Destroying Negatives to Limit Print Production...

I am relatively new to "Fine Art" photography and philosophy, so please forgive me if my understanding is lacking somewhat. I welcome this opportunity to learn a few things. Here's my rant:

In the latest issue of B&W Magazine, an advertisement for a certain gallery in Ireland boasts about how they conduct an annual burning of "negatives that have reached the end of their five-year life span". The reason given is to "put a dramatic halt" to the "potential for infinite reproductions".

While I've always found the limiting of prints to a certain number a little puzzling, the burning of negatives seems to me downright idiotic. If one really has a pressing need to halt "infinite reproductions", the motives for which are dubious enough, why go to such extremes as burning the negs? I've heard of pretentiousness in art, but this takes the cake.

Someone please enlighten me, please.

hkr said:

Someone please enlighten me, please.

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Sorry I can't help here, this is a practice that I disagree with. While I do limit the number of prints I make in a series, I don't destroy the negatives (or transparencies in my case). The image may be dead for fine art prints - once the limit has been reached - but, not for other uses.

How can a "limited edition" be limited if there exists a negative? The pretentiousness is in the photographer who thinks by limiting the print run of a photograph they become somehow more valuable (pricier). This may be true if you can prove there cannot be another print made, thus: burn baby burn. It takes a lot of guts to destroy a negative.

Bruce (Camclicker) said:

How can a "limited edition" be limited if there exists a negative? The pretentiousness is in the photographer who thinks by limiting the print run of a photograph they become somehow more valuable (pricier). This may be true if you can prove there cannot be another print made, thus: burn baby burn. It takes a lot of guts to destroy a negative.

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Well, there are quite a few definitions in the print world, you may have a neg that is used for limited edition fine art prints in which you only print say maybe 50 or 100 of, these would be limited to that number and normally numbered, signed and matted or framed to archivial standards.

Once that print run is done, many like me, will do posters of the print and postcards or use the image in a calendar run, very common in the photography print world, I don't know that destroying the neg would equate to higher prices, heck even some of the Adams prints are now being re-done or done in poster runs and postcard runs. Like Robert said, just because the limited edition print run is done, does not mean there are other uses the can be done.

Dave

Bruce (Camclicker) said:

How can a "limited edition" be limited if there exists a negative?

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Because in the State of Hawaii, anyone selling limited edition prints must account for every print sold (and include a Certificate of Authenticity for each print as well). This is state law; one of only two states in the US to have such a law.

if leonardo da vinci "printed" 150 identical mona lisa's, would they be worth anything, or would they just be a run of the mill ?

i don't see any problem whatsoever that they burn or destroy the film.

you said it bruce!

Destroying negatives is a horrible thing. Photographers must exercise ethics, honesty and integrity when limiting editions and ensure that no additional prints are made for sale. The negatives could for example be locked in some type of escrow structure or something with a set of controls and rules. Destruction is way too harsh. I limit the number of prints that I sell from a particular negative but reserve the right to make prints for advertising and or exhibition purposes and I will honor the edition limit. The value of work would certainly decrease if I were to violate that honor.

hkr said:

a certain gallery in Ireland boasts about how they conduct an annual burning of "nagatives that have reacehed the end of their five-year life span". The reason given is to "put a dramatic halt" to the "potential for infinite reproductions".Someone please enlighten me, please.

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2 words: Publicity stunt Reminds me of those late night ads for commemorative crockery that was limited to 50 or whatever "firing days" -- of course thousands could have been made every one of those days, but the illusion of specialness has been conveyed.

One interesting point has not been touched: they might think that an absolutely limited edition of a print (by destroying the negative) justifies a higher selling price.

Burning negatives... they will regret that once...

G

argus said:

Burning negatives... they will regret that once...

G

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i have destroyed hand made negatives after making one print from them. i have sold these prints, and have never regretted one bit that the negative is gone.

photography's greatness and biggest flaw is that many prints can come of one negative.

roteague said:

Because in the State of Hawaii, anyone selling limited edition prints must account for every print sold (and include a Certificate of Authenticity for each print as well). This is state law; one of only two states in the US to have such a law.

