What is a photographic print

Pieter12 · Sep 18, 2023

kfed1984 said:
Platinum from inkjet negatives to me are less preferable that those made with digitally exposed negatives, which are not half-tone, and no dot matrix.

How would those negatives be made? LVT? An inkjet negative has no half-tone dots, it is continuous tone just like an inkjet paper print.

Your logic baffles me. Why is the work of applying an emulsion to paper such a big deal? What sort of "entanglement" is involved that is not with a carefully made inkjet print? Making an inkjet is not just pushing the print button on the computer--there is a lot of work, from paper choice to printer profiles and calibration and adjustments made to the digital file. Sometimes much more involved than a darkroom print. Piezography prints made with 11 shades of black ink can be stunning. https://www.cone-editions.com/piezography

I am going to get a lot of sh*t here, but to me Ansel Adams work is hackneyed, glorified postcards and holds no interest for me whether "entangled" by him or his disciples. I've seen as good at street art fair booths.

MattKing · Sep 18, 2023

Pieter12 said:
I am going to get a lot of sh*t here, but to me Ansel Adams work is hackneyed, glorified postcards and holds no interest for me whether "entangled" by him or his disciples. I've seen as good at street art fair booths.

It is difficult to see Ansel Adams' prints with eyes for which they would be new and revelatory.
What might now seem hackneyed, may seem like that because you have seen so many representations of the originals, plus copies, homages, and quality work that is clearly strongly influenced by that which he and others of his time did before.
Somewhat like never being able to listen to "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" for the first time ever again

GregY · Sep 18, 2023

Pieter12 said:
How would those negatives be made? LVT? An inkjet negative has no half-tone dots, it is continuous tone just like an inkjet paper print.

Your logic baffles me. Why is the work of applying an emulsion to paper such a big deal? What sort of "entanglement" is involved that is not with a carefully made inkjet print? Making an inkjet is not just pushing the print button on the computer--there is a lot of work, from paper choice to printer profiles and calibration and adjustments made to the digital file. Sometimes much more involved than a darkroom print. Piezography prints made with 11 shades of black ink can be stunning. https://www.cone-editions.com/piezography

I am going to get a lot of sh*t here, but to me Ansel Adams work is hackneyed, glorified postcards and holds no interest for me whether "entangled" by him or his disciples. I've seen as good at street art fair booths.

A bit of a non sequitur from inkjet prints are great to i don't like Ansel Adam's work.....

Pieter12 · Sep 18, 2023

GregY said:
A bit of a non sequitor from inkjet prints are great to i don't like Ansel Adam's work.....

Just going back to a comment the poster made about passing on an Adams' print because it had not been printed by AA Himself.

MattKing said:
Somewhat like never being able to listen to "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" for the first time ever again

But I still get chills listening to Beethoven, no matter how many times I listen to his music. I guess it depends on the depth and emotional quality of the work.

Vaughn · Sep 19, 2023

Pieter12 said:
But the intrinsic and artistic value of an etching or a woodcut has little to do with the process. Ultimately it is the image that determines that. Is a print made in a limited edition any better than unlimited? ...

...has little to do with the process, but everything to do with how the artist uses the process. I would argue it is the print (when a print is made) that determines the intrinsic and artistic value...as it is the physicality of the print that brings the image into reality. The image is dependent on the qualities of the print.

GregY · Sep 19, 2023

MattKing said:
It is difficult to see Ansel Adams' prints with eyes for which they would be new and revelatory.
What might now seem hackneyed, may seem like that because you have seen so many representations of the originals, plus copies, homages, and quality work that is clearly strongly influenced by that which he and others of his time did before.
Somewhat like never being able to listen to "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" for the first time ever again

Matt, I'm sure i would enjoy seeing Ansel Adams prints. But we don't, we see facsimiles of those prints....& that is true of much photo imagery that we see. Those prints seen directly are a different experience even though media popularity has trivialized those images.

MTGseattle · Sep 19, 2023

I'm going to be "that guy."

Photographic = adjective; relating to or resembling photographs. Right there, we are in quite a vast realm of interpretation.

Print = as verb; to produce (books, newspapers, magazines, etc.), especially in large quantities, by a mechanical process involving the transfer of text, images, or designs to paper:
= as noun; a picture or design printed from a block or plate or copied from a painting by photography

There does seem to be a bit of digital vs analogue, and a bit of art or not in this thread now but clearly "photographic print" opens the door for a lot of potential options.

