perfect exposure or print does it exist ?

removed account4 · Sep 8, 2014

is there any such thing as a perfect exposure ( and processing to yield a perfect negative ) to make a perfect print ?

there is so much more information in a negative that can't be printed on paper, and a print
can always be improved, much like painting because a painting is really never finished ( learned from friends who paint ).

my perspective is that there is really no such thing as perfection, nothing in reality is perfect, there are always flaws ..
maybe it is a great goal to hope for and wish for ... but it seems like a ladder to climb but the top is never really able to be reached ...

darkosaric · Sep 8, 2014

I am subscribed to many newsletters from many art sites, galleries, photo portals ... in emails I see those perfect digital pictures - they are so perfect and pretty - that they feel like over over sweet coffee - yuck!
I want imperfection, I want grain, imperfect black borders, even some small dust or scratches are ok with me ... content and emotions is what is important to me, not sharpness and perfection.

Perfect print exist - but prefect print for one person is not perfect for another .

Thomas Bertilsson · Sep 8, 2014

darkosaric said:
Perfect print exist - but prefect print for one person is not perfect for another .

Exactly. It is subjective.

snapguy · Sep 8, 2014

kudding

You are kidding, right? Having a little fun with us.

timor · Sep 8, 2014

darkosaric said:
I am subscribed to many newsletters from many art sites, galleries, photo portals ... in emails I see those perfect digital pictures - they are so perfect and pretty - that they feel like over over sweet coffee - yuck!
I want imperfection, I want grain, imperfect black borders, even some small dust or scratches are ok with me ... content and emotions is what is important to me, not sharpness and perfection.

Perfect print exist - but prefect print for one person is not perfect for another .

Darko, big thumb up !
Looks like we in the same camp, we want to stay humans. :joyful:

gzinsel · Sep 8, 2014

I think, the key term here is "perfect". what exactly do you mean? I think fleshing out THAT term would aid greatly, in the discussion. IMO, everyone has a different idea, or notion of "perfection". as mentioned above by the Darko, I would not argue he, OR anyone else is wrong in what they think is perfect, its just that we are all different people with varying political objectives. so too, would go the way of, "perfection". I recently read a book JNanian, called Promethean Ambitions, by William R. Newman. In his thesis he discusses the many ideas and executions of the embodiment of perfect, or perfection> you might like it? It may challenge your assessment that "that there is really no such thing as perfection, nothing in reality is perfect, there are always flaws . . .. maybe you can get it as an inter library loan if your local affiliate does not have it.

removed account4 · Sep 8, 2014

snapguy said:
You are kidding, right? Having a little fun with us.

nope not kidding at all and not having fun with anyone at all ...

everyone searches for perfection, and i want to know if it exists.
i know for what i do it doesn't exist, and i am OK with that ...
but this isn't true for many people .... they track hunt collect equipment
make endless film and paper + camera tests to make everything perfect
calibrate everything ... but does it really exist or is it just the ultimate goal which
can never exist ... because someone might print a negative one way today
and interpret the same negative a totally different way the next time he/she sees it
a month, year, 2 years later ...

gzinsel said:
maybe you can get it as an inter library loan if your local affiliate does not have it.

thanks ! i will look into that

zanxion72 · Sep 8, 2014

Perfect is exactly what pleases you. If the result makes you been proud of, that is the perfect one. I perfectly agree with

darkosaric said:
...
Perfect print exist - but prefect print for one person is not perfect for another .

timor · Sep 8, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
What was perfect would no longer be perfect. You also might make what you consider to be a perfect print, only to find it is no longer perfect when the room lighting changes.

You just made the case for digital photography which has remedy for most of the problems you are mentioning. And changes in aesthetics, interpretations and light conditions are a "fault" of a viewer, not the art piece.

removed account4 · Sep 8, 2014

hi timor

this isn't a digital v analog debate ...
but a question about something else ..

i pretty much agree with michael darko, and thomas
everything is subjective, and machine made might
be perfection but it is soul-less ...there are
lots of variables and they change constantly.
( this is a reason for bracketing exposures and processing
and attempting to make stellar prints from stellar negatives )

if an image is printed a certain way
it may look good in certain lighting and bad in other lighting.
depending on artificial lights can cause problems.
i have prints made from paper negatives that look like copper in
some lighting and something else in other conditions ...
light make a huge difference ..
but in no way is this image perfect, it is anything but perfect.

bdial · Sep 8, 2014

I just try to get it down to imperfections that no one else will see.

