What is a photographic print

[Alan Edward Klein]

A "print" is a final product and can be any number of things - a photographic print, a lithograph of a drawing, text - produced by a printing process. A print can be a photograph. An Instax photo is a good example: it is a photo produced in-camera (that's the printing process). But one will generally call any photographic print a photograph. There is no reason not to.

Film photography tends to make a distinction because of the ridiculously large piles of negatives we have. While those things are not prints, they are photographs (inverted). They are in every respect identical to the way an image works on a tintype - put a thin one on some black paper and look at it obliquely - and a tintype is normally understood to be a photograph.

...

Photography is a diverse and wide-ranging field of activities, really. It suffers from an inability to be defined by means of its subject (because there doesn't even need to be one), its methods (you don't even need to use a camera), its objects or its products, or its uses or ends. And attempts to define it always seem too confining - there is always something the definition excludes or denies. Yet every person here knows what they consider to be photography.

So, in the end, maybe it is best to accept it as a personal pursuit, a practice that is in great part defined by its individual practitioners, and stop baselessly elevating one's own personal preferences.

How do slides made to be projected fit into this conversation?

 

[Vaughn]

The image is the heart of the print. Separate them and both may perish.

 

[koraks]

How do slides made to be projected fit into this conversation?

They don't, as far as I'm concerned. The thread title very specifically mentions 'print'. Even if you consider film 'prints' (such as once upon a time commonly made in the movie industry) as 'prints', projection slides are still not 'printed' by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you very explicitly want to discuss the rather arcane case of transparency film printed from internegatives. This would make for a diversion of the main thread into a marginal and virtually irrelevant direction, so in my view counterproductive and undesirable.

 

[MattKing]

How do slides made to be projected fit into this conversation?

Big transparencies made for backlit viewing would fit in.
The rest? They don't.

 

[kfed1984]

Sorry but I'm back...

I've read through the latest comments and here's what I can sum up for now.

Metaphysical discussions are very much relevant in art and film photography. Actually this is what art is all about. My attempt was to try to add a degree of reality to the "subjective" experience of viewing art when being aware of the process used to make it and its provenance. It is very important to humans overall and trying to explain these things using engineering language instantly defeats the purpose. I do not understand how you can discuss art and viewing photographs without metaphysics.

I call this "subjective" experience real because a lot of other things we experience in fact aren't real but they matter to us as if they are real. For example, when we speak of colors we talk about them as if they are real. But there's no such thing as color in the physical reality. Red is about 700 nanometers, blue is close to 400nm. These are wavelengths, and length in fact has no color. There is nothing red about 700nm. There's no such thing as sound, there are pressure fluctuations, which in reality don't sound like anything. And these sensations are very close to physical reality, but have no existence in physical reality. If you become too reductionist and Darwinian as some people are in these forums, you might become color blind I think. Try explaining a color blind person what is a color. There are also other sensations that may not be tied to the physical world as intimately as color, but are still real.

In fact everything we experience is subjective, but feels real. Atoms are mostly empty space, atomic nuclei are made of quarks, which are made of strings of bundled up ether apparently (although the idea of ether is not very popular). So the physical reality is very much color-less, silent, neither hot or cold, and tasteless. So all of us are actually always talking about subjective experience to be precise, without realizing it. To talk about this precisely requires some kind of metaphysics, can't go around it. I don't really care if I make mistakes doing so, because its necessary.

To help with this, it may be helpful to bring in the "Three World Hypothesis" refined by R. Penrose, but developed before him. The three worlds are the material world, your own mental/subjective world, and the Platonic world of ideas. All are in fact real, philosophically speaking, and if you want to delve further you can read up on this hypothesis.

So when I talk about subjective experience, quantum entanglement, etc. I am in fact referring to the second world of the human consciousness, which is non-physical, and how it ties to our treatment of physical objects that have certain provenance and that underwent certain processes. This kind of discussion can only bring up controversies, but that's what makes it interesting, and it requires metaphysics.

