Photography Intimate

[janepaints]

My taste tends towards photos as intimate objects, in both the making and the viewing.

LF contact prints seem plenty big. Enlarging rollfilm or 35mm to about 7" maximum in any dimension seems fine. I love the way square 120 images look, enlarged to about 6" x 6", surrounded by whiteness on 8x10" photopaper.

I love the size & look of Polaroid SX-70 photos. RIP, Time Zero!, Alas.

Books--not necessarily the grand 'coffee table' size--are a very-fave medium for photos. I get way lost in photo books.

I prefer looking at photos held in hand rather than wall-mounted, but when wall-mounted I still prefer modest dimensions. Many images which impressed me in reduced form seemed much less impressive when viewed wall-displayed at great enlargement.

Large-scale paintings don't bother me--many are faves, which may be linked to why large-scale photos tend to underwhelm me:

Few Paintings are strictly 2-dimensional. Almost all paint surfaces lump-and-bump, drip, crack, all kinda little nooks & crannies, intentional or incidental variances in reflectance, impasto brushstrokes as tiny sculpted bas-reliefs. Built-up layers of paint, whether via thick-opaque or transparent glaze, creating thicknesses & depths of surface which are often integral to the overall power and effect. Many who employ thicker paint create surfaces resembling mosaics, jewels or natural-seeming textures resonant of bark, leaves, sand etc. Jackson Pollock, Van Gogh or Monet, as examples.

But photo-print papers have uniform surfaces and that uniformity, at large-scale, tends to diminish the power of the imagery, IMO. This diminishment strikes me as somehow being at odds with the 'magic illusion' aspect of photography. The smooth and uniform dominates. I get the feeling that I'm just looking at posters. When intimate in print size, or via reproduction in bookform, this uniformity of surface calls less-or-no attention to itself. I sense a peering-into the photo or entering a portal into some alternate reality.

This is a 'happy coincidence' regarding my own photomaking: I have a 5x7" contact frame and 5x7" & 4x5" cameras. When I finally buy an inkjet printer, max printsize of 8x10" (or, maybe, 8" x panorama capability) is all I'll need. WAY Less Cash Output required. Smaller file sizes, so less computer-power needed. Whew, that was close.

This is all just 'IMO'. There's many other notions regarding Scale of Photographs, Effect Of Print Size, etc. As many as there are photographers or photo viewers...

So, what do you folks think, regarding Pix Size? 'Less Is More' or 'Supersize Me'?

But then, I think yon basic $50 dollar Sony boombox is all the hi-fi stereo I'll ever need

[Donald Miller]

I honestly think that print size depends on the subject of the photograph. I have some beautiful prints at 16X20 and in my opinion to bring them to a smaller size would diminish them. I also have contact prints that would be diminished if they were printed larger. One of the finest prints that I have ever seen (not mine even though I wish that it were) was a 2 1/4 X 3 1/4 contact.

I have thought for years that the finest prints were made on silver glossy paper...that was until recently when I made some prints on Hannemuhle matt rag...the texture of that paper adds another dimension to the visual experience in my opinion. Had I not begun printing digital images, I would probably not have come to that assessment any other way. In my experience, carbon pigment inks on matt paper certainly are as fine as any glossy print that I have ever made...different, sure, but fine nonetheless.

Insofar as keeping things simple, I am a guy and we get more hung up on gadgets...My latest endeavor is working with still images and combining them with HD video for what I intend to be a more complete visual experience.

[janepaints]

One of the finest prints that I have ever seen (not mine even though I wish that it were) was a 2 1/4 X 3 1/4 contact.

I have thought for years that the finest prints were made on silver glossy paper...

Had I not begun printing digital images, I would probably not have come to that assessment any other way. In my experience, carbon pigment inks on matt paper certainly are as fine as any glossy print that I have ever made...different, sure, but fine nonetheless.

The small contact print you loved?

Have you ever seen Marjorie Content's photos?

Smallish negs, many contact-printed.

I've only seen her photos via a book...and a few on-line.

Photo by Marjorie Content:

[Greg Lockrey]

I am of the mindset that nothing should ever be smaller than an 8x10" on print. Smaller images are usually pulled closer to the eye to fill a field of view and because of this the eye is put at a strain to focus on it. As for large: I like them as large as a room will allow. I like the feeling of "standing in the print". When they are that large, they have to be made better than one that is only 8x10" so that the depth and clarity appear similar to the smaller print but when made large, it becomes overwhelming. (I like overwhelming. )

[Ash]

Some of my favourite photo's are family photo's. They are all of a small size. I contact printed some 4x5 for the first time yesterday, and it was amazing. I quite liked the miniature appeal.


On the other hand for my final piece next month, I'll be using 4x5 negs and the prints MUST be 10x8 or larger, and considering the format I'm using there is no point printing smaller than 12x16. There aren't good enough facilities in college or even in my own darkroom to print larger. That's where my choice in format and print size becomes clearer - what works best at the time.

I have to agree though, sometimes small prints make all the difference.


Sadly I must say I would have preferred to see the Whole Plate contact prints from Walker Evans as huge prints, the size was just too small to enjoy; each wall had maybe 6 prints in the space I would have loved to see one or two at a 'good' size.

[darr]

I like prints on 11x14" paper surrounded by a border the image creates by composition. Anything larger I leave for museums.

[Frank Petronio]

I always make 8x10s to proof but when I've done some of my stuff larger, like 22 x 28, it really takes on a different character. But some are better small.

I treasure the original Polaroids too, it is all good.

[reellis67]

I too prefer smaller prints, but I cannot deny that, as Donald stated above, in some examples a larger print serves the vision better. My own preference for subject matter tends to play to my preference for prints no larger than 11"x14", and more commonly 8"x10" (or smaller!). There is certainly an intimacy in smaller prints that, to me, relates to the small details of the world that get overlooked, but that's just me....

- Randy

[John Kasaian]

IMHO it all depends on the subject matter and ultimate use. I've long felt that 11x14 is the absolute largest photo that would look comfortable hanging in the average residential room, but not all photographs are meant to hang in living rooms. An 8x10 aerial of a mountain blown up to 16x20 or larger is to me a glorious visual adventure, but a 5x7 contact of my bride's potting bench in a simple mat is far more appealing to my eye than an enlargement of the same. I think size matters most in relation to purpose: if the tiniest details are important a larger print helps, but if instead the artistic impression is what is significant, excessive size can dilute the expression (?) This is an interesting subject to think about--thanks!

[Brian Ellis]

"Have you ever seen Marjorie Content's photos?

Smallish negs, many contact-printed."

I've never seen her original prints. However, I do have a book of her photographs, probably the same one you've seen - "Marjorie Content - Photographs," Jill Quasha ed. The first time I saw her work I thought it was terrific, I don't remember where it was but it led me to buy the book. However, her photographs haven't worn well for me. After repeated viewings of the book a lot of the photographs look a little too obviously influenced by (copied from?) the work of better-known photographers of the time, primarily her mentor and close friend Alfred Steiglitz. The book is nicely done though and worth having for anyone who's a fan of 1920s - 1940s modernist photography.