What is a photographic print

[Pieter12]

How can I explain this? Try to explain this. My best attempt was entanglement...

Although I do not own any, I prefer Bret Weston's prints of his farther's work. I guess I don't miss the "entanglement."

I do own a print of Ernst Haas' photo of a leaping horse and wrangler on the set of the Misfits. It is probably a promotional still churned out by the studio by the hundreds from a copy negative, but I value it and like it anyway.

 

[faberryman]

Although I do not own any, I prefer Bret Weston's prints of his farther's work. I guess I don't miss the "entanglement."

I am completely disentangled. I don't own any photographic prints (whatever that means) other than my own.

 

[kfed1984]

Many fine art photographers pride themselves on making negatives that do not require any manipulation or special techniques to print. Are they less art? On the other hand, some (HCB comes to mind) were not very concerned or capable with darkroom technique and relied on a third party to produce their prints. Are they less art?

I also like this example: imagine an oil painter you commissioned made a painting, scanned it with ultra-fine res. then send you an ink-jet, that will be only yours. After confirming that you receive the print, he destroys the painting...because its the image that matters and you've got the only one...

 

[Pieter12]

I also like this example: imagine an oil painter you commissioned made a painting, scanned it with ultra-fine res. then send you an ink-jet, that will be only yours. After confirming that you receive the print, he destroys the painting...because its the image that matters ...

Not sure why you posit a ridiculous, fictitious example. There is no point being made beyond the preposterous. Unless of course you know of such an occurrence.

 

[kfed1984]

Not sure why you posit a ridiculous, fictitious example. There is no point being made beyond the preposterous. Unless of course you know of such an occurrence.

Definitely not. But for somebody who only values images/information, this may be a valid option to reduce shipping cost maybe.

I don't know... the image matters and the medium as well. Very hard for me to accept inkjet as photographic. I have to force myself.

 

[Ian David]

It also puzzles me why "photographers" here are so pragmatic, utilitarian, and cynical about these things. ...
Maybe they should work as engineers, not artists. These people have become some kind of photo-engineers, they talk like photometrists, sensitometrists, ink engineers, etc. I recognize this attitude coming from an engineering background myself. Photographers should be artists, and artists often care about the materials and mediums used and not just transmission of information.

The main reason is that this is not an art forum, but rather a forum that pretty much encompasses the universe of photography-related topics and interests, including equipment, optics, chemistry, art, craft, analog, digital, etc, etc. It's no secret that many people who like to frequent such forums are men with more interest in gear and graphs than art. And that's fine - that's why the place is divided into sub-forums.
So it seems to me that you are going to be disappointed if you are expecting a large audience here to engage positively, and in detail, with your personal thesis which basically questions why many of us are even here at all.
More broadly, I think you have also failed to consider the relationship and distinction between art and craft. Art is mainly centred in ideas. To dismiss a massive branch of photography because you personally think the choice of final medium is somehow masturbatory is... well... perhaps also a bit self-gratifying.

 

[kfed1984]

The main reason is that this is not an art forum, but rather a forum that pretty much encompasses the universe of photography-related topics and interests, including equipment, optics, chemistry, art, craft, analog, digital, etc, etc.

Well I kinda started this thread from an artistic perspective, from a perspective of a medium. I feel that digital has a good prospect in the NFT world. Digital limited editions. Then the image can be displayed on an LCD screen with a picture frame or something. The inkjet print seems redundant. I think its a more suitable medium for digital. I didn't want to use the M word so I used the O term.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I usually try to avoid saying that people "should" be anything.
I have a copy of my Dad's old business card in my wallet. I moved it from his wallet after he died decades after he retired. You can see it here:
View attachment 349164

I would argue that the image on that card is just as much a photographic print as anything that may be created for "artistic" purposes.
In the case of the card, it is printed optically actually on a type of colour photographic paper similar to the prints we got from the lab that we sent our films to to be developed and printed. Mundane and incredibly utilitarian, but every bit a photographic print.

Nice looking man, your dad. I'm sure you miss him a lot. Of course, Kodak would put photos on their business cards for their employees. Why didn't I think of that for mine?

 

[Alex Benjamin]

My main idea is that only true photographic prints should be called photographic, while an ink-jet print should be called something else.

This might just be the bio-quantum based consciousness in me speaking, but essentially, your main idea is to decide beforehand that only dogs are canids and therefore coyotes should be called something else. Essentially, your reasoning is based on a fallacy, i.e., confusing family with species.

A falsis principiis proficisci, as they used to say.

Moreover, one could point out that you also state that only Beagles are dogs since we experience Beagles in a totally different manner than we experience Dobermans, this based on the fact that an "expert" has a Beagle and not a Doberman.

Its kind of like a digital musician who laughs at a classic guitar player and makes fun of anyone who's emotional about music...

I've been working in the music world, in Canada and in the US, for the last 40 or so years, and I can tell you with much assurance that this person does not exist. All good musicians do understand one thing, which is the same as I mentioned above: music is the family, how you do it is the species. No self-respecting musician would confuse the two.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Well we have books on photographs. I'm looking through a book now by Saul Leiter. Even though it contains replicas of the original photographs, they are not photographs as they were made by a mass printing method. Looking with a lens I can see a matrix of little color dots. If we call anything that resembles a photograph a photograph, we run into trouble I think.

Above I made an argument about etchings vs. engravings, vs. an ink-jet print that looks like them. We differentiate between all of them strongly, even though all are made with ink. But with photography we don't differentiate. That's a mistake I feel. Film is quite special. Just knowing that this is a real photograph and not an inkjetograph makes you look at it differently. In the Art Gallery of Ontario print center, I only looked at photographic prints. I like peering into the prints, large format contact prints especially. I don't nearly feel the same about inkjetographs.

