The hand made print

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 30, 2014

I work at a university art department doing IT work. I've had the privilege of seeing student work in the litho, silkscreen, etching and woodcut print labs. Some pretty awesome work. I grown to appreciate them more with the advent inkjet prints. What made me more appreciative is doing more work with cyanotype and Ziatype. How do you feel about the hand made prints in the age of Giclee'?

Vaughn · Apr 30, 2014

It is what I do. I could take it further by hand-making film and hand-making paper, but for now just making the carbon tissue and exposing it, then transferring it onto machine-made paper is fine.

But generally, hand-made processes allow for greater control of the variables, allowing those who wish to do so, more personal control of the final 'product'.

MartinCrabtree · Apr 30, 2014

I will eventually get there.

ROL · Apr 30, 2014

Mainecoonmaniac said:
How do you feel about the hand made prints in the age of Giclee'?

I'm not sure I get your point. What qualifies as "hand made"? I thought APUG was all about hand made as opposed to digital inkjet processes (i.e., Giclée – nose held prominently skyward).

gone · Apr 30, 2014

I don't understand. Lithography, silkscreen (serigraph), etching and woodcuts are all traditional, hand made print mediums. With lith and silkscreens you COULD use a printer as an intermediate step (although half screen photo dot separation is the usual method), but it's usually not a part of the process. Maybe for students. At that point it's craft, or needs to be clearly labeled as a derivation from the accepted category to be displayed in a gallery, which I assume is the goal of anyone using these techniques.

All of these processes are considered hand made printing processes, although some people may quibble w/ the silkscreen method. Using a machine made printing process like an inkjet printer to lay a design on a lithographic or etching plate....why would you do that? You've removed the artist's hand at that point and it becomes something else. Art terms are quite rigid. A painting means one of, a print does not mean a photographic print unless it is clearly labeled so, a woodcut must be cut by hand on wood w/ hand tools and hand printed, etc. Anyway, that's how I see it and how I was trained. Giclee is just a $100 word for an inkjet print, which by definition is far from hand made, and unless you're a known famous artist isn't worth much intrinsically because a machine made it. Even a photogravure print must be clearly labeled as such. It is not an etching.

snapguy · Apr 30, 2014

stuffy

There are a lot of stuffy folks out there. My own humbug opinion is you can't call photography something that is not machine made. What is the camera, a cheese sandwich? In the 1950s there were a lot of blue haired ladies who bought paint-by-numbers oil paint on canvas kits. You put red where the number says 5, blue where it says 6 and so on. The "art" establishment got into an uproar. But some of the great masters of painting ran factories. The Great Master would sketch the painting out and paint in the "important" faces and his students would put red in this area and blue in this area and so on. Art lovers troop to the galleries to worship these crowdpainted "masterpieces" and don't have a clue.
I think we all need to live and let live. I shoot photos with film cameras because I like the results and the process. But remember, digital has not been out of short pants all that long. It might even get better.

ROL · Apr 30, 2014

momus said:
Giclee is just a $100 word for an inkjet print,

You forgot the accénted 'e'.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 30, 2014

I do try to have a live and let live philosophy. I do make inkjet prints. My fiance' asked me to make a copy of an old color photo from 1961. I'm not going to shoot it with color film and hand print it in my darkroom. I scanned the photo and made an inkjet print. However, there are times where hand made items are appropriate. My point is that with all these mass produced items, this makes me appreciate hand made items even more. I like imperfections and slight variations in mass produced art.

bdial · Apr 30, 2014

What I see is that many of these "alternative" processes have flourished in this age of computer-driven photography.
There are probably more people doing wet plate work now than at any time since about 1890.

The usual silver-based processes impose various restrictions on what's possible or feasible, even though those restrictions are pretty large. Employing various hand-made processes provides avenues that take us beyond the limits of manufactured silver-based materials. What's not to like about that?

The current show of handmade work at VCP has been one of our most well attended shows ever, and I believe we had more entries than any of the past juried shows we've put up, and entries came in from all over the world. I think that's one example of how much interest there is in handmade work.

Gerald C Koch · Apr 30, 2014

These alternative methods can produce some extraordinary and beautiful prints. Look at the work of John Dugdale who is a master of several of these techniques. His work is even more impressive when you know that he is blind with only a small amount of vision in one eye.

NedL · Apr 30, 2014

I must be turning into an old fuddy duddy. I had to use google to find out what Giclee' means.

I've been dabbling with calotypes and salt prints. I hope this year to combine the two and make a salt print from a calotype. I like paper negatives and these both emphasize things I like about them.