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What do you have to enforce this, the print police? Certificates of Authenticity always make me laugh. They are worthless pieces of paper. I'm tempted to ask for a Certificate of Authenticity for any Certificates of Authenticity I'm offered! (and so on, and so on, and so on!)
-Bob

laz said:

What do you have to enforce this, the print police? Certificates of Authenticity always make me laugh. They are worthless pieces of paper. I'm tempted to ask for a Certificate of Authenticity for any Certificates of Authenticity I'm offered! (and so on, and so on, and so on!)
-Bob

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Like most other things in life; it is based upon individual integrity and honesty.

Here is a limited edition print 3 of 3: http://www.kenduncan.com/gallery.php?ms=19&fn=rtprod&id=2320 - only $60000.00 AUD

This scene no longer exits. Should this transparency be destroyed? or kept as a record for the future.

jnanian said:

photography's greatness and biggest flaw is that many prints can come of one negative.

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The problem with this is that a large part of what photography is and always has been is the ability to make multiple prints from a single negative. Also the reality is that when making prints in the darkroom no two are really exactly the same.

Pretentious beyond belief. When y'all are that famous that the art world is demanding that you destroy your film - I'll consider it. Until then, it's a gimmick trumped to artificially inflate the alleged "worth" of a photograph.

It's an inherent, working part of photography that negative or transparency images exist outside of the print. Destroying the image after making the prints is a ludicrous attempt to copy fine art print making such as lithographs, serigraphs, and etchings where the stones are reground or plates or screens are destroyed when the edition is finished.

The DIFFERENCE is that in fine art print making, there is a real reason to destroy the image - the printing process itself degrades the stone, plate, or screen. Therefore, the artist WANTS the stone, plate, or screen destroyed so that INFERIOR IMAGES (those that do not match the artist's proof) cannot be made.

They are NOT destroyed in as part of a trumped up, fake reason to limit image production.

This is a personal integrity problem - not a film destruction problem.

I agree with the premise that any darkroom printed, handmade, silver-based traditional photograph is a one-of-a-kind. That is one of my main objections with digital images--they tend to cheapen the value of traditional photographs because there is no true original. Because of this, I think destroying the negative is ridiculous.

I think I remember Ansel Adams was known to use a check-cancelling machine on some of his negatives. This was in the days when checks were cancelled by perforating them. Ouch!

steve said:

Pretentious beyond belief. When y'all are that famous that the art world is demanding that you destroy your film - I'll consider it. Until then, it's a gimmick trumped to artificially inflate the alleged "worth" of a photograph.

This is a personal integrity problem - not a film destruction problem.

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I couldn't agree with this more, and I'm so thrilled people have weighed in my OP. I mean, from the BUYERS perspective, if I love a photograph enough to buy it, why wish that not too many other people feel the same way?

Sellers who burn negatives to artificially inflate prices are fools.

I am thinking about buying an HCB picture which I love (later print form the 70s, I think), and have no problem with the hundreds or thousands that probably already own this print.

Destroying negatives is an idiotic publicity stunt. Even sillier is the self-important practice of limiting editions forced on artists by gallery owners who think no one would ever buy photographic art without this gimmick.

Makes more sense to me to number prints sequentially and have the price escalate with each x number of prints by y % (x and y depending on market demand, photographer's reputation, etc...) until each print finds its market price. Those who buy early see appreciation, and those buying later at least shouldn't lose money.

The print it "limited" because the photographer says so. If they lie about this, then they're probably lieing about burning the negative. Unless you see the print being made, and then take the neg from the carrier your self and put a flame to it, you're pretty much taking the photographers word for it.

As for the Mona Lisa - I believe he painted at least three. On of the three is more famous, and doesn't seem to have had it's value at all decreased by the existance of the others.

Ian

Lee Shively said:

I agree with the premise that any darkroom printed, handmade, silver-based traditional photograph is a one-of-a-kind. That is one of my main objections with digital images--they tend to cheapen the value of traditional photographs because there is no true original. Because of this, I think destroying the negative is ridiculous.

I think I remember Ansel Adams was known to use a check-cancelling machine on some of his negatives. This was in the days when checks were cancelled by perforating them. Ouch!

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He did that briefly. I read in his auto-biography that he regretted destroying his negatives more than he ever regretted about anything else.