As an aside of sorts, a local organization has the various prints (ha ha) for a silent auction on display. I gave them a once over, and honestly didn't care what type any of them were. I'm suspicious of a few due to really odd sizing, but other than that I either enjoy them or not.

MattKing · Sep 19, 2023

Pieter12 said:
But I still get chills listening to Beethoven, no matter how many times I listen to his music. I guess it depends on the depth and emotional quality of the work.

It is still a very different experience for you than when you first heard it.
And it is the "amazing discovery" part of hearing, or seeing something for the first time that has been wrung out of looking at an Ansel Adams image, or an image heavily influenced by Ansel Adams images.
Re-experiencing something like Beethoven is part experiencing the work, and part experiencing the performance/interpretation. And it doesn't hurt that much of Beethoven work takes a heck of a lot longer to experience than experiencing most single photographic images - particularly ones designed for dramatic impact as much or more than a desire to impart visual complexity.
"Untangling" is one of my favorite Jeff Wall images - and one I've had the pleasure to see in almost life size real life. Experiencing it's complexity is amazing!

It is a backlit, 189.0 x 223.5 cm (~74 x 88 inches) Cibachrome transparency from 1994.

MattKing · Sep 19, 2023

GregY said:
Matt, I'm sure i would enjoy seeing Ansel Adams prints. But we don't, we see facsimiles of those prints....& that is true of much photo imagery that we see. Those prints seen directly are a different experience even though media popularity has trivialized those images.

I agree, except I would say that we would probably be enjoying those prints for their quality of printing - the content being so familiar that there is little or nothing new left to discover there.

GregY · Sep 19, 2023

MattKing said:
I agree, except I would say that we would probably be enjoying those prints for their quality of printing - the content being so familiar that there is little or nothing new left to discover there.

Yes of course..... but putting the image with the method readjusts the balance somewhat. I've had the pleasure of seeing large Adams prints. It makes up somewhat for the calendars, postcards etc. My main point is there's less opportunity to see fine silver gelatin or platinum prints....& it's an occasion when you do.

Alan Edward Klein · Sep 19, 2023

kfed1984 said:
Yeah, but try the same with etchings/engravings. Appearance to the public is not the best way to judge quality of a print in my opinion.

Quality refers to craft not necessarily art. What good is a perfectly executed print of a boring subject?

Alan Edward Klein · Sep 19, 2023

kfed1984 said:
For some reason with photography we bring up things like "It's all in the eyes of the viewer" "let the viewer decide.." etc. etc. with other methods we don't do this. Japanese woodcut is that, lithograph, etching is something else, pencil drawing is something else, etc. We should also put more emphasis on photographic processes, differentiate them more. The boundary between a c-print, ink-jet, silver-gelatin appears to have blurred out, in favor of ink-jet. That's what irritates me. Although other more archaic methods stand out more, like tintypes, cyanotypes, etc.

The average viewer cares little about craft. That's for the initiated. The average viewer just looks to be inspired. He cares little how it was made.

Don_ih · Sep 19, 2023

With regard to art, "craft" or technique is inseparable from the artistry. You can talk about these things separately (as in, you can conceive of them in different ways), but there is no art without its execution. So, of course the quality of work that goes into the final production of the artpiece influences the viewer. That will include the choice of medium and materials.

The problem with this thread is the presumption that digital methods and materials are necessarily inferior when there is no evidence that they are - and ample evidence that they are at least on par (if different from) non-digital methods and materials.

Alan Edward Klein · Sep 19, 2023

kfed1984 said:
People I talked to have this attitude where they treat ink-jet like a more efficient way of doing the same thing and getting the same result as chromogenic. It's not the same thing, and even the result isn't the same. That's why all the talk about it being just ink on paper, information, etc. to blur the boundary. Yes I understand the artistic effort in creating a set design for you photo, that's art, and very few actually do this. I'm more about the medium.

A lot of the art in Saul Leiter's photos stems from the Kodachrome look, not just composition. If you remove the Kodachrome look, you basically have very little of Saul Leiter left. Saul Leiter becomes far less interesting.

How Kodachrome creates the colors is craft. Leiter selecting the colors is art.

Alan Edward Klein · Sep 19, 2023

Pieter12 said:
Just going back to a comment the poster made about passing on an Adams' print because it had not been printed by AA Himself.