Some are saying that I am defending my own method. Well this was how I arrived at my method: first buying an inkjet, then playing around with photoshop to give images the film look with the artificial grain and S-curves, then realizing there's something more real about shooting film and then scanning and ink-jetting, then realizing you may as well shoot film and c-print or silver gelatin. I made a path from ink-jet back to analog, seeing how empty it feels. I also find it weird why people are so obsessed about shooting with Portra 400 and then digitizing it and ink-jetting. Can we not just shoot digital and then give it the film look? Why are people perfectly fine with this. "Well I like the process".... something dishonest here. People like the film look, they love it, and the process, but we are not allowed to add the smallest degree of authenticity to a fully analog work flow, and differentiate it from ink printing.

In my opinion this is because photography has been taken over by digital and ink-jetters majority, a very vast majority. It is more convenient and much faster, so they violently defend their turf and do all they can to authenticate their process. Rather than me trying to defend mine. I've tried both, and made the more difficult choice, because of everything I described earlier.

I think the public will follow what photographers say. If because of selfish reasons, lets say the majority photographers declare that ink-jet is superior in longevity, etc. then the crowds will follow that advice. Majority of people are in fact sheep on steroids and their choices are often misguided and controlled by corporations, fads, memes. I think it is the job of photographers and printers to help the public see what each method is, instead of saying that its all just information on paper.

I already mentioned how its important for people to know the provenance of an object. If we don't tell them about the process used in the analog world, they will only see ink on paper. I wonder how people would react if they saw a demonstration of the darkroom process (film and paper development) and the inkjet process, then watching their reactions to the prints on the wall made by both methods. I don't know, I don't think the crowd will become attracted to analog because it is harder, but because its more interesting/entangled. Same for etchings and engravings. If people know how these are made, they relate to them differently. Try to stage a gallery showing of etchings and lithographs made by inkjet. Show them the inkjet pumping out the prints in a back room, then show them the printing press, the copper plate, the ink, etc. We understand these things, but not for photography for some reason. Same goes for "fake" and "real" museum pieces, both of which can be identical in specs and appearance, but we still make a huge difference between them. But ink-jet and photo-prints are quite different.

I can go on, but need to leave now till evening or tomorrow.

 

[Pieter12]

They don't, as far as I'm concerned. The thread title very specifically mentions 'print'. Even if you consider film 'prints' (such as once upon a time commonly made in the movie industry) as 'prints', projection slides are still not 'printed' by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you very explicitly want to discuss the rather arcane case of transparency film printed from internegatives. This would make for a diversion of the main thread into a marginal and virtually irrelevant direction, so in my view counterproductive and undesirable.

Don't forget type R and dye-transfer prints made from transparencies.

 

[Pieter12]

Sorry but I'm back...

I've read through the latest comments and here's what I can sum up for now.

Metaphysical discussions are very much relevant in art and film photography. Actually this is what art is all about. My attempt was to try to add a degree of reality to the "subjective" experience of viewing art when being aware of the process used to make it and its provenance. It is very important to humans overall and trying to explain these things using engineering language instantly defeats the purpose. I do not understand how you can discuss art and viewing photographs without metaphysics.

I call this "subjective" experience real because a lot of other things we experience in fact aren't real but they matter to us as if they are real. For example, when we speak of colors we talk about them as if they are real. But there's no such thing as color in the physical reality. Red is about 700 nanometers, blue is close to 400nm. These are wavelengths, and length in fact has no color. There is nothing red about 700nm. There's no such thing as sound, there are pressure fluctuations, which in reality don't sound like anything. And these sensations are very close to physical reality, but have no existence in physical reality. If you become too reductionist and Darwinian as some people are in these forums, you might become color blind I think. Try explaining a color blind person what is a color. There are also other sensations that may not be tied to the physical world as intimately as color, but are still real.

In fact everything we experience is subjective, but feels real. Atoms are mostly empty space, atomic nuclei are made of quarks, which are made of strings of bundled up ether apparently (although the idea of ether is not very popular). So the physical reality is very much color-less, silent, neither hot or cold, and tasteless. So all of us are actually always talking about subjective experience to be precise, without realizing it. To talk about this precisely requires some kind of metaphysics, can't go around it. I don't really care if I make mistakes doing so, because its necessary.