If I was a famous photographer and the 'art world' insisted I destroy my negatives, I'd tell them to go f themselves. They would have to rely on my honor as a professional to not make additional prints of a photograph I pronounced 'limited' And by the way, I'd never claim I was making a limited run of prints.

Adams learned more and more about print making as he got older. If you look at early prints of some of his famous images and compare them to prints he made later in life (the Denali picture for example) you will see he radically improved the image.

Suppose he had declared his early Denali 'limited' and then later on made a far better print but had to tear it up because he had told the 'art world' 40 years before that he wasn't going to make another.

I'm against 'limited edition' prints for that reason. Sure, my stuff (if I ever sold any!) might not command a premium but at least I'd be entirely free to change my artistic expression whenever I felt like it.

127 said:

As for the Mona Lisa - I believe he painted at least three. On of the three is more famous, and doesn't seem to have had it's value at all decreased by the existance of the others.

Ian

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da vinci made 3 identical paintings of the mona lisa?

i know duchamp made one

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~djr4r/LHOOQ.html

jnanian said:

da vinci made 3 identical paintings of the mona lisa?

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By the time he did the third, she had an enigmatic frown on her face. She looked kind of like this --->

The tradition of limiting the run of a print comes of course from lithography, because a stone or block had a finite life.

It can be argued that so to does a negative. Except the limitation is the artist.

Adams and Strand left a neat conversation about this sort of thing.

Adams felt one could make an infinite number of fine prints a given negative at equal or better quality. He identified a 'run' or 'edition' from a given time: the prints are not identical, he evolved as an artist and printed the scene differently as an old man than he did earlier on. Simply put, Adams felt he should charge less and make more prints.

Strand felt he should charge more, and make fewer. He was a different person, worked differently. He did not WANT to go back reprint old work.

They both knew their days were running out and drove themselves hard to print theire final work. They each had superb assistance. Strand left fewer prints, which were of a uniformly higher standard. Adams left quite a variation over the years... simply because he went back over his old work. He left many negatives unprinted. But he was always worried over money, and ran a business as best he could.

It should be noted that neither man ever got the big prices for their work that galleries began to demand in the late '70s.

Brett Weston destroyed his negs when he died, concerned that nobody else print them. They were HIS work, and they would go when he went.

The only thing pretentious about living photographers destroying their negatives is the notion that their work is important enough to worry about. Not many need to worry about it.

The idea of limiting an edition, for me, is that if I make 25 images from a negative I can then put it away and be done with it. But it is much more efficient to make a small edition of prints, and then make an edition of giclee or litho prints that can sell at a lower price and be counted on to be profitable with no offense to one who would buy a fine silver print.

.

hkr said:

I am relatively new to "Fine Art" photography and philosophy, so please forgive me if my understanding is lacking somewhat. I welcome this opportunity to learn a few things. Here's my rant:

In the latest issue of B&W Magazine, an advertisement for a certain gallery in Ireland boasts about how they conduct an annual burning of "nagatives that have reached the end of their five-year life span". The reason given is to "put a dramatic halt" to the "potential for infinite reproductions".

While I've always found the limiting of prints to a certain number a little puzzling, the burning of negatives seems to me downright idiotic. If one really has a pressing need to halt "infinite reproductions", the motives for which are dubious enough, why go to such extremes as burning the negs? I've heard of pretentiousness in art, but this takes the cake.

Someone please enlighten me, please.

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I cant see the logic in this myself. It made all the news channels over here so whatever it is it is good marketing.

Heres some more info on the event itself from the photographers website.
http://www.pipsgallery.com/burn.html You can even see the video;

Apparently theres no truth in the rumour of Xtol failure

I agree with Brett Weston: (Brett Weston destroyed his negs when he died, concerned that nobody else print them. They were HIS work, and they would go when he went.) Though far from being on the same level as Mr. Weston, I have already begun doing the same. I have never thought of my photography work as "Fine Art" and never will! Many picture makers wish to become famous and leave some sort of mark that will never be forgotten.
I have no such wish! I do not want my negatives printed by anyone else. I came into this world with nothing and completely unknown it is my wish to leave exactly the same way. Clorox does a much nicer job of clearing a negative than burning. A "Limited Edition" does nothing for me! Charlie.....