But I still get chills listening to Beethoven, no matter how many times I listen to his music. I guess it depends on the depth and emotional quality of the work.

Ah. But you never saw Beethoven's photographs.

L Gebhardt · Sep 19, 2023

kfed1984 said:
A lot of the art in Saul Leiter's photos stems from the Kodachrome look, not just composition. If you remove the Kodachrome look, you basically have very little of Saul Leiter left. Saul Leiter becomes far less interesting.

I just revisited some of Saul Leiter's work. His black and white and color photos have a cohesive style and very much seem to come from the same artist. His use of Kodachrome's pallet enhances already fine compositions such as https://www.saulleiterfoundation.org/color?itemId=opytp3znd90q0wbaqu106k7i3if451. I will give you that the images speak to me even more through the lens of time. I love the look of street photography and just the styles from that era, as well as the Kodachrome look, but the compositions would still be strong today.

Also note, seeing this work online still allows the artist's work to move me. The same would be true on a well printed image whether ink on paper or a nice color fiber based print from that era. At least one that has not faded. Image permanence is an important factor, and so is paper choice. In that regard someone working today with inkjets has fantastic options with inkjets that you just can't get anymore with c prints. That allows more of the artist's intent to show through. Maybe if you shift your perspective to seeing inkjet as just another tool, and not as a way to create an inferior but faster silver based print, you could appreciate it for what it is.

kfed1984 · Sep 19, 2023

Pieter12 said:
Just going back to a comment the poster made about passing on an Adams' print because it had not been printed by AA Himself.

Not because it wasn't printed by AA himself. I am going to purchase a print made by his student from AA original negative, in silver gelatin. That gallery also sells inkjets for half the price, and I will pass on those.

If AA was still around and sold his inkjets, I probably would not buy those.

kfed1984 · Sep 19, 2023

L Gebhardt said:
Maybe if you shift your perspective to seeing inkjet as just another tool, and not as a way to create an inferior but faster silver based print, you could appreciate it for what it is.

How do you make silver based print on inkjet?

L Gebhardt · Sep 19, 2023

kfed1984 said:
How do you make silver based print on inkjet?

You don't. I was referencing from memory your issue with people using inkjets to get the film look, though I misremembered as silver:

Additionally, what is the best "look" obtained in digital imaging? Probably the "film look", with artificial grain and the film S-curve. I think Fuji makes a camera with these presets. There's something unauthentic about this. While the best digital look, just looks digital.... Along with the very digital looking ink droplets on "photographic" inkjet paper. When taking digital snapshots and printing on inkjet you are always aware that anybody can buy one of billions of high-res stock images online for under $1, give it the "film look" or some other look and send it out to Walmart print-center for ink-jetting, or one of thousands master ink-jetters in the city. Its like selling sand at the beach, very demoralizing for me.

Any comment on the actual points in my response?

kfed1984 · Sep 19, 2023

Another analogy, analog to digital is like comparing handmade food to 3D printed food. In both cases the ingredients may be the same. Handmade always comes out a little different, and the soul of the chef certainly matters and his skill. Some chefs are in much demand others are horrible, skill and ingredients both matter. In the case of 3D printed food, there are creative possibilities unthinkable with analog food, maybe same ingredients, but there's just something abominable about it.

Sirius Glass · Sep 19, 2023

Anything printed optically from film using photochemicals and light sensitive paper. How hard was that to figure out.

L Gebhardt · Sep 19, 2023

kfed1984 said:
Another analogy, analog to digital is like comparing handmade food to 3D printed food. In both cases the ingredients may be the same. Handmade always comes out a little different, and the soul of the chef certainly matters and his skill. Some chefs are in much demand others are horrible, skill and ingredients both matter. In the case of 3D printed food, there are creative possibilities unthinkable with analog food, maybe same ingredients, but there's just something abominable about it.

3D printed food? I've seen a cheese wiz printer as a joke, but that's not food. And it seems you've devolved this down to analog vs digital

faberryman · Sep 19, 2023

L Gebhardt said:
And it seems you've devolved this down to analog vs digital

It hasn't devolved. That's how it started out. Holy scripture dressed up as quantum entanglements.

koraks · Sep 19, 2023

kfed1984 said:
Another analogy, analog to digital is like comparing handmade food to 3D printed food.

Ample warning was given to steer this clear from analog vs. digital. The lure to take (keep) it in that arena seems to have been irresistible. Thread locked.

What is a photographic print

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