E. von Hoegh · Sep 8, 2014

jnanian said:
is there any such thing as a perfect exposure ( and processing to yield a perfect negative ) to make a perfect print ?

there is so much more information in a negative that can't be printed on paper, and a print
can always be improved, much like painting because a painting is really never finished ( learned from friends who paint ).

my perspective is that there is really no such thing as perfection, nothing in reality is perfect, there are always flaws ..
maybe it is a great goal to hope for and wish for ... but it seems like a ladder to climb but the top is never really able to be reached ...

Yes. Visualisation and the zone system does it for me. But I'd call that 'optimal' rather than 'perfect'

Thomas Bertilsson · Sep 8, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
A change in style or aesthetics on the part of the artist/printer has nothing to do with the viewer. It's just the artist changing his own preferences. You might shoot a photograph, achieve a print you are totally satisfied with, and then years later decide to reprint it in a different way. The "perfect" print has then changed. The point I'm trying to make is that our aesthetic preferences are rarely set in stone. They are usually subject to change over time.

Viewing conditions (lighting etc) are a different matter, but still relevant because what might look perfect when you evaluate it in your darkroom/workroom, might no longer look perfect in a different setting.

Ansel Adams mentions this in his books, where he had periods of printing everything really dark, followed by periods where he printed things much lighter, wondering why he had printed everything so dark.

Aesthetics do change over time. My own preference many years ago was grain free and smooth prints. Today I covet the grain and shoot more 35mm than ever, making larger prints to show the grain. Go figure.

The important thing, I think, is to make sure we please ourselves with our process, and develop good methods that help support our vision, what we want to accomplish and convey. If our negatives result in prints that support our vision, then they are perfect.

MartinP · Sep 8, 2014

I am a rather poor artist, and not a very good technician either. Having said that, art is something which evokes feelings and emotion in the viewer (by observation, that isn't "the" definition) while a lot of things that pass for art simply fulfil a temporarily accepted set of criteria.

Perhaps that is what Darkosaric was seeing in the images s/he mentioned eg. totally sharp, totally colourful, totally specific (unambiguous). All the sliders set to "11", in other words? That is not an inevitable result of digital production of course, but it is deliberately chosen by those who produced the work because ??? Maybe they were able to do that with the tools they had available, so thought that they must in order to fulfil whatever moneymaking brief was specified. There was once some quote about limitations in method producing a more emotive art, wasn't there?

So is there a perfect neg/print? The artist/technician is the only one who knows (until telepathy-based artists statements are developed anyway).

timor · Sep 8, 2014

jnanian said:
hi timor

this isn't a digital v analog debate ...
but a question about something else ..

i pretty much agree with michael darko, and thomas
everything is subjective, and machine made might
be perfection but it is soul-less ...there are
lots of variables and they change constantly.
( this is a reason for bracketing exposures and processing
and attempting to make stellar prints from stellar negatives )

if an image is printed a certain way
it may look good in certain lighting and bad in other lighting.
depending on artificial lights can cause problems.
i have prints made from paper negatives that look like copper in
some lighting and something else in other conditions ...
light make a huge difference ..
but in no way is this image perfect, it is anything but perfect.

I am not trying to advocate digital. It is not my thing. However I witnessed many discussions of photographers turned to digital with argumentation that digital, computerized technology, brings them much closer to that "perfect print".
"Perfect" implies stability but we just can't achieve stability of our own opinions, indeed such a discussion is without conclusion. I just wonder how feel artists (of all sort, not only photographers) who sold their art to the public and now can't change a thing in their creations, when they change their's aesthetics values. Did AA recall all sold pieces and replaced them with his new vision ? I think everyone has a right to change the style in search of something.And we enjoy such a developments in artists. But to damn your previous style makes people enjoying it then look stupid, and then, again, real artists shouldn't care of public's opinions. And we can go on and on and on... And we will. Some other time. I think everything is about emotion. (Read-hormones levels at given time )

cliveh · Sep 8, 2014

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

Vaughn · Sep 8, 2014

The prints I mat up look perfectly fine to me.

Other than that, I hope to keep learning and improving -- not to achieve perfection, but just to keep learning and improving.

David Allen · Sep 8, 2014

The important thing, I think, is to make sure we please ourselves with our process, and develop good methods that help support our vision, what we want to accomplish and convey. If our negatives result in prints that support our vision, then they are perfect.