I don't want to over-analyze why this is enjoyable and fun... I spend my days programming computers so my hobbies tend to go in a more "primitive" direction maybe. I like to plant seeds in my garden rather than purchase starts at a nursery.... there is something of the same spirit in that.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 30, 2014

Here's the irony that I see, but not sure if it's true. I think inkjet prints created interest in alternative processes while at the same time inkjet printers have made it easier to make negatives for those processes. I use my inkjet printers for digital negatives more often than I use it for making prints. Making digital negs give more respect for photographers that create negs from analog methods. What got me excited about alternative processes was seeing Kenro Izu's platinum prints at in Siem Riep Cambodia at the children's hospital. Take a look what he has to go through for his negs. http://moneyandpower10.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/kenro-izu/

lecarp · Apr 30, 2014

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I think inkjet prints created interest in alternative processes /QUOTE]

I really don't think the inkjet prints themselvse created interest in alt process. I believe many feared that film, paper etc. would disappear so they began
investigating alt. I began working in alt long before digital imaging. My Platinum/Palladium work was a result of the first time Agfa (read gov. regulations)
seriously altered Portriga 118 which was my primary paper.

Vaughn · Apr 30, 2014

One thing to consider is that alt processes are beginning to draw in digital photographers who have never set foot in a traditional darkroom.

The old Portriga Rapid paper was my primary paper, also (but the 111...and Ilford Gallery for images needing a more neutral black). I, too, switched to alt processes not too long after the second big change in the Portriga Rapid paper.

Gerald C Koch · Apr 30, 2014

NedL said:
I had to use google to find out what Giclee' means

Giclee is a French word pronounced ZHEE-klee. It means "squirt" but in French slang it has a definite sexual overtone. I wonder if the person who applied the word to printers fully understood the meaning of the word.

Maris · Apr 30, 2014

Photographs made by hand are objects (as opposed to appearances) that accumulate value beyond their capacity to deliver a picture of recognizable subject matter.

They offer rarity, singularity, fully realized handcraft, precious materials, and archival durability. To make such photographs is evidence of the technical ability of the photograph maker and their committment to the coherent scholarship and practice of their chosen medium.

I buy photographs for my personal collection in the hope that they are the true artistic expression of the person who signs them. That hope, I believe, is more likely to be fulfilled by hand-made work rather than by stuff run off on a machine.

removed account4 · May 1, 2014

i like hand made, i make hand made i think its great and a lot of fun
but i don't disparage people who use digital/machine age things to help
them create artwork.
i don't know, maybe it is a combination of the digital integration of photography
(hybrid techniques) and extremely easy world wide communications, and availability
of materials and information in a close knit world economy &c that has lead to revivals
of antiquarian techniques.

benjiboy · May 1, 2014

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I work at a university art department doing IT work. I've had the privilege of seeing student work in the litho, silkscreen, etching and woodcut print labs. Some pretty awesome work. I grown to appreciate them more with the advent inkjet prints. What made me more appreciative is doing more work with cyanotype and Ziatype. How do you feel about the hand made prints in the age of Giclee'?

Asking this question on an exclusively analogue photography site is like asking a butcher if eating meat is good for you.

Jim Noel · May 1, 2014

Handmade prints have been made for over 150 years and will still be present long after "Giclee" prints have faded and been forgotten.

Bob Carnie · May 1, 2014

When was the first silver gelatin print made?
Secondly when was the first commercial silver gelatin paper available?

bdial · May 1, 2014

Bob Carnie said:
When was the first silver gelatin print made?
Secondly when was the first commercial silver gelatin paper available?

According to Wiki the processed was introduced by Richard Leach Maddox in 1871, and the first developing out paper was 1874.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelatin_silver_process

There were also Plat. papers available too, which Weston mentions in Daybooks

cliveh · May 1, 2014

I am a film user who then enjoys making a positive image on light sensitive material, whether it is a straight silver print, or an alternative process. Thereafter, should I wish, I can make a high res scan of the print, make any adjustments I require through Photoshop and make superb reproductions through an archival inkjet process. These can be reproduced exactly the same ad infinitum, or sent in seconds to be printed exactly the same on another part of the planet. Therefore, to me the darkroom print is just a means to and end and not something Im precious about. I see the original negative is the precious bit. I see digital technology as an aid and extension to chemical photography and not as an either/or situation.

Bob Carnie · May 2, 2014

Thanks ,

bdial said:
According to Wiki the processed was introduced by Richard Leach Maddox in 1871, and the first developing out paper was 1874.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelatin_silver_process

There were also Plat. papers available too, which Weston mentions in Daybooks

pdeeh · May 2, 2014

benjiboy said:
Asking this question on an exclusively analogue photography site is like asking a butcher if eating meat is good for you.

this made me laugh (out loud, even)

The hand made print

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