To help with this, it may be helpful to bring in the "Three World Hypothesis" refined by R. Penrose, but developed before him. The three worlds are the material world, your own mental/subjective world, and the Platonic world of ideas. All are in fact real, philosophically speaking, and if you want to delve further you can read up on this hypothesis.

So when I talk about subjective experience, quantum entanglement, etc. I am in fact referring to the second world of the human consciousness, which is non-physical, and how it ties to our treatment of physical objects that have certain provenance and that underwent certain processes. This kind of discussion can only bring up controversies, but that's what makes it interesting, and it requires metaphysics.

Some are saying that I am defending my own method. Well this was how I arrived at my method: first buying an inkjet, then playing around with photoshop to give images the film look with the artificial grain and S-curves, then realizing there's something more real about shooting film and then scanning and ink-jetting, then realizing you may as well shoot film and c-print or silver gelatin. I made a path from ink-jet back to analog, seeing how empty it feels. I also find it weird why people are so obsessed about shooting with Portra 400 and then digitizing it and ink-jetting. Can we not just shoot digital and then give it the film look? Why are people perfectly fine with this. "Well I like the process".... something dishonest here. People like the film look, they love it, and the process, but we are not allowed to add the smallest degree of authenticity to a fully analog work flow, and differentiate it from ink printing.

In my opinion this is because photography has been taken over by digital and ink-jetters majority, a very vast majority. It is more convenient and much faster, so they violently defend their turf and do all they can to authenticate their process. Rather than me trying to defend mine. I've tried both, and made the more difficult choice, because of everything I described earlier.

I think the public will follow what photographers say. If because of selfish reasons, lets say the majority photographers declare that ink-jet is superior in longevity, etc. then the crowds will follow that advice. Majority of people are in fact sheep on steroids and their choices are often misguided and controlled by corporations, fads, memes. I think it is the job of photographers and printers to help the public see what each method is, instead of saying that its all just information on paper.

I already mentioned how its important for people to know the provenance of an object. If we don't tell them about the process used in the analog world, they will only see ink on paper. I wonder how people would react if they saw a demonstration of the darkroom process (film and paper development) and the inkjet process, then watching their reactions to the prints on the wall made by both methods. I don't know, I don't think the crown will become attracted to analog not because its harder, but because its more interesting. Same for etchings and engravings. If people know how these are made, they relate to them differently. Try to stage a gallery showing of etchings and lithographs made by inkjet. Show them the inkjet pumping out the prints in a back room, then show them the printing press, the copper plate, the ink, etc. We understand these things, but not for photography for some reason. Same goes for "fake" and "real" museum pieces, both of which can be identical in specs and appearance, but we still make a huge difference between them. But ink-jet and photo-prints are quite different.

I can go on, but need to leave now till evening or tomorrow.

You left out auras, only present when the print is directly made by the originator.

 

[GregY]

You left out auras, only present when the print is directly made by the originator.

Pieter, are you more than a bit jaded ?

 

[L Gebhardt]

@kfed1984 What if you had two cameras and printing methods that both produced the same exact output (for the sake of argument down to the atoms). If one was traditional and one was digital or what comes next would you still favor one over the other? More realistically what if I could print to silver gelatin paper with a laser recorder at such a high resolution that you could not see the components that made up the image. Couple that with a scanner that has high enough resolution that all the grain is accurately imaged. Would doing print manipulation in a computer be any different than doing it by hand on the print if the end results were visually identical? What if only one print was made from each so we remove the ability to create multiple identical works from one process? After all it's still the photographer's vision on paper in the end.

I agree metaphysical discussions are relevant and worth having, but I don't expect any universally agreed upon answers to arise.

As far as inkjets go my opinion, after a lot of use, is they are just different. Different from darkroom prints, and different depending on the paper, ink, and skill in printing. I don't mind that all, but you obviously have a different opinion. Sometimes I have used digital edits to refine how I want a darkroom print to look by proofing on inkjet and then applying the best of the experiments to a darkroom print. That saves some time and money. But I have also made entirely satisfactory inkjet prints that I am happy to display from both film and digital. They are not trying to be darkroom prints, but rather their own photographic prints. As long as you are not trying to deceive all methods of producing art are valid in my mind and I don't see how I should tell you you shouldn't be making art some way.

