Question, Prints, Digital or other if all =

[David Hughes]

Just for argument sake,
And speaking in general as certain images work best with a certain print types at times.
Also I'm not trying to start a fire here but an intelligent discussion. I love doing alt prints for my own selfish reasons &
let me just say that I have been a Professional Photographer and Fine art photographer for 30 years in NY and LA and have worked in everything from Wet Plates, Paper negs to the current high end digital imagining. I worked with Penn back in the day many years ago making some of the PP prints.

Until just recently, last 2 years or so, I would have said that Digital prints were not capable of copying the beauty of good metal prints and others. My goal was to always copy the look of such non full color prints when working with digital imaging which I have been working with since the first serious digital cameras hit the market 8 years ago and since photoshop 20 years ago. I currently make PP, Salt, Zia & Digital prints.

Now many may not like to admit it, those days are now here.
High end Digital prints can compete with alternative prints in beauty ( i didn't say match the look EXACTLY, but except for the serious professional the difference is very minimal almost un noticeable ) and are archival enough to not be an issue, especially when you consider the number of other processes in galleries that pale in comparison, such as Polaroids, C prints, Cibachromes, Silver prints, bla bla bla.
Also consider how many of the alternative prints that were not washed or processed properly and you see my point.

My question is this, Is there any reason to not do digital ( IF ) the print quality is equal and Quality is being the Only consideration?
Remember i said Quality is being the Only consideration.
Also
I am so sick of seeing Gallery owners showing BAD contemporary prints but because they are Platinum, Palladium or Silver, bla bla bla, they consider them of more value?
I recently saw a show of 30 x 40 Palladium prints and thought what a waste of energy and metal. Not only was the subject matter un inspiring and poorly done ( basically copy work ) They were inferior to a good digital print and easily could have been copied in quality with digital printers from 5 years ago but the gallery owner, ( well known ) made a huge deal of them being palladium?
Hype and Gallery owners in general, don't get me started : )

So what if they are PP if they we average prints.
Not to mention the PP process breaks down or looses it's beautiful qualities at such a large size.

Bottom line,
Shouldn't the Beauty of the print be the most important goal no matter what the process, and be of an equal value?
Also, How many could even tell which is which if done properly?
This seems to becoming more of a gallery owners way to jack up the price with hype and not about the beauty of the image.

Again I'm not saying stop doing alt prints at all, just what are your opinions.

 

[Joe Lipka]

Welcome aboard. Good first post.

I am in a similar position to you. I have a photo printer that can produce both digital negatives and digital prints. These are just tools to help me get to the final photograph I am happy to show as my own. I am not wedded to any particular process, so my final print media is flexible.

I believe we had a thread here about a "new" paper that can be used for both platinum printing as well as inkjet printing. If this is true, then your question is answerable. Make a print on either one and choose which is better for your taste. This would be a gutsy experiment, because what if the digital print does look "better" than the alt process print.

I think that the final media you choose is more important to photographers and to gallery owners than the general public. The general public only sees a photograph, not a process to make a photograph.

 

[jd callow]

Quality is subjective.
If your goal is to have the print be 'perfect' and perfect is a tone, contrast, sharpness thing then I'd argue that a b/w gloss RC print may be the best of all worlds -- blackest blacks (going away), highest or near to resolving power (or appearance thereof) and good to great tonal range -- and it is not likely to be found in many galleries

Who cares how it was created?
The creator more than the viewer will probably have greater concern about how an image was created. An art investor/buyer may care more than either as it applies to quantity/exclusiveness and longevity, which are paramount to his/her goal of investing/collecting.

 

[frugal]

Well, to throw another variable in there, there's something to be said for what's involved in working the process. I spend all day working in front of a computer, when I do get the time to work on prints for photo I prefer to work in a darkroom. For me, that's a much more pleasurable process and I think that it's reflected in the results. That's not to say that I couldn't achieve the same quality, or better, digitally, but I derive a certain pleasure from working in a wet darkroom and that makes me more inclined to work on squeezing as good a print as I can get out of the process than I am if I had to do it through digital means.

 

[David Hughes]

Good discussion.
Beauty should be in the eye of the beholder, buyer.
I think it is the whole Gallery snobbery thing that is the problem.

With many good digital fine art Matt papers out now and more coming all the time equally as good as any papers used in alternative or silver-print types I don't see the media as a problem any longer.
Having 2 prints of equal beauty 1 palladium and the other digital and a person wants to buy platinum print, great buy the print.
My grip is when some gallery owner ( who barley knows what a palladium or silver print is ) puts this false value on a inferior print only because of the process used and disregards the more beautiful one.
I recently had a case showing a portfolio to a well known Gallery owner who agreed the prints I was showing him were visually more attractive than the prints he was showing, but he poo poohed them because they were digital. Of course he did not know they were digital until I informed him they were. The argument continued as he discredited the digital prints as easy to make ( not true as they take as much time as most alternatives if done correctly I know, I have done metal prints for 40 years and digital for 20) and of far less value because of that reason. So I noticed the show he had up was of a photographer that I know for a fact shoots digital and makes silver gelatin prints. I asked him if that decreased there value? He was per plexed. I then asked him if the wet-plate images that another over-hyped artist in the industry he represented were of less value because they were printed on silver gelatin paper, something never done when wet plates were the norm?
Again he had no answer but was totally confused at the concepts. : )
From my experience it seems gallery owners are limiting and hindering the growth of the industry on false beliefs and opinions.

