Silver Gelatine Print? The same as Fiber base print?

ToddB · Feb 4, 2014

OK guys,

I emailed the gallery that handles the prints from famed street photographer Vivian Maier..? So for a 12x12 printed on 16x20 sized paper runs between 3,000 - 7,000 dollars for SILVER GELATINE print. So.. is a Silver gelatine print something different than what most of us here print on?

ToddB

frank · Feb 4, 2014

ToddB said:
OK guys,

I emailed the gallery that handles the prints from famed street photographer Vivian Maier..? So for a 12x12 printed on 16x20 sized paper runs between 3,000 - 7,000 dollars for SILVER GELATINE print. So.. is a Silver gelatine print something different than what most of us here print on?

ToddB

Fancy-pants name for the same thing!

baachitraka · Feb 4, 2014

3k-7k is bookoo money...

wildbill · Feb 4, 2014

you searched it first and nothing came up?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelatin_silver_process
rc prints are also silver gelatin.
then there's the one guy on earth that can't stop saying GSP's. gelatin silver prints like he wrote the book on it

ToddB · Feb 4, 2014

I was shell shocked too.. so.. is it the same a fiber base paper?

ToddB

wildbill · Feb 4, 2014

ToddB said:
I was shell shocked too.. so.. is it the same a fiber base paper?

ToddB

OMG! are you kidding?

ToddB · Feb 4, 2014

OMG! are you kidding?

Huh?

Todd

mfohl · Feb 4, 2014

I saw some Vivian Maier prints in Cleveland today. They are worth it. But if you go to Cleveland, the prints are currently going for only $2200. Those prints are magnificent.

By the way, resin coated prints are also silver gelatin prints. But there is a difference between fiber and RC prints.

ToddB · Feb 4, 2014

Gosh.. do I feel silly. Siver gelatin is photgraphic emulsion.. of course. They made it sound special.

Todd

Colin DeWolfe · Feb 4, 2014

Well, I am guilty of that when I hang in the gallery. It's useful to separate it from the digital photos, or the digital prints from scans, even if they are black and white. If I just said film, people think I scan and print digitally. And "hand made traditional darkroom print" just takes up too much space. And galleries like pretentious words.

MattKing · Feb 4, 2014

ToddB said:
Gosh.. do I feel silly. Siver gelatin is photgraphic emulsion.. of course. They made it sound special.

Todd

Well, it is special!

When compared to many other things.

Like offset printed reproductions (think posters) and low quality inkjets.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 4, 2014

Just saying silver gelatin does not state whether it is on FB or RC paper.

Vaughn · Feb 4, 2014

ToddB said:
Gosh.. do I feel silly. Siver gelatin is photgraphic emulsion.. of course. They made it sound special.

Todd

I usually make photographic prints with an emulsion of gelatin and carbon (and sugar), or by coating watercolor paper with a mixture of iron, platinum and palladium salts in solution rather than in an emulsion.

The word 'photograph' is no longer very specific and it certainly no longer indicates specifically a silver gelatin print. Communication is the key.

DREW WILEY · Feb 4, 2014

I dry down silver gelatin test strips in a little toaster over in an adjacent room. If I leave it in there too long, it turns into carbon gelatin.

ROL · Feb 4, 2014

ToddB said:
Gosh.. do I feel silly. Siver gelatin is photgraphic emulsion.. of course. They made it sound special.

Todd

You shouldn't feel silly. Galleries are often silly places. I should know. I used to own one, and frequently found that very silly.

SGP = GSP (gelatin silver print), SGP being a way of sticking your anglophile nose skyward.

RC and fiber are both GSPs. But in normal (non Gallerese?) conversation, GSP = fiber, without further distinction, because that is the "professional" choice. As I believe (someone here will surely correct me) RC wasn't in wide use until the 60s or 70s and considered "unprofessional", you can be pretty certain that any vintage GSP is fiber based.