 

[kfed1984]

You left out auras, only present when the print is directly made by the originator.

agree, even if we have to use this terminology and even if you are sarcastic.

 

[wiltw]

Photographers should be artists, and artists often care about the materials and mediums used and not just transmission of information. I think digital technology numbed people down so much that they no longer see the differences or importance of these concepts. Its kind of like a digital musician who laughs at a classic guitar player and makes fun of anyone who's emotional about music...

The problem with limiting 'photographer' to being 'artists' is that there always have been many uses of photography in which there was NO 'ARTISTIC' INTERPRETATION...

• a school portraitist is a photograher who only captures a somewhat standardized pose
• a medical photographer is a photographer who only records the surgical field or medical specimen which they are documenting
• a scientific macro photographer is a photographer who records the minute detail of an object

All of the above folks can control lighting to best record the subject at hand, and there is no 'posing' to flatter the appearance of the subject.

If you print with an inkjet ink on "photographic" inkjet paper, then what you obtain is an inkjetograph, of some sort. An inkjetograph from an original digital image, which was a phototelegram or photogram rather than photograph.

All of thge above 'write with light' to capture the image. Yet, even conventional crystal halide capture of the image has always been subject to prints that were recorded on photochemical paper, or on the printed page (in which photosensitive paper and chemicals were not employed)....or NO print at all, as projection of slides would entail. So saying that a inkjet print is "not a 'photograph'" has to be subjected to the same criteria, which would indicate that Life magazine from 1960 or National Geographic images in 2023 would be similarly 'not photographs', would it not?!

 

[Pieter12]

Pieter, are you more than a bit jaded ?

Just skeptical.

 

[kfed1984]

The problem with limiting 'photographer' to being 'artists' is that there always have been many uses of photography in which there was NO 'ARTISTIC' INTERPRETATION...

True, for those cases digital is definitely superior, in speed and efficiency. Definitely I will not bring film to document a warzone or a sporting event, where I have to capture stuff quickly. Also ink-jetting allows for a very rapid printing of photo books, etc.

 

[GregY]

True, for those cases digital is definitely superior, in speed and efficiency. Definitely I will not bring film to document a warzone or a sporting event, where I have to capture stuff quickly. Also ink-jetting allows for a very rapid printing of photo books, etc.

It used to be done. There are still photographers like Eddy Van Wessel for example who use film (albeit along w digital cameras) in war photography

 

[Don_ih]

How do slides made to be projected fit into this conversation?

A slide is a photograph.

They don't, as far as I'm concerned. The thread title very specifically mentions 'print'.

Well, I asked his what a photograph is (way back in the other thread, but quoted in this one), because the majority of his argument rests on the premise that certain types of things (including prints) count as photographs while other types of things (also including prints) don't.

 

[kfed1984]

What if you had two cameras and printing methods that both produced the same exact output (for the sake of argument down to the atoms). If one was traditional and one was digital or what comes next would you still favor one over the other? More realistically what if I could print to silver gelatin paper with a laser recorder at such a high resolution that you could not see the components that made up the image.

Well if the analog print is made by an individual then it adds more to the personality of the image, entanglement as I like to call it. Buyers appreciate this and I think this has merit. Certain photographers in the past teamed up with certain printers, their combination added value to the print.

The atom by atom comparison I described earlier using the etching, engraving, lithograph, ink-jet analogy. If one made an ink-jet in a style of a lithograph, same ink and all, atom by atom, would we care anymore to call a lithograph a lithograph? We would. People will come to defend lithographs violently. Difference between lithograph and inkjet is I think smaller than between ink-jet and silver gelatin. But we do not defend analog from digital as much, simply because of the sheer number of ink-jetters talking.

We also discussed hybrid processes here, printing with laser on photographic paper. What makes this interesting is that the process is more photographic than ink-jetting, not as entangled with the artist as its not hand-made, but it's definitely different from an inkjetograph.