 

[clay]

From my experience it seems gallery owners are limiting and hindering the growth of the industry on false beliefs and opinions.

It's possible, of course. It is also possible that many gallery owners have been in 'the game' for a while and have a discerning eye that can really tell a difference. The buyers' preferences will eventually sort it out. Most prints go unsold no matter how they are made. My advice is to do a process that races your motor, and ignore the rest. We're just in a transition right now to an unfamiliar technology. I'm betting that in a short time, digital prints will mature into a highly regarded medium in the same way that black and white RC paper has come to dominate the silver-gelatin fine-art printing world over clearly inferior fiber-based prints because of its technical advantages. ;^)

 

[artonic]

There are two streams of gallery in the world; art gallery, and commercial art gallery.

I sence that this issue of materials and process adding to the works' value is a natural function of the commercial gallery, as it should be because they have a commercial interest, and these issues have market value.

Other venues guage works on different scales - beauty perhaps, or other aesthetic, conceptual, or political measures.

 

[mkochsch]

It's said a Rolex watch keeps about the same time as a Swatch. So why do people still buy expensive watches? Sure, craft is part of it, but being merely competent can often be "good enough" when it comes to craft. What are ‘collectors’ after when they buy art? Are they buying the work or are they really buying a piece of something else? The artist? Celebrity? Rarity? Prestige? The chance to participate? An investment? Some or all of the above might be the correct answer.
I know someone who bought a Thomas Kincaide print, a reproduction, and paid in the four figures. For a print. I don't know whether to laugh or cry every time I go over to their house. They love it! They know nothing about ‘art’. Yet for them the piece resonates.
David Hockney uses a drugstore minilab and photocopier to produce some of his photographic works, last time I checked he was doing quite well, (slightly better as a painter I imagine but I can't say for sure). Again, back to the question what is it that is being bought and by whom?
With Pt/Pd prints craft and rarity certainly comes into play when galleries are selling the work, but as someone pointed out once on "the list" it costs about $2 in “raw” materials to make an 8x10 Pt/Pd print. When push comes to shove anyone can make a “competent” Pt/Pd print if they want to take the time to learn. With Digital Negatives it's making it all the easier. It’s getting close to push button these days.

Your Question:
"Shouldn't the Beauty of the print be the most important goal no matter what the process, and be of an equal value?
Also, How many could even tell which is which if done properly?"

The last question first. If 99.9 per cent of the people can't tell the difference, then really what visually is the difference? There is none. Original, reproduction. Only galleries owners care. Sometimes I have to read the back of my own prints to tell what process was used. (OK, I can tell a cyanotype from a VDB on a good day:^)). Then again if you’re selling to hardcore photographers who can appreciate the work that goes into a well made print it will make a difference a slight difference in the sale price. This is a small market though.

I think this belief that the "beauty of the print (image)" as being the ‘sole’ criterion for it's worth is outdated. Those who put photographs in the same category of art as listening to a Mozart concerto (being played well by the orchestra, or not) are doing themselves and us a disservice. Photography as a form at least has the possibility to differentiate itself from the ‘art for the sake of beauty’ school. Yes, photography can be beautiful, but photography by it nature is more than beautiful – it also has the potential to be subversive and political. It was born in a political age, an age of industrial mass media. To ignore it being political is to deny the power of the medium to change the way we think about ourselves and the world.
A writing professor of mine once commented that writing well is easy…if you’ve got something to say. To me looking at photographs without any ideas is like reading the phone book and trying to constantly convince yourself you’re reading the a Russian master. The tragedy is that if you can’t intellectually come up with an arc to your oeuvre you’ll eventually find yourself growing old with a lot of pictures of rainbows and sunsets, or worse yet you’ll end up being a copyist chasing someone else’s arc and end up with a show full of pictures of Yosemite.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

J
My question is this, Is there any reason to not do digital ( IF ) the print quality is equal and Quality is being the Only consideration?
Remember i said Quality is being the Only consideration.
Also
I am so sick of seeing Gallery owners showing BAD contemporary prints but because they are Platinum, Palladium or Silver, bla bla bla, they consider them of more value?

Hi David! Regarding the first point, I would say that in the professional world (as you're probably aware... there is no reason not to go digital if quality is there and time savings are enormous. I can't blame photoreporters from preferring an D2x to a Speed Graphic.

For an amateur, there are other reasons beside quality. In my own case, most of my prints are from a wet darkroom because I've assembled one at such a low cost (and also because I like it, and can spare some time).

Therefore, I don't think you can think of the quality criterion in isolation from other factors. Newspapers/pros go digital because they make massive savings at the scale they operate. Some amateurs can also make massive savings, some don't, depending on how they operate.

Finally, regarding the last point, I'm so there with you! It bores me to tears to see a muddy, boring print and observe the tag besides that says "Platinum" and boasts about its glory.