Nick Brandt does NOT add animals

[outwest]

Nick, I have both your books and have seen some of your prints at the Photo-Eye Gallery in Santa Fe. Awe, lust and envy come to mind. I have been to Africa 6 times and I know what must have been involved in getting some of those shots. To get so many of them is just short of amazing. When is the next book due out?

 

[clay]

I'll chime in here, and congratulate Nick for being one of the braver souls on the internet for jumping right into this discussion, for being straightforward and helpful, slow to take offense, and in general, behaving like a real human being who is in the same room with the people with whom he is communicating. Welcome to APUG, one of the more interesting places in the photowebiverse. Keep posting!

 

[keithwms]

Nick, in light of this discussion I have a couple questions. Would you sign a book that has, in your opinion, inferior printing? Do you sell any books or collections that have your seal of approval, so to speak? And to what extent are you really at the mercy of the printer, don't they give you some sort of back-out clause if a proof print isn't what you wish?

Not wishing to imply anything as I haven't seen any of your books in person, I am just curious how a professional handles these issues in the modern context of, well, iffy printing.

 

[nickbran]

Next round :

Outwest : Thank you for your "awe, lust and envy". In terms of when the next book comes out, well, sigh, if my current track record is anything to go by, which is an average of about 12-15 photos a year, Fall 2013 at best, Fall 2014 more realistically. I actually start shooting in Africa next weekend. It's getting harder and harder to see anything extraordinary as all the animals disappear (cue the adding and cloning....joke). And for the final part of my trilogy I'm going darker. On This Earth was a vision of Paradise, A Shadow Falls as the title describes, a darkness falling over the land, and the final book, more starkness and reality. The final part of the trilogy will complete the sentence : On This Earth, A Shadow Falls.....(and final title, to be revealed with publication).

Clay : well, thank you. I am kinda slow, it's true...

Keith : You wrote : "Would you sign a book that has, in your opinion, inferior printing?" Good, very pertinent question. Initially, I struggled with this one, because as mentioned, the book was not printed to my satisfaction. In the end I did sign books, because every single book, with the inconsistency, was so maddeningly different to the next. One book might have four of the key photos ruined, in the next book they'd be fine. The proofs were very good, but were NOT made by the factory. They were done in pre-press by the separator. I signed off on those, only to see anarchy reign in the final factory results. Anyone buying the 2nd edition should get a more consistently printed, less brown, richer printing if the factory have now been taught Rule 1 of Book Printing : Use a Densitometer. But until I see the results, with an expectant pit in my stomach, I won't know. This is the trouble with publishers going to China these days to save money. You get what you pay for.
Because my original prints are printed on matte paper but still have reasonably rich blacks, it is very hard to simulate that well in offset printing. Reproducing glossy prints is much easier as printing inks are naturally glossy. Add a matte varnish to match your original prints and you end up with mud. It's a trade-off. Also I think most printers these days are so used to printing color, they're just not experienced at printing tritone monochromatic images. At least, this is what I've discovered over the two books.

 

[Kerik]

Nick, let me echo what Clay said. I have your first book and love it. I've not had a chance to see your work in person, but hope to some day. It's certainly work that deserves to be BIG.

As someone who is contemplating publishing a book this year, I'm curious where you have your printing done. If you don't want to name names, I understand, but how about the general location - Asia? Italy? US?

 

[keithwms]

Kerik, let me just say, I have Geir Jordahl's book Searching for True North, printed by ModernBook in Palo Alto, and the print is superb. One of the best printed b&w books I have ever seen. Truly inspiring and it really restored my faith in printing after seeing some really crappy books from lesser publishers.

We analoguers need to be hyper-anal about printing, IMHO, these are records of your life's work, for chrisakes. Yes it will cost more but this is timeless craft. I simply won't invest in a book with low print quality. I know, I know, just saying...

 

[Shaggysk8]

One question for Nick if he is still reading, one I love your work, and two I wonder why you chose the workflow you did?
Of course you don't have to answer if you don't want to, I just wondered.

Paul

 

[keithwms]

P.S. Nick this statement ^^^ (post 31) was not meant to imply anything about your work itself, which I still haven't seen in my hand. I don't mean to imply anything other than this: I do hope that in light of your comments, and the obvious high impact of your work, I do hope that you will find a way to have your work printed at the very highest level, high enough that you'd be willing to sign it individually. If it is as timeless as it seems then it deserves better treatment by a very high-level printer. I mean, I have the clear impression that you do not stand behind the printing of the first book. If so, I hope it will be reprinted so that the completed trilogy is up to consistent standards that you can literally sign off on.

