If the negative is the score and the print the performance....

[Merg Ross]

Mark, I would disagree with you.

First of all, if a printmaker approaches printmaking as an artist, then there is certainly a lot of skill they can develop over time. Printing can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. For some it isn't part of their aesthetic. For me, it definitely is. To suggest anyone past a beginner could make the prints I make for my work, is simply not true. So much so as to be offensive, or to be ignorant of what the possibilities are. Printmaking is definitely an art.

Second, galleria owners (and museum curators) are no judge of anything. On occasion you find someone with some sense about things, and its great. Most of them are not artists, and its unfortunate they are in the positions they are in, with respect to what gets shown, who is "good" or "bad" at this, etc. They are second only to the philosophers, who should be lined up and disposed with. Photography is in ruins as a result of their efforts in the past 30-40 years.

Lenny

Lenny, much truth to your words.

[Bill Burk]

...My own aesthetic journeys took me back to the 19th Century, looking at the prints of Frederick Evans, Cameron and Sutcliffe. I moved up to the PhotoSecession, and was amazed to find brilliant work by a lot of different photographers, from Stieglitz and Clarence White to Alvin Langdon Coburn, Demachy, Karl Struss, Baron deMeyer and others, too numerous to mention. This was an incredibly rich time, and there were a lot of great printmakers...

Sounds like a good "reading" list ...

Are (many/most of) the "great printmakers" also photographers, or were they printmakers who provided printing services to photographers?

[Lenny Eiger]

Mark, no worries...

Bill, it's an interesting question. I think there is every flavor. I also think that there were plenty of photographers who had to make a living in some way other than selling their artwork. A lot of people chose something related, like working in one way or another for other photographers. However, there are also people that had enough money to keep going and printing happened to be a serious interest. I think the latter group is smaller, however.

There is something wonderful and enticing about old world craftsmanship, wherever one finds it...

Lenny

[ROL]

Jeez AA's statement is about as simple and clear as one can get. You guys have a lot of free time on your hands?

Found out! ...Mr. 8,137 posts, pot calling the kettle black.

Its called being a monitor for 4 years...…*

Precisely. Made my point. How much did you get paid for that? **












* A triple! (quote) – I believe that may be a record.

** Oh yeah, thanks for your service and all that, but I'm going to be very disappointed if the response isn't, "Not enough!!!")

[David_Senesac]

The thread is obviously about black & white negative film to print and responses are from that perspective. With B&W the whole process from film development to printing is often performed by the individual photographer so from that perspective is much more a performance than with my limited involvement in process.

I never shoot or print B&W with all my work from color transparency film from outdoor landscape and nature work. For that process I don't even scan my own film for any serious prints even though I own an old Epson 2450 and Epson 2880. Instead will get a pricy drum scan from a commercial service not only because the detail captured is superior but the dynamic luminance and especially the color fidelity is much better. Color fidelity that usually cannot effectively be corrected later in post processing. Then printing in color is an even more obvious choice for this person to send media out to professionals as there is a list of variables in the process that will otherwise need to be carefully controlled in order to have any hope of consistent output. Yes it is possible for inviduals and small businesses in the era to produce consistent output with various pricy X-Rite gear and calibrated whatever equipment but I have no interest as someone that has a hi tech career I make a living from to get in that deeply into the processing end of print outputs. In other words I'll leave my artistic contributions to capturing photographs and the rest that would require considerable effort and time to those who know how and have the equipment to do it best.

[Heroique]

What's the music metaphor with transparencies?

Especially if you use an overhead projector.

Maybe the landscape is the score – the transparency is the performance.

If the landscape is, say, the Grand Canyon, the score is the first movement of Beethoven's 9th – and if the transparency is Velvia-50, the performance is Herbert Von Karajan. Astia would be Klemperer, of course.

Or, if the landscape is Mount Rushmore, the score is the national anthem. And if the transparency is Fuji-64T and you forgot the 85b filter, the performance is Jimi Hendrix.

[Lenny Eiger]

Heroique,
Many interesting partially related things have come up in this discussion. However, it appears that everyone has their own way of working, and the metaphor simply holds true for some people, and not for others.
Lenny

[Drew Wiley]

Regardless ... it's always informative to see just how much better a "photographer" becomes once they begin to print for themselves. It goes hand in hand, and it
would be hard to imagine a composer who didn't master at least the piano first. Otherwise... I hate any kind of music in the darkroom.