is the shot worth the effort?

removed account4 · Feb 16, 2018

jtk said:
I didn't complain about "quality" on media section, I tried to point out redundancy...often rocks/water/trees etc. A little of that is great, a lot gets..... .

all of photography is redundant, not really sure why the photrio gallery would be any different.
IDK 5 genres? people pictures, nudes, 'scapes, object pictures and non representational ones...
its the same old same old same old .. and ive seen some killer ones in the photrio galerly , that is for sure...
and unlike a lot of people who are hard-core-fimies i dont' really care how the images were made ... developer made from asparagus "tailings"
to make oxalyc based developer fantastic made from a cellphone camera and manipulated to death .. sounds like fun.
redundant, heck yeah ... do i care, nope.

blockend · Feb 16, 2018

Photography used to be something one showed to friends and family. In that context most shots had relevance. Beyond that were varieties of documentary, which still had traction in the communities they recorded, and art photography which had an enthusiastic if limited audience. Since the internet we are supposed to compete with the best photographs ever taken in a genre, and with people who have almost infinite resources to throw at their hobby/profession. Its completely unrealistic that most photographers can compete with those exemplars. What we can do is exhaustively record our own corner of the world and the people who inhabit it. We are the best placed people in existence to do that, and if we're creative and dedicated enough the pictures may live on to small or great acclaim.

jtk · Feb 21, 2018

blockend said:
What on earth are you talking about? On what planet is a silver, platinum, or lith print inferior to an inkjet one? My point was simply if you want a hard copy of a large percentage of your output, as was generally the case in film days before lingering death on a hard drive became the norm, big businesses are set up for such volumes. I pay 50p for a 12 x 8" colour ink jet print, and a few pence for a 6 x 4, which fulfil my requirements for mass printing.

FWIW I have my own darkroom and have worked in them for love and money for four decades. If I want a drum scan, a large fine print from a digital source, a dye transfer print, an out-sided chromogenic print, I take the source to the appropriate professionals who I've worked with for years. My requirement for high quality giclee/ink prints doesn't justify investing in the gear. I don't have the volume of digital images that deserve printing big on a regular basis. I assume you have your own pit and computer diagnostic equipment to service your car?

Now that you mention it, I don't service my own car. Did until I made a lot of money with photography.

By the way, "giclee" isn't a proper term for inkjet prints (just a scam). And...I doubt you've ordered a dye transfer print in the last 40 years or so..good Ektacolor with interneg was always better than the best dye transfer. If your concern is archival stability, digital gives you that in spades because most inkjet print technologies are archival and all digital files can be stored in duplicate...on your hard drive and in the cloud (multiple places if you want).

blockend · Feb 21, 2018

jtk said:
Now that you mention it, I don't service my own car. Did until I made a lot of money with photography.

By the way, "giclee" isn't a proper term for inkjet prints (just a scam). And...I doubt you've ordered a dye transfer print in the last 40 years or so..good Ektacolor with interneg was always better than the best dye transfer. If your concern is archival stability, digital gives you that in spades because most inkjet print technologies are archival and all digital files can be stored in duplicate...on your hard drive and in the cloud (multiple places if you want).

1. Yes, I know giclee is a neologism.
2. There is some old dye transfer stock knocking around. It turns up every so often.
3. I haven't used an interneg since the early 90s, generally for transferring 35mm to larger formats.
4. Archival stability is not the most important aspect, a monochrome print should be good for a couple of hundred years. Access, ownership and platform instability are more pressing concerns.
5. I don't share your optimism that future storage will resemble current versions, technologically or commercially. My lifetime won't be long enough to know who's correct. If you used Ektacolor and dye transfer, neither will yours.
6. Conflating your opinions on image survival and their commercial worth is known as a logical fallacy.

jtk · Feb 21, 2018

blockend said:

I've no idea, they were returned before I got to know them. They were purchased on a quick appraisal, and when I returned the second one I looked more closely at the feedback, which said avoid like the plague. Which I have. I still have a spare set of unused inks because neither machine came close to exhausting the inks that came with them.

Click to expand...

Brilliant.

jtk · Feb 21, 2018

blockend said:

1. Yes, I know giclee is a neologism.
2. There is some old dye transfer stock knocking around. It turns up every so often.
3. I haven't used an interneg since the early 90s, generally for transferring 35mm to larger formats.
4. Archival stability is not the most important aspect, a monochrome print should be good for a couple of hundred years. Access, ownership and platform instability are more pressing concerns.
5. I don't share your optimism that future storage will resemble current versions, technologically or commercially. My lifetime won't be long enough to know who's correct. If you used Ektacolor and dye transfer, neither will yours.
6. Conflating your opinions on image survival and their commercial worth is known as a logical fallacy.

Click to expand...

You need to get out more often, look around.

Photo collectors commonly attribute dollar value to likelihood of a print's long survival. That's why galleries specify "archival inkjet" unless they specify silver gelatin or similar. The "better" galleries (I'm a snob) and certainly all museums accept and specify one or the other.

blockend · Feb 21, 2018

jtk said:
Brilliant.

I should say in case it wasn't clear that both Canon printers failed within days, as their detractors suggested they might. They were not returned on a whim.

blockend · Feb 21, 2018

jtk said:
You need to get out more often, look around.

Photo collectors commonly attribute dollar value to likelihood of a print's long survival. That's why galleries specify "archival inkjet" unless they specify silver gelatin or similar. The "better" galleries (I'm a snob) and certainly all museums accept and specify one or the other.