 

[nickbran]

Hi Kerik, Keith

Keith - you say "We analoguers need to be hyper-anal about printing". I would say ALL visual artists need to be hyper-anal/obsessive/perfectionist about printing and above all, do battle against the slack lazy acceptance of mediocrity that corporate publishers accept. After two bad experiences in Asia, and the attendant problems there with communication (eg translation into Chinese, Chines culture, etc), I would say that if you shoot monochrome, you should do everything you can to print in the US. I can't recommend names, and I know there are only a few good printers in the whole country, and you could end up with worse printers in the US than in China, but if you get the right one, it will be worth it. Like Doug says, it will cost more, but you will never forgive yourself if you try and save money and end up with crap.
After my first two books, I will never ever let a publisher have control of the printing of my book ever again. Life is too short to go through the stress of losing that control and having to do battle over what is clearly to you sub-standard. You live and die by how your work looks, so make every sacrifice in the service of the work. For the completed collected trilogy in one book, I am saving up my money now to choose the factory, and control and pay for the printing myself. I will then hand it off to a publisher for distribution only.
However, if you shoot color, I would say you will be more likely okay at a good printing house in Asia. I've seen some very good work out of Singapore, e.g. check out Aperture's Dan Winters book.
Finally, if you are shooting tinted monochrome, which I see you are, Kerik, don't do the obvious which I did and go for tritone. Experiment with CMYK in proofing as well - some of the best tinted monochrome images I've seen have been CMYK. I'm going to try that for the completed trilogy.

Shaggysk8 - why did I choose the workflow I did? You mean the shoot-film/scan neg/digital print hybrid?

 

[keithwms]

I would say ALL visual artists need to be hyper-anal/obsessive/perfectionist about printing and above all, do battle against the slack lazy acceptance of mediocrity that corporate publishers accept.

Hear, hear!

 

[PVia]

A press check and sign off should be mandatory for anyone having anything printed. Although it may be difficult because of travel, every effort should be made. When my designer friends are in the printing phase of their projects, they are at the press when their pieces are being run, even if it's in the middle of the night.

That being said, some of Irving Penn's books are absolutely the most beautiful things you've ever seen for B&W printing. Richard Benson and Thomas Palmer have made some great contributions there. In fact, the latest Penn book, Small Trades, the catalog of the Getty exhibition is exquisite.

Printing is a craft as well as an art, and so important as it is the last step in the creative chain and the one you have the least individual control over. Some photographers have worked with the same people over the course of their careers. Lee Friedlander comes to mind and his collaboration with Richard Benson. In fact, there is a detailed essay by Benson regarding printing Lee's early books that makes for great reading. It's in the appendix of that huge yellow Friedlander book...found it at my library and made a copy of Benson's text...fascinating stuff.

Nick, I have both books and they look great to me. I've never seen your prints in person and that's the rub right there. In fact, a funny thing...the first time I saw your work was in LensWork and was blown away and when I bought the first book I was so used to the ink tone from the magazine that it took me a while to adjust to the book images.

We have a mutual friend and he tried to get me to come to your opening at FK but I got out of work too late that night, so I'm looking forward to the time when I can see your work up close and personal. In the meantime, congratulations...

 

[nick mulder]

any 'softening' is all done in-camera at the time of shooting, with a low-tech, on-the-fly crude version of swing and tilt"

Hi Nick,

I've seen and pondered how you got about these effects in the past - truth is, there was an obvious element of manipulation inherent in the image so I assumed the softening was done in 'post' also...

At the time I thought this kind of carry-on was only possible digitally and in a haughty fashion pooh-pooed it - APUG'ers, especially those new (and OLD) on the scene can on occasion be like this. Anyway, I've since learned methods of doing the same thing in the darkroom so go figure, but now you've got me interested in saying that it is caught on the film itself - I can imagine a kind of lens baby or fast and loose Hartblei or similar combined with a nice smudge of vaseline here and there but instead I'll just cut to the chase:

Care to elaborate ?

If my memory serves me there just seem to be contradictory planes of focus, interesting stuff !

 

[Marco B]

After my first two books, I will never ever let a publisher have control of the printing of my book ever again. Life is too short to go through the stress of losing that control and having to do battle over what is clearly to you sub-standard. You live and die by how your work looks, so make every sacrifice in the service of the work.

Amen to that Nick!

