So what do y'all call your silver prints in a show?

[jd callow]

Gelatin silver print was what a wizened old photographer told me was the correct name.

 

[roteague]

Oh no!! I've been calling them "gelatin-silver prints"!! Did I get it backwards?

Interestingly, Google gives 266,000 hits for "gelatin silver print" and only 103,000 for "silver gelatin print." Yet most of us appear to prefer the latter.

And just as surprisingly, the number of hits that Google returns for any set of words is basically irrelevant.

 

[Maris]

I say "Gelatin-silver photograph" never gelatin -silver print. It may be picky to use the word "photograph" for objects that bear marks as a consequence of being struck by light but I think it is worth doing.

Probably everyone in APUG knows that a "print" is a "photograph" but you cannot rely on the general picture buying public to be so savvy. The regular perception of "print" is a mechanically mass produced article of low unit value with individual examples being identical, indistinguishable, and freely interchangeable.

Each gelatin-silver photograph is, on the other hand, a unique article produced from first principles by exposing, developing, fixing...(you know the drill) a big piece of photographic emulsion coated on paper. The only thing that does not change is the subject matter which is usually a negative; a processed emulsion on a film base.

The misidentification of photographs with prints has, I believe, cost talented photograph makers big money over the years. The best in APUG should be multi-millionaires on the basis of their work but it won't happen while they are only making "prints".

Even more alarming is the possibility that if "photographs" are "prints" then, hey, "prints" are "photographs"! This is the sort of spiel I get from folks flogging ink-jets in photographic galleries.

Ok, the "photograph" versus "print" divide may be my private obsession but I remain proud to say "photograph" with a warm, friendly, clench-fisted assertiveness.

 

[jd callow]

Ok, the "photograph" versus "print" divide may be my private obsession but I remain proud to say "photograph" with a warm, friendly, clench-fisted assertiveness.

Point well taken. I have always had an issue with people referring to any reproduction of a photograph (halftones found in books, mag's, newspapers and posters being the prime examples) being referred to as a photograph.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I have no problem with the term print, as that is what I am doing - I am making a print of a negative when I reproduce my images on paper. To me, if you want to be technical, the negative in-camera is the photograph. Especially when making a contact print - it is printing very much in the same way that lithography, etching, silk-screen or other printing methods reproduce an image. So is enlarging, but it mimics the original photographic process more closely in some ways.

 

[MattKing]

One could describe it as a: "Gelatin-Silver Photographic Print", but then one probably would have to have a really good artist's statement to go along with it .

Matt

 

[Vaughn]

I have no problem with the term print, as that is what I am doing - I am making a print of a negative when I reproduce my images on paper. To me, if you want to be technical, the negative in-camera is the photograph. <snip>

I will agree with you. When I take my camera out into the redwoods, I go out to photograph...to take/make photographs. When I go into the darkroom, I go in there to print -- to make prints.

I have two equally important jobs...first as a photographer...to go out in the world and See and make photographs. The second is that of a print-maker...to take the results of my photographing and create prints. This is especially true to me as I make platinum prints and carbon prints (platinum photograph or carbon photograph just don't sound right to me.)

But to each their own. What would one call a platinum (or even silver gelatin) print that was created from a digitally enlarged inkjet negative (either film or digital capture). Is it a photograph? or a print? It is what it is.

Where does "picture" come in? Like in the song, "...when we get our picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone." I hear "picture" more often in regard to newspapers, etc than I do "photographs" (and never "print".)

Vaughn

 

[laverdure]

And just as surprisingly, the number of hits that Google returns for any set of words is basically irrelevant.

Well, it gives us a sense of what popular usage is. Anyway I got curious and went and did a little more research. I took the first five museums that came to mind and I searched their sites individually for both terms. Here are the results, expressed as: [site: gelatin silver print hits/silver gelatin print hits]:

eastmanhouse.org: 43/0
guggenheim.org: 21/0
nga.gov: 175/0
moma.org: 960/0
metmuseum.org: 1200/0

I figured five was enough. Though now I've gotten lazy, I also did a search (just on metmuseum.org) for the phrase "gelatin silver" alone, and saw that there were only 1290 hits for that, meaning that only 90 times out of 1290 were the words "gelatin silver" not followed by "print."

So we can assume, I think, that major museums at least have a preferred usage.

 

[max_ebb]

I also use the word print rather than photograph. Currently I call my C prints "chromogenic print", but I'm thinking about changing to "traditional darkroom C print" (although it's kind of long). Too many people don't know what chromogenic means, and still ask if they're digital prints. My work is abstract, and most people people think it's digital when they first see it.

 

[percepts]

lets something straight here. The word photograph means "light drawing" it does not mean sprayed ink. A photograph is something produced by drawing with light. An inkjet print is an inkjet print. It is not a photograph. If you call an inkjet print a photograph you are lying. You are deceiving your audience and most probably you are deceiving yourself.

I find it highly amusing that all the inkjet printing people are so ashamed of what they are producing that they have lie about it and call them giclee or archival or anything but what they are, which is inkjet prints. As long as they are that ashamed of their work and treat their customers with contempt by trying to deceive them, they will never have any crdibility. But thats their problem...

 

[Richard Boutwell]

lets something straight here. The word photograph means "light drawing" it does not mean sprayed ink. A photograph is something produced by drawing with light.

So by your logic, what are all these things we are making with cameras? A camera does not draw light onto the film, and we don't draw with light as we are shining it through a negative onto paper(unless of course you think of burning and dodging as "drawing").

