What is your maximum print size?

[CP Goerz]

An old wedding photographer pal of mine said something that applies to many images that are overly enlarged for galleries...'If you can't make em good, make em big!'

CP Goerz.

[domenico Foschi]

Not too many people understand the concept of 'less is more' . Unfortunately galleries owners bend to the demands of the clients, especially the rich ones , who more likely than not , are real conosseurs in bad taste . This regulates the demand for huge prints to be hang in their big empty walls .

[Jay DeFehr]

The vast majority of my prints to this point have been 8x10, mostly for practical reasons. 6x7 and 4x5 enlarge conveniently to 8x10, and I have only contact printed my 8x10 negatives. I've made prints up to 20x24 from 4x5 negatives when I worked at a pro lab and the materials were free, but never really got comfortable with it, and have nowhere to display prints that size. I've recently fallen in love with 12x16 format after buying J&C's Fomatone MG contact/enlarging paper in that size. When I finish my 12x16 camera, I'll contact print my 12x16 negs and enlarge my 3x4 negs on this beautiful paper. I did recently purchase an 8x10 enlarger, so I can definitley see some large prints in my future, but probably not beyond 24x30 or so.

[darter]

If you go to the New York galleries contemporary photography is synonymous with really big - many feet wide. Whereas the works of the old masters are small and are sold in separate, smaller gallery spaces. While a Kertesz might still look pretty good if blown up to "contemporary" proportions, the works of most of the contemporary photographic artists I've seen would be unnoticeable if forced to shrink down to 8x10. In my view, you have to be really good to make a small photograph stand out. On the other hand, galleries are businesses, they have to sell to individuals who are building truly massive houses, who eventually bequest their works to really big museums. As soon as manufacturers start making digital printers that can make inexpensive wallpaper photomurals, big will start to loose its cache'.

[domenico Foschi]

To paraphrase your old friend , Andrew : If you have nothing to say, say it loud .

[tim o'brien]

Speaking of truley aggrandizing, I like when a photographer contact prints 16X20 and mats to 4X5 or 5X7.

tim in san jose

[Donal Taylor]

I've always wondered why (technical limitations aside) photography has so often seemed satisfied with miniatures.

For a long long time it has been possible to make very large photographs. And moderately large ones were easily done.

Yet photography seems to have allowed itself so often to be stuck at 8x10, 11x14 or 16x20 at most. Note all the negative (nay snide) comments on here about big photographs. Yet other creative art forms never seem to have had a problem with doing something big - big paintings, big murals or frescos, big sculptures or bronzes etc. Without the same hang-ups.

And contrary to what seems to be a common held belief here - "If you can't make it good -- make it BIG." just doesn't hold up. A bad photograph is just more obviously bad when it's big. It won't make up for the lack of content but on the contrary, it will merely emphasise it - as show by the parallel discussion on Burtynsky's biog photographs. Consensus seems to be he's a good photographer, but not great, which is probably spot on. Point being - his really big prints emphasise that weakness rather than hide or mask it - something that seems obvious from the discussion.

And the "less is more" argument actually works better for bad photographs as a whole. Lets face it - there are more than enough bad small photographs to last each of a lifetime. If it's small and cute you might just pas by to the next in line and hopefully not really notice it was crap.

There's a humorous aspect to this as well - much of this list is about obsessing on the sharpest lens, the best resolution, ultimate film flatness, the biggest heaviest most rigid camera etc etc ad nauseam. Then people go and print at 11x14 or 16x20, or, heaven forbid - make 8x10 contacts. No, if you are using 35mm I can see the problems when you get to large prints - but if you are photographing on 4x5 or 8x10 film then you could probably get away with using the bottom of a Guinness bottle for those sized prints. Why all the Super apo HM megagon lenses if you are never going to take advantage of them. It seems that there is more of a fear of large prints because they do indeed highlight both the technical and artistic weaknesses of the photographer in the most obvious way.

A technically excellent and artistically strong photograph is usually only enhanced by being printed large - which takes advantage of the benefits of using large format. Indeed such large prints often bring out things in the image which just can't be seen or recognised in tiny prints. A weak photograph will only look weaker printed large.

[Bill_1856]

Crispin, if you really do wonder why photographs are printed so small then you obviously don't do your own darkroom work.

[Tadge Dryja]

I have to kindof agree with Crispin here. I guess people here shoot large format for very different reasons than I do. I got into LF so that I could make big prints that looked good. After about 11x14, 35mm just doesn't look very good. I've printed 4x5 negs on 8x10 for people, and I almost feel like it was a waste of effort to shoot on 4x5. Sure, it's sharp, but you can get really nice looking 8x10s from 35mm, which is a lot cheaper, easier, and doesn't weigh 30 pounds.

I generally print 20x24 because that's the largest size that's reasonably convenient, and paper larger than this usually comes in rolls, which are difficult to use. I have printed 40x50. It's a pain, sure, but some things look really nice that big. And I don't nessecarily think it's a "If you can't make it good, at least make it big" kindof thing. Sure, you see boring photographs that try to derive their power from their physical size, but if you have a really great image, why not blow it up? To painters, 40x50 is nothing special. In my painting classes people make 8' canvasses all the time, it's neither looked down upon, nor unduly praised.

Some things have a size they need to "live" at. Printing things larger than life-sized can sometimes be weird (but again, that effect can be exploited as well).

So I'm curious: to all of you who enlarge 4x5 to only 11x14, why bother with sheet film & view cameras? Wouldn't a 6x7 or something make more sense? Is it just because of movements? Can you really tell the difference in graininess? All I know is that when I want to make smallish prints, I grab my Canon EOS with all the fancy autofocus and motors and meters and stuff.

-tadge

[Donal Taylor]

"if you really do wonder why photographs are printed so small then you obviously don't do your own darkroom work."

I think you miss my point - that is simply an artificially imposed limtiation in a way - which in the end amounts to little more than an excuse.

There are photographers who do their own darkroom work and very successfully make very large prints.

Also, digital has freed colour up in this sense. Not only does it provide the sort of controls and adjustments that were at one time mainly reserved only for B&W - it also allows a photographer to make superb large colour prints while retaining all that control.