I think people are really trying to defend ink-jet because of selfish reasons. But inkjet will always be around, I will not miss it. Film I will miss a lot, if it is gone.

I don't think that's true, at least not initially. Viewers going through a museum or gallery stop at the photos that catch their interest. That's from the content, lighting, colors, organization, or whatever.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

You aren't the only person here who argues that the meaning of "photograph" is limited to a narrowly defined, historic one. But I'm quite confident that ever since photographic images started appearing on media different then what is often now referred to as a "silver gelatin" print, the word "photograph" has expanded to include those alternates.
I would suggest that it is more useful to highlight the advantages inherent to each of the various media, than to try to restrict the definition of the word to one of them.

+1 Would a photo shown in a newspaper not be a photo because it isn't on photographic paper but displayed through some print process of black dots?

 

[kfed1984]

I'm thinking of getting a used polaroid, man that will be fun. I've just looked through some old polaroids and slides. Feels exciting. But whats the point, just take a digital snapshot and inkjet it.... I don't know. The second option just does not interest me, even if the image comes out better....Entanglement.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Well if we go strictly technical, for me its the little inkjet dots that bother me to be honest. I like peering into prints, contact prints. This is one of those points for me. Yes you could argue that I am defending my own dark-room side, but I've also tried digital printing, and I feel that it is quite empty and lacks personal value. Like selling sand at the beach...and the little ink dots...So I picked a side based on experience rather than what I grew up with.

This is a difficult subject. So I used other printing methods as analogies. For example engraving vs. etching vs. an inkjet print. How is it that we differentiate these so much? It does not create any issues if one defends one over the other. They are all ink-based prints. I think it's a matter of precedent and which party establishes it early enough. Analog photography kind of lost it.

I tried going a little deeper, suggesting the idea of quantum entanglement. Although few people will find value in that, but if reading Penrose books, they may find it relevant.

Is one of Ansel Adams pictures displayed on a 4K TV a photo?

 

[kfed1984]

Lets say I'm with some friends and I want to take a Polaroid. "Guys, guys, gather up, let's take a Polaroid" and people gather up, actually posing for the photo, actually curious to see how it comes out.

Or let's say I tell them, "Guys, let me take a snapshot with iPhone and make an instant inkjet"........Huh? Say whaaaat?

I don't know....disentangle that

Yes digital is of and having to do with photography, but at a wholly different level.

 

[kfed1984]

Is one of Ansel Adams pictures displayed on a 4K TV a photo?

Its an image of a photograph.

 

[MattKing]

Entanglement.

How often do people say they that you remind them of Bob Dylan:

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Well I kinda started this thread from an artistic perspective, from a perspective of a medium. I feel that digital has a good prospect in the NFT world. Digital limited editions. Then the image can be displayed on an LCD screen with a picture frame or something. The inkjet print seems redundant. I think its a more suitable medium for digital. I didn't want to use the M word so I used the O term.

I think you have to start with the definition of photography. It's the capture of light. What you do with it branches off after that.

 

[MattKing]

I don't think that's true, at least not initially. Viewers going through a museum or gallery stop at the photos that catch their interest. That's from the content, lighting, colors, organization, or whatever.

My interest also gets caught by the qualities of the print.
Viewing a print involves viewing a "thing". And how that thing looks is important as well.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Its an image of a photograph.

Who speaks that way?

 

[kfed1984]

Who speaks that way?

Well I think its a correct description.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I didn't say ink-jet is not an art, just much less so than analog

I think you're confusing art and craft. Chemical printing may be a harder craft than ink jet printing, and more satisfying to many photographers. But from the viewer's point of view of art, it doesn't matter because art is what changes his inner being emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. That's art. Not the process or materials.

 

[kfed1984]

I think you're confusing art and craft.

Well art and craft go together. Better if you have both. My Saul Leiter images in a book are awesome tools for disseminating information about his photographs. Its different if I had the actual prints from Saul Leiter. If he was around and sold his prints in inkjet vs. chromogenic, I would not be excited. Later he switched to digital from Kodachrome, and those don't even look as interesting, printing aside.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

You can pigeon-hole it as romanticizing the process I guess. Unrolling your freshly processed film and seeing that you have some decently exposed negatives. Getting your print time and contrast dialed in is maybe the "slump" in the process. Watching the image come through in the tray. Taking it into the light and seeing that you are on the right track. The smell of Dektol (or your preferred chemistry) The odd quality of safelight light. I enjoy all of it. To people who have never seen it or done it, it seems somewhat mystical. There is nothing mystical about working at a computer.

We can throw aside the argument of time spent. Both workflows entail a lot of time to get a truly great print. To make 10 of them to me is easier in theory outside the darkroom.

Somehow though in my mind I associate a higher value on true darkroom time vs computer time. Is that in any way valid? probably not, but that's my irrational viewpoint. Due to that, I would also expect to pay more for a wet silver gelatin print than for a pigment print of the same size/image.

Sorry but viewers don't care about the time your spent on it or how difficult it was to capture and produce. Either the picture works for them or it doesn't.

 

[MattKing]

Its an image of a photograph.

Who speaks that way?

People who have discussions about these things on Photrio.
With respect to a photograph known to be Ansel Adams photograph, I agree with kfed1984, because when you see it on the screen you know that it is a representation of something that was created to be on paper. It could very well be the result of electronic transmission of a scan of such a print.
But if you don't know anything about the image's provenance, and therefore may not ever have been seen except on a screen, there is no reason not to refer to the image as a photograph.

 

[Pieter12]

Its an image of a photograph.

A photograph is an image.