I have seen so many crappy printed, especially B&W, photography books, it is really sad. In most of these cases, the choice of paper and ink, leaves you with something close to a newspaper image...

B&W images need good printing, even more so than colour. If the printing doesn't do any justice to the deep blacks, gloss and glow of the original prints, what's really left to appreciate?

If I had wanted a newspaper, I would have bought a newspaper

 

[nickbran]

A press check and sign off should be mandatory for anyone having anything printed....

Nick, I have both books and they look great to me. I've never seen your prints in person and that's the rub right there. In fact, a funny thing...the first time I saw your work was in LensWork and was blown away and when I bought the first book I was so used to the ink tone from the magazine that it took me a while to adjust to the book images.

Re press check and sign off should be mandatory : absolutely, but it's pretty meaningless if the factory is not using color strips and densitometers. It means that what you sign off on will bear little relation to much of what you get in any number of final books, as the ink drifts on the print run, and the press man loses his judgement as his eyes grow weary into the night.

Re not seeing the actual prints to gauge how good the printing of the book is : You're right, that is the rub. The printing is only good if it matches the original prints to a significant, meaningful degree. The printing in Lenswork was superb. They do a fantastic job printing. I wish their printers had printed my books....

 

[nickbran]

Hi Nick,

I've seen and pondered how you got about these effects in the past - truth is, there was an obvious element of manipulation inherent in the image so I assumed the softening was done in 'post' also...

At the time I thought this kind of carry-on was only possible digitally and in a haughty fashion pooh-pooed it - APUG'ers, especially those new (and OLD) on the scene can on occasion be like this. Anyway, I've since learned methods of doing the same thing in the darkroom so go figure, but now you've got me interested in saying that it is caught on the film itself - I can imagine a kind of lens baby or fast and loose Hartblei or similar combined with a nice smudge of vaseline here and there but instead I'll just cut to the chase:

Care to elaborate ?

If my memory serves me there just seem to be contradictory planes of focus, interesting stuff !

The effect you get with tilt/shift lenses cannot be simulated in any kind of post-work - not in the darkroom, not in Photoshop. The way the focus shifts through the planes using a tilt/shift lens can be a glorious thing. I just use my own low-tech crude and very impractical version of that. I really don't want to elaborate more than that - it's just one method I want to keep to myself.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

I really don't want to elaborate more than that - it's just one method I want to keep to myself.

Nick,

Why should a camera technique be kept secret? It's not as though there are any intellectual property or development costs to be considered.

Tom

 

[Dan Henderson]

Nick,

Why should a camera technique be kept secret? It's not as though there are any intellectual property or development costs to be considered.

Tom

Because it is an artist's prerogative to not share every aspect of how he creates his art. Because sometimes knowing how the magic was created breaks the spell. Because Nick has been more than generous in sharing his thoughts and ideas with us here, and his desire to keep this method to himself should be respected.

 

[SuzanneR]

Because it is an artist's prerogative to not share every aspect of how he creates his art. Because sometimes knowing how the magic was created breaks the spell. Because Nick has been more than generous in sharing his thoughts and ideas with us here, and his desire to keep this method to himself should be respected.

Agreed.

I saw Keith Carter speak recently, and he talked of a custom lens he had built to achieve the kind of focus/out of focus images he wanted to create. Any more information than that would spoil the fun, I think, and if I wanted to go about copying him (which I don't), then well, I'd have to come up with my own unique solution.

And I don't think I'd want to share it!

 

[Marco B]

Because it is an artist's prerogative to not share every aspect of how he creates his art. Because sometimes knowing how the magic was created breaks the spell. Because Nick has been more than generous in sharing his thoughts and ideas with us here, and his desire to keep this method to himself should be respected.

In addition, I think it is way more fun visualizing in your own imagination Nick tracking a lion on the African plains with a duck taped Hasselblad, some rubber hosing, and at the end the lens taped down

Or whatever you imagine him doing to get his excellent shots~!

 

[Shaggysk8]

Hi Kerik, Keith
Shaggysk8 - why did I choose the workflow I did? You mean the shoot-film/scan neg/digital print hybrid?

Yes that is it, I just wondered really, I know photoshop inside out being a designer and was interested in what made you chose that route.

Paul

 

[cdowell]

In addition, I think it is way more fun visualizing in your own imagination Nick tracking a lion on the African plains with a duck taped Hasselblad, some rubber hosing, and at the end the lens taped down

Or whatever you imagine him doing to get his excellent shots~!

