Small Prints

jmal · Jun 2, 2007

I'm not sure this is of much interest to anybody, but perhaps it will interest some. I shoot 35mm (though a LF is in my future) and normally print on 8x10 paper. Well, I was very short on paper and itching to print, so I cut my remaining three sheets in half and printed roughly 3.5x5. The negs were from a roll of Delta 3200, which is normally very grainy at 8x10. On small prints, however, they had very little grain as one would expect, but the really interesting difference was the sharpness (also expected) and tonality. They look great. I always understood that enlarging diminished certain qualities in a negative. I just never bothered to print small to find out exactly how much is lost. Good learning experience.

Jmal

David Brown · Jun 2, 2007

Printing small can be a revelation sometimes.

david b · Jun 2, 2007

I just did a few 3x3's and loved them.

removed account4 · Jun 2, 2007

i LOVE printing small.
i made a few hand stitched books using images
that could fit 3 on a sheet of 5x7 paper ..

lots of fun

john

jmal · Jun 2, 2007

It's interesting to hear that others like the small prints as well. It seems that most people, including myself, are always thinking about bigger prints. It was refreshing for me to find that a small print could be just as satisfying, if not more, than a larger print. I feel re-inspired about my photography. I plan on reprinting many of my photos smaller to see how they change my feeling for them.

Jmal

removed account4 · Jun 2, 2007

jmal

there is a great book of andre kertesz called "early years"

http://www.amazon.com/Andre-Kertesz...6670437?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180830353&sr=1-4

it is filled with tiny little prints he made early in his life.
and it is just great

-- john

jmal · Jun 2, 2007

Thanks for the link. When I lived in the D.C. area I saw some of his small prints at the National Gallery. Most people just walked by them without stopping to look. I thought they were pretty cool at the time, though still didn't make any small prints until today. The exhibit did plant the idea in my head that I would at some point give it a try. Thanks again.

Jmal

Jon Shiu · Jun 2, 2007

I recently began to shoot more 35mm and printing about 4x6, matted to 11x14 or 14x17 and they look great and are very distinctive. They make you want to take a closer look.

Jon

Sportera · Jun 2, 2007

Although I am printing bigger these days, I still prefer the small print. It forces the viewer to study it closer, large prints have the impact but smaller one are more intimate and personal.

nze · Jun 3, 2007

I also do small enlargement of my 35mm. I am also a large format user and find taht 4x5 contact are just beautiful . Large format are useful for exhibition

Andy K · Jun 3, 2007

This is why I get so much enjoyment from printing postcards.

roy · Jun 3, 2007

Jon said :-
I recently began to shoot more 35mm and printing about 4x6, matted to 11x14 or 14x17 and they look great and are very distinctive. They make you want to take a closer look.

A few years ago I was coming to the end of a printing session but felt that there was another image somewhere in the negative I was using but it was not apparent full frame. I wound the enlarger head to the top of the column and found a small section of the negative that produced a semi-abstract picture, about 5x4" in size. I made a print and immediately made a second as I was pleased at what I had found ! The print was mounted in something like a 12x14" board and was accepted in a couple of exhibitions. The down side was that when entered in a local club competition it was criticised as members sitting anywhere but the front of the room had difficulty in seeing the image.
I agree that small images in larger mounts do focus the attention, compelling you to look at them.

Dave Miller · Jun 3, 2007

It rather depends on your intended viewing distance; 2feet or 20?

removed account4 · Jun 3, 2007

roy said:
Jon said :-
I recently began to shoot more 35mm and printing about 4x6, matted to 11x14 or 14x17 and they look great and are very distinctive. They make you want to take a closer look.

A few years ago I was coming to the end of a printing session but felt that there was another image somewhere in the negative I was using but it was not apparent full frame. I wound the enlarger head to the top of the column and found a small section of the negative that produced a semi-abstract picture, about 5x4" in size. I made a print and immediately made a second as I was pleased at what I had found ! The print was mounted in something like a 12x14" board and was accepted in a couple of exhibitions. The down side was that when entered in a local club competition it was criticised as members sitting anywhere but the front of the room had difficulty in seeing the image.
I agree that small images in larger mounts do focus the attention, compelling you to look at them.

roy:

i hope you didn't take this personally.
if the people didn't bother to look at the photographs, and
expected to see everything from their seats ...
maybe the exhibit hall should have those airplane seats with built-in
TVs in the headrest, and view the pictures that way

john

Russ Young · Jun 3, 2007

Heinrich Kuhn, in reviewing a major international exhibition circa 1909, noted how small the Americans printed compared to Europeans, especially the Germans, and concluded (rightly so) that the American prints were meant to be viewed in the hand and the German prints on the wall.

The composition must be bolder in a small print but they can certainly be as striking but perhaps only to a refined viewer and not the masses. Follow your heart, not someone else's...

Russ

Dave Miller · Jun 3, 2007

I am a member of the PPC http://www.postalphotoclub.org.uk/ where a folio of our prints is circulated by post, 7”x5” prints, and in the case of my group, monochrome prints. These are intended to be viewed by one person at a time in the hand. At the other end of my printing range I make 12”x16” that are designed to be viewed on an illuminated easel by a seated group viewing from a range of 10’ to 20’ for my local club competitions.
My experience is that if a print “works” in one size, it "works" in the other.