Yes inkjet has it's own merits, but I feel it has taken a lot away from c-print and silver gelatin, by saying that it does the same thing, and does it better with better archival properties, etc. Hence me reacting strongly to all this, when I feel that analog has more artistic merit.

Also it is difficult to make a strong/objective/materialistic argument in support of analog when we deal with the topic of art and consciousness. Any strong argument instantly takes away meaning from the discussion. So I have to rely on analogies and precedents established in other printing methods, lithographs, etc.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Big transparencies made for backlit viewing would fit in.
The rest? They don't.

Like Lik's?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

They don't, as far as I'm concerned. The thread title very specifically mentions 'print'. Even if you consider film 'prints' (such as once upon a time commonly made in the movie industry) as 'prints', projection slides are still not 'printed' by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you very explicitly want to discuss the rather arcane case of transparency film printed from internegatives. This would make for a diversion of the main thread into a marginal and virtually irrelevant direction, so in my view counterproductive and undesirable.

It;s not arcane. I had thirty 16x20" prints framed and hug on my apartment's walls that came from 120 slides, well most of them. They were subsequently photographed with 4x5 internegatives and printed as an "R" I think was the process. Today you can still scan and print digitally with lasers. So there are printing methods associated with positive film slides. Also, as Matt mentioned, slides can be backlit and framed like Lik does with his photos. More ways to think about prints.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Sorry but I'm back...

I've read through the latest comments and here's what I can sum up for now.

Metaphysical discussions are very much relevant in art and film photography. Actually this is what art is all about. My attempt was to try to add a degree of reality to the "subjective" experience of viewing art when being aware of the process used to make it and its provenance. It is very important to humans overall and trying to explain these things using engineering language instantly defeats the purpose. I do not understand how you can discuss art and viewing photographs without metaphysics.

I call this "subjective" experience real because a lot of other things we experience in fact aren't real but they matter to us as if they are real. For example, when we speak of colors we talk about them as if they are real. But there's no such thing as color in the physical reality. Red is about 700 nanometers, blue is close to 400nm. These are wavelengths, and length in fact has no color. There is nothing red about 700nm. There's no such thing as sound, there are pressure fluctuations, which in reality don't sound like anything. And these sensations are very close to physical reality, but have no existence in physical reality. If you become too reductionist and Darwinian as some people are in these forums, you might become color blind I think. Try explaining a color blind person what is a color. There are also other sensations that may not be tied to the physical world as intimately as color, but are still real.

In fact everything we experience is subjective, but feels real. Atoms are mostly empty space, atomic nuclei are made of quarks, which are made of strings of bundled up ether apparently (although the idea of ether is not very popular). So the physical reality is very much color-less, silent, neither hot or cold, and tasteless. So all of us are actually always talking about subjective experience to be precise, without realizing it. To talk about this precisely requires some kind of metaphysics, can't go around it. I don't really care if I make mistakes doing so, because its necessary.

To help with this, it may be helpful to bring in the "Three World Hypothesis" refined by R. Penrose, but developed before him. The three worlds are the material world, your own mental/subjective world, and the Platonic world of ideas. All are in fact real, philosophically speaking, and if you want to delve further you can read up on this hypothesis.

So when I talk about subjective experience, quantum entanglement, etc. I am in fact referring to the second world of the human consciousness, which is non-physical, and how it ties to our treatment of physical objects that have certain provenance and that underwent certain processes. This kind of discussion can only bring up controversies, but that's what makes it interesting, and it requires metaphysics.

Some are saying that I am defending my own method. Well this was how I arrived at my method: first buying an inkjet, then playing around with photoshop to give images the film look with the artificial grain and S-curves, then realizing there's something more real about shooting film and then scanning and ink-jetting, then realizing you may as well shoot film and c-print or silver gelatin. I made a path from ink-jet back to analog, seeing how empty it feels. I also find it weird why people are so obsessed about shooting with Portra 400 and then digitizing it and ink-jetting. Can we not just shoot digital and then give it the film look? Why are people perfectly fine with this. "Well I like the process".... something dishonest here. People like the film look, they love it, and the process, but we are not allowed to add the smallest degree of authenticity to a fully analog work flow, and differentiate it from ink printing.