I agree with everything in this statement except perfect which I would replace with optimal - where I would define optimal in terms of the negative as being a negative that yields both a print that matches the photographer's vision when the image was made and has sufficient information to allow for additional interpretations as, when and if the photographers vision changes and/or develops.

I would define optimal in terms of the print as being that which matches the vision of the photographer when they are making the print (although there are many who consider Adams score/performance analogy as being a cliche it is actually a very good description of what happens when one returns to a given negative).

Perhaps the real area of discourse should not be if perfection can be achieved but rather whether consistently good negatives (meaning negatives that can be interpreted in differing ways to suit the photographers vision at any given time) can be achieved. For me, this should be the goal of every serious photographer. It is relatively easy to consistently achieve negatives with good shadow detail (which can be retained or discarded according to taste) and a controlled range of tones through to bright (but not blocked up) highlights.

Whilst the prefect negative may well not ever exist, its counterpart - the poorly made negative - does exist. This is a great pity as such poor negatives limit the photographers expression and with relatively simple and consistent technique need not ever come to pass.

Bests,

David.
www.dsallen.de

MattKing · Sep 8, 2014

It is interesting to me how similar the words "optimal" and "optimism" are.

Like many things in life, the search for perfection is an asymptotic exercise - you can always get closer to your target, even when you are already damned close.

The only place you can achieve true perfection is in a pure dichotomy - you either remembered to put film in your camera, or you didn't.

If you will accept "within tolerance" as being equivalent to perfection, then you can achieve perfection. This is particularly useful if your target is something technical like a copy negative - or a negative intended for one of the UV centred alternative processes.

Mainecoonmaniac · Sep 8, 2014

There's no such thing as the perfect negative. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for it through practice. That means that we have to shoot, process film and print as much as we can. But first, we have to know what we want first and that changes.

miha · Sep 8, 2014

MattKing said:
It is interesting to me how similar the words "optimal" and "optimism" are.

Like many things in life, the search for perfection is an asymptotic exercise - you can always get closer to your target, even when you are already damned close.

The only place you can achieve true perfection is in a pure dichotomy - you either remembered to put film in your camera, or you didn't.

If you will accept "within tolerance" as being equivalent to perfection, then you can achieve perfection. This is particularly useful if your target is something technical like a copy negative - or a negative intended for one of the UV centred alternative processes.

Be careful you are dangerously approaching Schroedinger and his cat experiment; film can be simultaneously loaded and not loaded.

summicron1 · Sep 8, 2014

If by "perfect" you mean a negative that be printed without manipulation of any sort to make a print that you like -- sure, happens to me all the time. Sometimes the light is just right, the exposure is right, the film capabilities matches the light and exposure, and there you are.

but, really, an odd question -- the point is to produce an image that matches yur vision -- if it needs a bit of manipulation to get there, that's how life is.

removed account4 · Sep 8, 2014

miha said:
Be careful you are dangerously approaching Schroedinger and his cat experiment; film can be simultaneously loaded and not loaded.

LOL

i do that from time to time, it is extremely embarrassing !
and i remember my mentor telling me the times when she would
pull the dark slide and the 5x7 sheet of tri x would eject out of
the film holder into the body of the camera while with a client

AND it is possible for the film to be loaded, and not loaded, with
the photographer being loaded but not loaded enough as well

removed account4 · Sep 8, 2014

summicron1 said:
If by "perfect" you mean a negative that be printed without manipulation of any sort to make a print that you like -- sure, happens to me all the time. Sometimes the light is just right, the exposure is right, the film capabilities matches the light and exposure, and there you are.

but, really, an odd question -- the point is to produce an image that matches yur vision -- if it needs a bit of manipulation to get there, that's how life is.

i guess the problem is everyone's definition of "perfect" is different.
mine might be a negative so dense you can't see thought it
but it prints with a 300W flood light and RC paper to
make a simple full tone print, yours might be as you said
a negative that doesn't need burning or dodging, and someone elses
might be a thin negative to make a chocolate brown print ...

maybe i just answered my own question, it is impossible to make a perfect negative
because it and its print are almost like ephemera ..

markbarendt · Sep 8, 2014

jnanian said:
i guess the problem is everyone's definition of "perfect" is different.

Yes.

That's ok.

perfect exposure or print does it exist ?

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