Samuel Hotton · Jun 3, 2007

Good morning Jmal,
I like small prints on occasion as well. In the three following threads you perhaps will glean some very interesting insights from forum members concerning small prints. Perhaps the most interesting things I've learned about small prints is that with really old lenses or lenses with no coatings and simple elements (many times) they do not enlarge well over 5x. As a side note, look at the beauty that the Petzval lens shooters get in the ULF forum with minimum enlargement or with contact prints. However with their unique characteristics, look, signature, flare, bokeh, flaws, they make some of the most beautiful small prints I've ever seen. In fact, even a pinhole produced image can be beautiful at contact print size. I wish these images from older design lenses would "hold together" when printed large, I (personally) have not found it to be so, only the exception. For bigger prints I use bigger negatives. Even with larger negatives, sometimes I see a loss in beauty when enlarged much beyond 5x.
Yes, for competition, exhibition, and of course customer needs, one prints to the size required. But I have found quite by chance that many folks, mostly females request, prefer, and purchase my smaller prints of between 5 and 20 square inches in size. In some ways I'm surprised at this, some have replied when asked why do you choose the little pictures, that it is the intimacy, the mystery of whats hidden, plus the fact you can display lots of little pictures and only a few big ones. I believe it might have something to do with the fact that most folks grew up with perhaps the warm memories and familiarty of "little" B&W pictures and that we have been bombarded throughout the last 30+ years with large prints, posters, billboards and large television images. Perhaps the jewell like B&W print harkens back to a perceived much more romantic era. Maybe this is why WE still enjoy shooting these wonderful old technology cameras rather than following the heretics and philistines with their doctrine of 1s +0s.
Have fun, be happy,
Sam H.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

roy · Jun 3, 2007

It is up to the photographer as to what size he wants to print. As far as I am concerned, it is up to the viewer to make their own arrangements to view what is on offer. Exhibition viewing does not usually present a problem. I happened to join a camera club which had a bias against small prints, perhaps the only one in the country but we all have our own views about camera clubs and competitions !

DrPablo · Jun 3, 2007

Dave Miller said:
My experience is that if a print “works” in one size, it "works" in the other.

I'm not so sure that grand landscapes (for example) work quite so well at a small size, whereas portaits and macros work really well. There are some images with loads of tiny details that don't come alive until they're big; and others that don't depend on these tiny details that lend themselve well to the small size.

Dave Miller · Jun 3, 2007

DrPablo said:
I'm not so sure that grand landscapes (for example) work quite so well at a small size, whereas portaits and macros work really well. There are some images with loads of tiny details that don't come alive until they're big; and others that don't depend on these tiny details that lend themselve well to the small size.

You seem to be assuming that they are all veiwed from the same distance. I have advocated that they should not be.

DrPablo · Jun 3, 2007

I'm not assuming that. My point is that in the case of tiny tiny details, they may be too small to see from any reasonable viewing distance -- and I think a 3 inch viewing distance or a magnifying loupe are beyond a minimum reasonable viewing distance. I also think a 4x6 inch print is suboptimal for a big group portrait of 40 people, because you'll barely be able to discern faces, let alone facial expressions, without a loupe or an uncomfortably close viewing distance.

In other words, isn't there a point at which it's too small for the constituent details? A 35mm contact print is too small for most things -- and a 4x6 print would also be too small for some subjects.

removed account4 · Jun 3, 2007

hi paul

i see what you are saying, but when i look at a photograph, i am not
really looking for minute details. i never look at a photograph
through a loupe. i kind of like small photos because they are usually quite
sharp and they are more fun to study than a big print.
many years ago i made a bunch of 16x20 enlargements from shards of glass.
they were beautiful when enlarged, you could really fall into them ... but after
a while i printed them small and ended up liking them better -- they didn't need
to bonk you on the head, they were subtle ... maybe it is the subtle nature i like
... not quite sure

-john

DrPablo · Jun 3, 2007

Hey John,

I was only making the point that the small print (which I also enjoy) works a lot better for images that depend less on fine details. I do a lot of cyanotypes and vandyke images from 4x5 negatives, and invariably the best ones are the ones less dependent on tiny details that you have to squint to see. Images with lots of fine details, for example a portrait of a very large group, are more effective at a larger print size.

keithwms · Jun 4, 2007

The intimacy factor is perhaps what most distinguishes a small print from a large one- I think it's far more important than what details show up or don't. A print at 4x5 or smaller will usually have one viewer at a time, so it's really a one-on-one form of communication, a private audience. Whereas a large print isn't like that at all, is it?

DrPablo · Jun 4, 2007

keithwms said:
A print at 4x5 or smaller will usually have one viewer at a time, so it's really a one-on-one form of communication, a private audience. Whereas a large print isn't like that at all, is it?

Just depends where you're looking at it.

There are some subjects with critical small detail, i.e. too small to be effective in a small print. A graduation picture with 300 people may as well be anyone or anywhere if it's too small to see the faces, because the faces themselves are the primary subject matter. On the other hand, I think cityscapes work quite well, because they have large, dramatic shapes and the tiny details just add realism.

Small Prints

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