I'm not a snob, so long as the thing saying Fuji sooper-dooper crystal archive whatever and the inks meet the best industry standards, I'm happy. I know more about the fine art world than the fine photography world, and that stuff can be in supermarket poster paint on a cereal packet if the provenance is right, and it won't affect financial values either way.

removed account4 · Feb 22, 2018

blockend said:
I gave up inkjet printing after neither of my Canon printers lasted more than a month.

weird
we had a pixma IP4200. used it to print out REEMS of text pages and hundreds of ink prints ( 5x7+8x10 )
just found the receipt - purchased in 2005, retired it last year because of a clogged head. it took a little while
to get the settings figured out ... but that is like a film developer test ...
i dreaded going to staples to get ink, it cost $85 a wack for the inks, that lasted about 5-7 months ... currently using
an all in one epson printer/scanner it works even better, and been about a year since we got it... wish it had a transparancy adapter...

Gerald C Koch · Feb 22, 2018

jtk said:
I'm certain that many inkjet printer users could whup your best darkroom prints, if in fact you still make them.

Rally? Then you are easily pleased. I too gave up on ink jet printers when a I got white lines across the prints from a plugged jet in a cartridge. There ARE those on APUG that can make professional grade prints.

Sirius Glass · Feb 22, 2018

jtk said:
I'm certain that many inkjet printer users could whup your best darkroom prints, if in fact you still make them.

Glad to see that you will believe anything that you want to. Please send whatever you are smoking to me, as I would use some unreality too.

removed account4 · Feb 22, 2018

jtk said:
I'm certain that many inkjet printer users could whup your best darkroom prints, if in fact you still make them.

yes there are !
they just don't advertise it and make a religion out of it.

Gerald C Koch said:
There ARE those on APUG that can make professional grade prints.

yes there are !
they just don't advertise it and make a religion out of it.

jtk · Feb 22, 2018

jnanian said:
yes there are !
they just don't advertise it and make a religion out of it.

yes there are !
they just don't advertise it and make a religion out of it.

APUG is now gone, as we all know. But yes, there certainly guys who advertise their printing and ask for worship.

blockend said:
I should say in case it wasn't clear that both Canon printers failed within days, as their detractors suggested they might. They were not returned on a whim.

Some folks are more subject to whimsical decisions than others. Are you the guy that bought the Brooklyn Bridge?

eddie · Feb 22, 2018

Why is it that people feel the need to demean the decisions of others (analog vs. digital) in order to justify their personal choice? Whenever this happens (and it's more often than I'd like on this site), I can't help thinking it's due to some sort of insecurity on the part of the poster. I only do analogue- start to finish. Still, I'm not threatened by digital work. I assume that their decision to make digital photographs fit their needs, as my decision fits mine. The sooner the "us vs them" mentality (when it comes to how images are created) ends, the sooner we can judge the photographs on their merit, rather than as a referendum on how they were created.

faberryman · Feb 22, 2018

jtk said:
You need to get out more often, look around.

Photo collectors commonly attribute dollar value to likelihood of a print's long survival. That's why galleries specify "archival inkjet" unless they specify silver gelatin or similar. The "better" galleries (I'm a snob) and certainly all museums accept and specify one or the other.

Is there any serious digital photographer that doesn't print with archival pigment ink? It is hardly necessary to specify. Who uses a cheap printer with dye inks? And galleries and museums don't accept "one or the other" silver gelatin or pigment ink, they accept both, as well as a variety of other processes.

jtk · Feb 22, 2018

faberryman said:
Is there any serious digital photographer that doesn't print with archival pigment ink? It is hardly necessary to specify. Who uses a cheap printer with dye inks? And galleries and museums don't accept "one or the other" silver gelatin or pigment ink, they accept both, as well as a variety of other processes.

Agreed, for the most part. However many digital photographers do take risks with non-OEM pigment, or even use the more transient "dye"....still, one photographer I know of makes her own dye with oak gall, somehow printing on her own home-made paper.

Saying "archival inkjet" on a print's description indicates a photographer's desire to not mention "Canon" or "Epson" pigment...or perhaps due to a gallery's banning of brand names, possibly for commercial/branding reasons.

blockend · Feb 23, 2018

jtk said:
Some folks are more subject to whimsical decisions than others. Are you the guy that bought the Brooklyn Bridge?

A guy who made a million from photography, and a comedian. We truly are not worthy.

removed account4 · Feb 23, 2018

jtk said:
APUG is now gone, as we all know. But yes, there certainly guys who advertise their printing and ask for worship.

i haven't come across anyone who posts their work in the photrio ( née apug ) gallery who advertises
whatever shooting/printing/imagemaking methods they use and ask for hero or any other kind of worship. its ususlly just people
with no work in the gallery, no website link to go to in their signature just loud and frequent posts mainly
to tear someone else / "others" down or their methods or the type of image making they do &c. and if it fits the age old
internet truism, there are a lot of 13 year old girls using their parent's wi-fi access.

eddie said:
The sooner the "us vs them" mentality (when it comes to how images are created) ends, the sooner we can judge the photographs on their merit, rather than as a referendum on how they were created.

doesn't seem like thats gonna happen anytime soon..

jtk · Feb 23, 2018

One of our collective divisive challenges appears to be tendency to repeat angrily and defend what we've always assumed...without letting ourselves be challenged personally.

For example, some of us have never made fine inkjet prints, or even respected them in best galleries....and some of us have never had the opportunity to devote years in darkrooms, pursuing those lovely challenges. Some of us assert that anything a restaurant is willing to hang is therefore "art." Some of us have little interest in "definitions."

Some of us ridicule big prints without making the effort to learn why some photographers and fans especially appreciate them.

Some of us fail to appreciate the beauty of some 6X9 contact prints.

is the shot worth the effort?

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