Didn't Weston say something like he didn't care if a print was made on a bathmat as long as it was good? I'm with him on that. Successful art by my friends or colleagues does not diminish me-it challenges and stimulates me.
Didn't Weston say something like he didn't care if a print was made on a bathmat as long as it was good? I'm with him on that. Successful art by my friends or colleagues does not diminish me-it challenges and stimulates me.
Thanks,
Kirk
at age 73:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep"
I know that this thread is kind dead but I read this thread when I first started my beginning digital class this semester after taking a class in film photography using B&W film, develop, and making an enlarger print and, I had an opinion....I liked glossy and everything was just a degradation of a silver glossy print. Biases of one kind of another are falling by the wayside the more classes that I take. I really do have an astounding professor and he handed me a multiple packs of printer paper from Hahnemuhle and stated because of my personal bias to glossy prints that I had to print my semester series project using each of six types of paper including glossy or I would not be able to obtain a top grade in his class. I protested that nobody else had to do all this work and his reply was simply a smile and a reiteration that a B really was not much of a punishment! He also stated that each images had to be optimized for the paper that I was using "so do a lot of proofs".
What I discovered is that I love them all given certain images be they B&W or color. I am now biased in the matte direction but what it really comes down to is what do you want to do with the image. Deep dark blacks are only good if they are good for the image and besides the image that you see is just an interpretation of what you see.
Now it is difficult for me to choose a paper to print on and it just adds to the fact my photographic life is more blessed complicated!
I am lucky to have found him. He is a talented individual who not only makes sure that we know the technical end but, he makes us throw it out there and he says "Expose your soul"!
I get what you are saying. However, matte paper definitely does have a diminished range
LOL! Of course it does! I would make the point though that an image is a sum total of related parts that include dark black. Photography is so vast that one could spend a lifetime using deep black beautifully in images.....or not! That is why this discipline is able to do what it does.
An image is indeed a sum total of related parts that include dark black. Ultimately its presentation, including the choice of mount board or window mat, is an additional part. I usually frame photographs behind cheap window glass to accommodate buyers in an unsophisticated market. This negates the beauty of printing on matte paper.
Wow - hate is pretty strong word... I just LOVE matt papers and I LOVE glossy- they both have a close place in my heart.
Originally Posted by Old-N-Feeble
Absolutely. Each type of paper can work very well depending on the subject matter and printing to match the paper's unique characteristics.
If D-max was everyone's goal, there would be no platinum or palladium prints. No salt prints or albumen prints, no carbon or bromoil prints, no Daguerreotypes, no cyanotypes, no Kallitypes or Collotypes or gum bichromate prints...
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks