is it the process or the final print that is important?

sun of sand · Nov 6, 2007

I don't believe he's talking about enjoyment at all
yet rather talking chicken or the egg

You cannot have the chicken before you have the egg
Therefore
Egg is vital. Chicken is not vital. Chicken is just chicken. Chicken is because chicken has matured
Final print is matured skill
You cannot have chicken if you try to skip steps along the way
You cannot have final print before knowing how to print in the first place
Process leads to product
Practice makes perfect
Perfect does not make itself in photography
You must create it. In creating it you draw on your experience with every move you make

I would say it is the process that Got you to where you are at that is the most beautiful aspect of the art
Not the print

Do we love paper with nice-looking image on it
or do we appreciate the skill, intelligence and perserverance it shows of the artist?

You could go on and on and on
Do we love our children because we made them and think we have done a great job in raising them (print)
Or do we
-No- Not do we just love the process of makin' babies

Do we create life because life is beautiful ..and must love that of which is living (process)

Several others have said the same thing in different ways
I just wanted to add my way

You can be an artist without ever producing a single product
Cant you?
I imagine plenty would say no, you cannot be.
What about the whole pre-visualization thing then?
If you cannot be an artist without producing something
How would an artist create?
If pre-visualization is real
If you can pre-visualize the way you want your print to appear
You have already created it
But have you?
Sure you have. All that is "missing" is the stuff you hold in your hand -and the necessary experience to produce what you need on paper to reach your goal

The rest of that stuff is just ..Evidence.

cahayapemburu · Nov 7, 2007

The process and product are equally unimportant in my view, just as this debate is unimportant, but if you enjoy either, they're worth your time.

eddym · Nov 7, 2007

cahayapemburu said:
The process and product are equally unimportant in my view, just as this debate is unimportant, but if you enjoy either, they're worth your time.

I'm not so sure about that last part... Maybe debating which is more important is really just a way to avoid having to actually create either one.

Ian Leake · Nov 7, 2007

Debate is valuable if it leads to greater understanding. If it's just, "ya boo, I'm right, you're wrong," then it's pointless. So far this thread has been more of the former than the latter.

eddym · Nov 7, 2007

Ian Leake said:
Debate is valuable if it leads to greater understanding. If it's just, "ya boo, I'm right, you're wrong," then it's pointless. So far this thread has been more of the former than the latter.

Agreed on both points. I just wanted to point out that if you're too busy debating, you're not out photographing... and not making either negatives or prints!

Ian Leake · Nov 7, 2007

eddym said:
Agreed on both points. I just wanted to point out that if you're too busy debating, you're not out photographing... and not making either negatives or prints!

Absolutely. Sometimes it's all too easy to talk about something rather than doing it. Which is why I made some new prints last night and will make some negatives tonight

Thomas Bertilsson · Nov 7, 2007

For me the 'finished product' is a post here at APUG gallery... Just kidding.

A matted and mounted print is the final product for me, and every step from where I set my camera up until the print is in the mat has more or less importance on the outcome. I can honestly say I enjoy the moment of exposure, and turning on the light in the darkroom to see how I did are my two favorite moments. I hate processing film, it sucks so bad I have to find something else to do while doing it, usually mental exercise. But those steps are all important in arriving at the final goal. So for me it's everything.

- Thomas

Peter Schrager · Nov 7, 2007

final judgement

We may care as a group but in the end the viewing or buying public could care less how the final print was made. I rarely if ever have anyone ask me how I took or processed the photo when I have a show....I mean just look at most of the crap that sells in the REAL world!!
Best, Peter

Ian Leake · Nov 7, 2007

Peter Schrager said:
We may care as a group but in the end the viewing or buying public could care less how the final print was made. I rarely if ever have anyone ask me how I took or processed the photo when I have a show....I mean just look at most of the crap that sells in the REAL world!!
Best, Peter

Just because masses of people buy, "the crap that sells in the REAL world," doesn't mean I have to build my photographic life around their whims. If I was particularly interested in the desires of the masses then I did I'd be off shooting celebs, kittens in baskets or whatever. I'm only interested in the relatively small number of people who like my work and find meaning in it. I couldn't do what I do without the specific process I use. So, for me, the process remains integral to the final print. That's my final judgement.

Katharine Thayer · Nov 7, 2007

Ian Leake said:
Debate is valuable if it leads to greater understanding. If it's just, "ya boo, I'm right, you're wrong," then it's pointless. So far this thread has been more of the former than the latter.

I agree, and in fact this thread, and several other threads that are approaching the same issues from slightly different angles, have made me think a lot, and maybe in a couple more days of thinking I'll have more to say about it.
Katharine

Ian Leake · Nov 7, 2007

Katharine Thayer said:
I agree, and in fact this thread, and several other threads that are approaching the same issues from slightly different angles, have made me think a lot, and maybe in a couple more days of thinking I'll have more to say about it.
Katharine

Same here. (Although too much agreement can't be a good thing - this is the internet after all ) This family of threads has helped me clarify in my own mind some important questions about my motivations and what it is that I create. And the result so far is that I'm even more certain that I'm doing something that is important to me rather than doing something merely because I'm influenced by someone else's work, following fashion, or bored with whatever I was doing last week. That feels good

walter23 · Nov 7, 2007

Both. I enjoy the act of getting out and doing photography with the camera, I enjoy the act of making a print, and I like the final print.

I suppose from the standpoint of trying to share the results, it's only the final product that matters, but from a selfish point of view I enjoy everything.

TheFlyingCamera · Nov 7, 2007

I still say the two are basically inseparable. The finished image is what matters, but without the process, the finished image wouldn't look the way it does. I enjoy both parts equally - the entire process of visualizing the image, creating the materials to render the image, and the production of the final image rendered in the medium of delivery.

catem · Nov 7, 2007

I agree it can be difficult, or meaningless, to separate out the process from the final product - when the final product is so very dependent on that process, inseparable from it.

Sometimes, though, I see a final product that lacks any real substance and says 'process' more than anything else, and I find that off-putting and my interest very quickly passes on to something else. Or conversely I see a powerful image that makes me stop and it can effect me profoundly and at that moment I am unaware of the process. That lack of initial awareness - which may be as I say an initial reaction, sometimes followed up by a subsequent interest in and appreciation of the process - does not relate to the care the originator has put into process as part of the work, or to the importance of the process in it. Occasionally I'll be affected by an image that for me is powerful, but I'll feel that the process used has let it down.

I suppose what I'm saying is - it's the final result that counts for me, whether as a practitioner or a viewer, but in the most successful work the final result is a perfect balance of process and final work.

I find it hard to believe that for most artists - whatever the medium, watercolour or anything else - the process is MORE important than the final work.

TheFlyingCamera · Nov 7, 2007

catem said:
I find it hard to believe that for most artists - whatever the medium, watercolour or anything else - the process is MORE important than the final work.

I think for those who process trumps final product, using the term "artist" to describe them is rather generous. They're more like the folks who subscribe to the TV "learn to paint the (insert artists name here) way" program, or the "ladies who paint" set I used to shoot slides for back when I was willing to do that.

Dan Fromm · Nov 7, 2007

catem said:
<snip>
I find it hard to believe that for most artists - whatever the medium, watercolour or anything else - the process is MORE important than the final work.

catem, I find it hard to believe too. But that view has been expressed as strongly as possible in discussions of whether/why to buy a Leica by fans of Leica cameras. When some of them were pressed about how and where a Leica is special, they've gone so far as to say that all that matters to them is the act of taking the exposure.

I don't know whether those people think they're artists. I have no opinion on whether they're artists, do find it easy to believe that they're, um, deluded. But if they're happy with what they're doing, good for them.