An inkjet print is an inkjet print. It is not a photograph. If you call an inkjet print a photograph you are lying. You are deceiving your audience and most probably you are deceiving yourself.

And so we are all deceiving ourselves by calling our silver/platinum/gum whatever prints photographs.

I find it highly amusing that all the inkjet printing people are so ashamed of what they are producing that they have lie about it and call them giclee or archival or anything but what they are, which is inkjet prints. As long as they are that ashamed of their work and treat their customers with contempt by trying to deceive them, they will never have any crdibility. But thats their problem...

I am starting to think that (with the existence of Apug as evidence) it is the "analog" photographer who is starting to be threatened by the "big scary world of digital photography". Face it, it is getting better, and you are threatened by the quality and perceived ease of making digital prints. Am I advocating everyone switch to digital because it is the latest and greatest? Hell no, I still use an 8x10 and my finger nails are still black. Just use whatever you use and stop worrying about it.

I am going to quote Shawn Dougherty here, "You can call it 'Steve' if you want to, doesn't matter to me." Which gets back to the original topic of the post. Photographer's were probably arguing about what to call their prints long before there was even a thought about a computer making images. Furthermore, I think the issue really originated with galleries trying to make distinctions between processes, which has led up to the present dilemma of what to call these inkjet prints. Here is my basic understanding. all inkjet prints are Giclee prints. Not all Giclee prints are Iris prints. And all Dye Coupler Prints are Giclee Prints, but are they not Iris Prints. And I am still trying to fgure out what a Dye-Sublimation Print is, but I am sure it is probably an injet print.

Richard

 

[percepts]

So by your logic, what are all these things we are making with cameras? A camera does not draw light onto the film, and we don't draw with light as we are shining it through a negative onto paper(unless of course you think of burning and dodging as "drawing").



And so we are all deceiving ourselves by calling our silver/platinum/gum whatever prints photographs.



I am starting to think that (with the existence of Apug as evidence) it is the "analog" photographer who is starting to be threatened by the "big scary world of digital photography". Face it, it is getting better, and you are threatened by the quality and perceived ease of making digital prints. Am I advocating everyone switch to digital because it is the latest and greatest? Hell no, I still use an 8x10 and my finger nails are still black. Just use whatever you use and stop worrying about it.

I am going to quote Shawn Dougherty here, "You can call it 'Steve' if you want to, doesn't matter to me." Which gets back to the original topic of the post. Photographer's were probably arguing about what to call their prints long before there was even a thought about a computer making images. Furthermore, I think the issue really originated with galleries trying to make distinctions between processes, which has led up to the present dilemma of what to call these inkjet prints. Here is my basic understanding. all inkjet prints are Giclee prints. Not all Giclee prints are Iris prints. And all Dye Coupler Prints are Giclee Prints, but are they not Iris Prints. And I am still trying to fgure out what a Dye-Sublimation Print is, but I am sure it is probably an injet print.

Richard

never heard of shawn dougherty but that doesn't matter. He doesn't appear to know what a giclee print is so for the benefit of all those who don't know, here is where it came from.

""

What's In a Name: The Story of Giclée by Harald Johnson

article originally posted here but I have just checked and found a link to the article:

Dead Link Removed

So giclee was designed purely as a marketing term which just goes to confirm what I said, i.e. people producing inkjet prints will call them anything but "inkjet print". As soon as they stop doing that then the confusion will stop. people won't have to ask what is it really? Its soooooo blindingly simple but inkjet printers can't see it. I have no problem with inkjet prints, I have a problem with people who try and tell me that an inkjet print is something else.

 

[Richard Boutwell]

Percepts, WOW, I am impressed with your mad research skills. It took you, like, half an hour to write all that. That is quite amazing. Or, did you just copy and paste? It would be nice if you acknowledged your source, even if it is just wikipedia.

never heard of shawn dougherty but that doesn't matter. He doesn't appear to know what a giclee print is so for the benefit of all those who don't know, here is where it came from.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists) is an apug member. I took the quote out of context, but the meaning is still relevant. AND, If you would pay attention to punctuation, you would see that (there was a url link here which no longer exists) ended with, " . . . doesn't matter to me." My own writing is what followed. So, I guess it was me who didn't understand the definitive history of the Giclee, but that doesn't change the fact that a Giclee is still just an inkjet. But, thanks for going out of your way to enlighten us.

 

[RobertP]

Giclee is the French word for spray. Or French slang for ejaculate. "Platinum giclee"? now that's hilarious.

 

[percepts]

Percepts, WOW, I am impressed with your mad research skills. It took you, like, half an hour to write all that. That is quite amazing. Or, did you just copy and paste? It would be nice if you acknowledged your source, even if it is just wikipedia.

No I didn't write it. It was an article taken from a magazine which was posted on a website. The link to the website no longer works and I couldn't find any reference to the article anywhere else on the web. Fortunately I had copied it so that I could post it to gallery owners who were waxing lyrical about the "Giclee Process" a few years ago. Most of them now have egg on their faces as customers return faded prints.

[edit]
I found a link to the article:

Dead Link Removed

[/edit]

 

[Richard Boutwell]

Giclee is the French word for spray. Or French slang for ejaculate. "Platinum giclee"? now that's hilarious.

Awsome. Remind me not to say, "Es que voulez voyez mes giclee?" in France if I would like someone to look at my new digital prints . . .