GSP is about the only way I've come up with to differentiate my work from the ever encroaching terminology of inkjet machine "pigment" printing (not going to "hand made", not yet). There is still rectitude in the identification of process and result by using the label GSP appropriately. I just spent a number of days talking (i.e., educating) with hundreds of people who had no familiarity with classical processes and as often as I used the term GSP, no one ever asked if my prints were fiber.

It sounds as if the gallerist was doing (or saying) the right thing, if perhaps for the wrong reasons.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 4, 2014

The prices of all collectables is cyclic in nature. This artist has been hot since her discovery. I would wait to buy any of her photos. Notice I said photo and not print. It is my understanding that she made very few prints.

Poisson Du Jour · Feb 4, 2014

LOL! I always cringe when establishment photographers state with a raised nose that "I produce bespoke silver gelatin prints for clients" and the clients smile thinly, wondering what he is talking about. "Gelatin!?". Frankly, it's just a quaint, old-world term for a black and white print produced in the darkroom. The quality of the work and reputation of the photographer (or artist, artist-photographer, whatever) will usually decide the work's value. RC, FB or whatever else that is out there, it can be referred to as "silver gelatin prints". I have never used the term at all to describe my early B&W work.

brian steinberger · Feb 4, 2014

Gerald C Koch said:
The prices of all collectables is cyclic in nature. This artist has been hot since her discovery. I would wait to buy any of her photos. Notice I said photo and not print. It is my understanding that she made very few prints.

I wonder who is printing her work. It's amazing stuff.

mfohl · Feb 4, 2014

Ditto Steinberger. A-mazing.

gone · Feb 4, 2014

The art world is full of this sort of talk. I remember looking at some very nice, small sculptures in a gallery once, and the sales person mentioned that they were resin and in editions of 7, which according to French rules made each of the 7 an original! How she said this w/ a straight face I don't know. So in truth they weren't "sculptures" at all, they were resin (plastic) that was poured into a mold, each was hand painted, and they were put out in editions of 7. That is a LONG way from an original sculpture.

miha · Feb 5, 2014

Silver gelatine is a common description by galleries here, not silly or fancy at all. The term fiber based is not in use in most of the European languages, we say baryte/barite paper instead.

After all, aren't all B&W RC/PE papers fiber based?

frank · Feb 5, 2014

There has to be some way, IMO, to differentiate a traditional wet darkroom print made with an enlarger, from digitally printed output. (Inkjet, whatever)

Buyers should be aware of the medium which carries the image.

Often though, digital photographers would like to say, "It's all photography," but there are significant differences in tools, processes, and materials.

AgX · Feb 5, 2014

miha said:
Silver gelatine is a common description by galleries here, not silly or fancy at all. The term fiber based is not in use in most of the European languages, we say baryte/barite paper instead.

After all, aren't all B&W RC/PE papers fiber based?

Yes, that "fiber based" term used by us or at least our English speaking fellows is a silly term.

And that "silver gelatin print" may even include Impossible b&w films.

I remember discussions about what that gallery term "C-print" could mean. Or think of "vintage"

We should not take all those terms too serious.

DWThomas · Feb 5, 2014

(Having just put up a show) I usually identify mine as "gelatin silver print" -- gelatin first as with food ingredients, since I suspect there's way more gelatin than silver! And yes, I do it to differentiate the stuff from ink jet work. Not that I'm inalterably opposed to ink jets, I just like people to know what they're looking at.

Thomas Bertilsson · Feb 5, 2014

ToddB said:
OK guys,

I emailed the gallery that handles the prints from famed street photographer Vivian Maier..? So for a 12x12 printed on 16x20 sized paper runs between 3,000 - 7,000 dollars for SILVER GELATINE print. So.. is a Silver gelatine print something different than what most of us here print on?

ToddB

Vivian Maier is represented by the same gallery as our very own APUG member MaximusM3 (Massimo Marinucci). He is very picky about his photographs, and is extremely impressed with Maier's prints. $3-7k for a print is what the market will bear, and I know the prints are selling.

Silver gelatin MAY be fiber based, but could also be RC (resin coated). If it doesn't specify, you should ask, but it's probably fiber.

Silver Gelatine Print? The same as Fiber base print?

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