Cheers,

Dan

Katharine Thayer · Nov 7, 2007

I spent several hours today viewing an exhibition of Chuck Close prints, and I kept thinking how beautifully this exhibition illustrates the inextricability of process and product. Chuck Close, you probably know, creates mostly portraits, straight-on head and shoulder shots. He works from a photograph, and reproduces the same image again and again in a great variety of printing techniques to produce large prints that appear photographic at a distance. There were dozens of prints in the exhibition, all very large, but the dozens of prints represented only five or six actual images. There were whole rooms that were filled with prints of the same image. The content of each print in the room was exactly the same, in fact from a distance the prints appeared identical for all intents and purposes, but of course at a closer viewing range the differences were striking, the appearance of each print being a function of the process used to make it.

DanielOB · Nov 7, 2007

As many posts pretend to talk about art when own work is in question, here is a hint concerning the mater (original question + art):
what less traces about the means how the work is done, more chances for the same to be work of art.
So when process is in question and art, process is "secret", but make sure you used top tool known in the moment, cencerning your art goal. Art has no connection with compromising.

When the film is exposed, all is over (assuming you are perfect in the "processing"). If manipulation is on the way after the "click" you better off take some painting brushes, for beauty is irelevant in photography, or one is trying to make a girl from grandma.

Daniel OB
www.Leica-R.com

JBrunner · Nov 8, 2007

DanielOB said:
When the film is exposed, all is over (assuming you are perfect in the "processing"). If manipulation is on the way after the "click" you better off take some painting brushes, for beauty is irelevant in photography, or one is trying to make a girl from grandma.

www.Leica-R.com

I don't agree. My process continues, and so do my decisions, long after the exposure is made. Negative developer, neg developing time, temp, paper developer, what kind of stop bath, paper, contrast grade, dodging, etc. You can't print an "unmanipulated" print, because printing is a manipulation in and of its self. There is no standard. It is up to me to interpret the negative and print it as I see fit.

Removed Account · Nov 8, 2007

Ian Leake said:
Just because masses of people buy, "the crap that sells in the REAL world," doesn't mean I have to build my photographic life around their whims. If I was particularly interested in the desires of the masses then I did I'd be off shooting celebs, kittens in baskets or whatever.

What? You don't like shots of babies in baskets at a gardening store with "For Sale" signs on them? Ban teddies!

- Justin

Ian Leake · Nov 8, 2007

cafeharrar said:
What? You don't like shots of babies in baskets at a gardening store with "For Sale" signs on them? Ban teddies!

- Justin

How can anyone dislike cute babies in baskets I love them of course! But I don't want to make them. More seriously though, I also love Edward Weston's work, but I don't want to make "me too" peppers. And I love AA's work, but I don't want to make "me too" landscapes. And I love Ruth Bernhards work, but I don't want to make "me too" nudes.

I want to make something that's important to me and build an audience who appreciate what I do. At the moment my audience is quite small, but I'm confident that with hard work and patience it will grow. I'm confident because there are people out there who appreciate what I do, are interested in how I do it, and are prepared to spend real money to buy my prints.

Photography is not just about the image: it's about a final product (in my case a print), an image, a personal perspective on the world, and a process which binds them all together.

eddym · Nov 8, 2007

TheFlyingCamera said:
I still say the two are basically inseparable. The finished image is what matters, but without the process, the finished image wouldn't look the way it does. I enjoy both parts equally - the entire process of visualizing the image, creating the materials to render the image, and the production of the final image rendered in the medium of delivery.

That's the bottom line to me. I too enjoy the entire process... but it ain't over until the print is hanging on the wall!

eddym · Nov 8, 2007

Dan Fromm said:
catem, I find it hard to believe too. But that view has been expressed as strongly as possible in discussions of whether/why to buy a Leica by fans of Leica cameras. When some of them were pressed about how and where a Leica is special, they've gone so far as to say that all that matters to them is the act of taking the exposure.

I shoot Leicas... but I've yet to have an orgasm by just pushing the shutter release. I may consider it the best tool for certain jobs... but it's still just a tool, and all it does is take pictures.

eddym · Nov 8, 2007

Ian Leake said:
kittens in baskets...

And just what's wrong with kittens....???

Lasse · Nov 8, 2007

I like to work in the darkroom but looking the negatives is usually more pleasing than the final print. That is strange, I know.

is it the process or the final print that is important?

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is it the process or the final print that is important?

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