Agreed. Absolutely. Nick, once again thanks for participating -- you are being generous with your information and I think it's too much to ask that you publish all you methods. Besides, art is much more than the sum of its parts and I'm sure you could hand someone else your camera and a how-to sheet and they'd come back with something entirely different.

I am interested however in the work flow choices you mention earlier. Any talk about Photoshop and negative scanning risks drawing disapproval on this forum, but I studied with some pretty good photographers at Duke's Center of Documentary Studies who keyed on good negatives, were disinterested in digital cameras, but viewed darkroom printing as almost a separate issue. These were people who know the importance and value of a true silver print, but also people who were publishing books and therefore were going to end up digitized one way or the other. When museums called, they could have their negatives printed by master printers if carbon prints were unacceptable.

So, Nick, what goes into your decision making process regarding incorporating scanning? How are your gallery prints made? Do you expose your film with scanning in mind or make choices that recognize that end while shooting, etc, etc.

Thanks very much for any thoughts you care to share. --Clifton

 

[nickbran]

Dan, Suzanne and Marco-
thank you for putting in words what I was about to write with a sigh and a weary "here we go again".

However, briefly :
Tom, why should any artist be obliged to reveal how they get to do where they do, from how U2's The Edge gets his guitar sound to Robert Parke Harrison with his amazing monochrome photos that leave me guessing like crazy. If I met Parke Harrison, I would ask him how he achieves his photos, but I would completely respect his answer if he said, sorry, I don't want to reveal that. And it IS part of the magic and mystery.
In this internet age of Behind The Scenes on everything, why should every creative person's process and method under the sun be explained for the world to know?

 

[keithwms]

Tom, why should any artist be obliged to reveal how they get to do where they do, from how U2's The Edge gets his guitar sound....

Funny you mention that

http://www.amnesta.net/edge_delay/

(SPOILER ALERT: the Edge will never sound the same once you click those samples on this site!!!)

If an artist doesn't fess up about his/her methods then inevitably some geek will figure it out and post it on the web :rolleyes:

 

[nickbran]

Hi Shaggysk8, cdowell
Re the reason for my workflow : When I started photographing in 2000, I did originally print in the darkroom, because that it what I had done / known since I was at school. I then directed an advertising campaign, and was asked to do the photo campaign as well (of lions in Africa). Due to lack of time, the post work was done in Photoshop. I quickly saw how much more precise I could be in pulling out details in the shadows and highlights than I could in the darkroom. For the first time, I saw details in the shadows on the digital prints that I could never have gotten otherwise.
Having originally grown up and studied as a painter before I was seduced into fimmaking, working with a Wacom pen in my hand felt great (thus maybe another reason for the early over-zealous dodge and burn).
When shooting, I never think about the scan or the print and how I will expose for that. What the end print is would never make any difference in that regard.

My gallery prints are printed by me on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching, a very heavy (350gsm) warm natural white matte paper with pigment inks. The 6x7 negs on T-Max 100 hold up astonishingly well printing to 44x60".

However, I am gradually printing all my favourite photos in Platinum/Palladium editions, on Arches Platine 30x44 inch, because I would like the prints to be around for a lot longer than a couple of hundred years. Seeing my images in platinum with the dustiness of the platinum black has made me review my pigment prints, and pull back on the sometimes overly dramatised contrast, to now create pigment prints that have more subtlety.
The platinums are made at Salto in Belgium - who are brilliant. They create three giant contact negs on an Imagesetter- one for highlights, one for mids, one for shadows - and that's what gets used for the printing.

 

[haris]

Of course artist or craftsman is not obliged to reveal techniques he/she use, especially if those tecniques are invented by that artist or craftsman.

There are photo contests (or there were, I don't follow that really) in which participants try to imitate famous photographers techniques. No matter how close participants of those contests come to emulate those techniques, whoever see those photographs, and have some knowledge about photograpy will say something like "good copy of (insert name here)'s technique". So, photographer shouldn't be afraid that he/she will lose "credit" for inventing technique. But, in general, photographers don't reveal how they get particular look of their photographs.

If would go thinking and philosophing about issue, I would try to imagine what would happen if Hyppolit Bayard, Daguerre, Niepce, Talbot decided to keep sectret thier processes how to get image of someone or something on "paper" (or in other words, how to get photograph). Where we would be today?

And, it would be shame to have in existance good and/or interesting process, and because inventor keeped it secret, to be left without that process if anything happens to inventor.

Please, note, I am not saying you should reveal your techniques Nick, this is just thinking about some of aspects of the issue.