital printing was out of convenience. I spend a whole day standing in the darkroom and I produce a handful of B&W prints. But if I really wanted to be productive I could hook 4-5 inkjet printers up to a few cheap PC's and have them going all day long. Instead of producing 12 prints of the same neg from 14 hours in the darkroom, I could produce 100-200. Plus I wouldn't need all that room I use for a darkroom .

To be honest if I worked in color, I wouldn't go the Burkett route. It's far too expensive and difficult to do it like he does, and he does it right. Then again when I was with Edward Carter Galleries I'd get to see a lot of his work, as well as similarly sized fuji crystal prints produced by another 8x10 chrome shooting landscape photographer and I have to say that the difference in print quality was significant. While I may not be moved much by Burkett's subject matter, I have to say that his printing is perhaps the best color printing you are ever likely to see.

[Brian K]

This whole conversation is a bunch of ideas past their time. This will be over when galleries realize that they won't be able to get silver prints anymore. Some of the galleries are just being ignorant and overly conservative and stuck up. It will all be over soon.

Lenny

Lenny


Lenny, there are a lot of people out there printing with alternate printing technologies. Platinum, colloidal, Gum, salt, and even silver. As we speak I have 3500 sheets of brand new Ilford paper sitting in my storage room. Over the course of the next two years those 3500 sheets will end up as at least 2000-2500 final prints. And I am not the only person producing silver prints. Ilford is doing extremely well, last year was one of their best years.

[Lenny Eiger]

Lenny, there are a lot of people out there printing with alternate printing technologies. Platinum, colloidal, Gum, salt, and even silver. As we speak I have 3500 sheets of brand new Ilford paper sitting in my storage room. Over the course of the next two years those 3500 sheets will end up as at least 2000-2500 final prints. And I am not the only person producing silver prints. Ilford is doing extremely well, last year was one of their best years.

Point taken. Sometimes I get frustrated and its ready, fire, aim. I don't mean to take away from anyone who feels the darkroom print is the best expression of their aesthetic. It's one of the few things we all get to choose for ourselves.

My point (which I wasn't making very clearly) wasn't that darkroom printing will or should go away (altho' I think it might). My point is that the value system needs to go away. Just as many here have taken years to master their darkroom techniques, there are other mediums which take the same amount of effort. Alternative processes (I used to be a platinum printer and still love a great platinum print) and digital printmaking involve equal amounts of creativity to achieve the ultimate goal of a truly fine print. Galleries need to get out of the conversation and understand that what they get from a photographer is their best effort at expressing their art.

Lenny

[QT Luong]

If a gallery accepts only hand-made prints, it does not necessarily imply it considers digital prints to be inferior, only that said gallery has decided to specialize in a certain photography niche that it finds sufficiently interesting and lucrative. On the other hand, museums have an obligation to be more balanced, and from what I read, there aren't many of them who do not have digital prints in their collections.

[jetcode]

If a gallery accepts only hand-made prints, it does not necessarily imply it considers digital prints to be inferior, only that said gallery has decided to specialize in a certain photography niche that it finds sufficiently interesting and lucrative. On the other hand, museums have an obligation to be more balanced, and from what I read, there aren't many of them who do not have digital prints in their collections.

I was accepted into a art gallery in downtown Tiburon with digital prints and the owner never asked. I think there is a certain aspect to hand made 1 up images which IMO is why painting has always had an edge in collectibility. On the other hand a greater number of people can enjoy the same image if they wish.

[clay harmon]

This is an interesting observation. A silver gelatin wet-darkroom print is much closer to an inkjet print than it is to a painting if 'uniqueness' and repeatability are the figure of merit.


I was accepted into a art gallery in downtown Tiburon with digital prints and the owner never asked. I think there is a certain aspect to hand made 1 up images which IMO is why painting has always had an edge in collectibility. On the other hand a greater number of people can enjoy the same image if they wish.