In my opinion this is because photography has been taken over by digital and ink-jetters majority, a very vast majority. It is more convenient and much faster, so they violently defend their turf and do all they can to authenticate their process. Rather than me trying to defend mine. I've tried both, and made the more difficult choice, because of everything I described earlier.

I think the public will follow what photographers say. If because of selfish reasons, lets say the majority photographers declare that ink-jet is superior in longevity, etc. then the crowds will follow that advice. Majority of people are in fact sheep on steroids and their choices are often misguided and controlled by corporations, fads, memes. I think it is the job of photographers and printers to help the public see what each method is, instead of saying that its all just information on paper.

I already mentioned how its important for people to know the provenance of an object. If we don't tell them about the process used in the analog world, they will only see ink on paper. I wonder how people would react if they saw a demonstration of the darkroom process (film and paper development) and the inkjet process, then watching their reactions to the prints on the wall made by both methods. I don't know, I don't think the crowd will become attracted to analog because it is harder, but because its more interesting/entangled. Same for etchings and engravings. If people know how these are made, they relate to them differently. Try to stage a gallery showing of etchings and lithographs made by inkjet. Show them the inkjet pumping out the prints in a back room, then show them the printing press, the copper plate, the ink, etc. We understand these things, but not for photography for some reason. Same goes for "fake" and "real" museum pieces, both of which can be identical in specs and appearance, but we still make a huge difference between them. But ink-jet and photo-prints are quite different.

I can go on, but need to leave now till evening or tomorrow.

You mean you'e not done?

 

[koraks]

I had thirty 16x20" prints framed and hug on my apartment's walls that came from 120 slides

Then they're just prints, aren't they? How does that result in "more ways" to think about prints? It changes nothing about the argumentation of the OP or the responses that followed.

 

[MattKing]

Like Lik's?

I was thinking more about Jeff Wall.
For Example, "After Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison - the Prologue"

 

[Pieter12]

Difference between lithograph and inkjet is I think smaller than between ink-jet and silver gelatin

Why? And what type of lithograph--there are several.

 

[GregY]

kfed, I tend to side with the gist of your post. I doubt whether it's possible to not offend the other side. People used to listen to vinyl records in their homes, and now they're steaming from their telephones. There's not much argument that we've settled for a diminished quality of sound. At weddings music was typically provided by a live band/orchestra.....now there's a disc jockey....or the aforementioned streaming a playlist from someone's phone......
I have a number of silver gelatin prints from professional photographer friends (yes they also made the prints). I also have a beautiful image (hybrid print....Rolleiflex negative....pro digital print). While I love the image and deeply value the gesture of the gift.... That print itself doesn't affect me to the extent that the darkroom prints do. (Diminished aura ? )

 

[Pieter12]

It;s not arcane. I had thirty 16x20" prints framed and hug on my apartment's walls that came from 120 slides, well most of them. They were subsequently photographed with 4x5 internegatives and printed as an "R" I think was the process. Today you can still scan and print digitally with lasers. So there are printing methods associated with positive film slides. Also, as Matt mentioned, slides can be backlit and framed like Lik does with his photos. More ways to think about prints.

Slides are the final product to be viewed, they are not prints. A slide is meant to be viewed on a light table, projected or scanned (or in the old days, separated with a process camera) for reproduction. A duplicate, enlarged transparency is a print of sorts but it is not considered a slide.

 

[kfed1984]

kfed, I tend to side with the gist of your post. I doubt whether it's possible to not offend the other side. ........That print itself doesn't affect me to the extent that the darkroom prints do. (Diminished aura ? )

Very glad to know I'm not alone, not sure why ink-jetters become so offended by an oppressed analog minority. One can always make a hybrid c-print for not much. Technically digital C-print may also have an advantage with deeper blacks, if processed properly. That's what I heard. But to me the silver-gelatins or hand-made c-prints have so much aura to them, that it motivates me to go to galleries and thinking of buying others' prints. It gets me excited about photography, digital not so much, unless we print it on something interesting.