Jedidiah Smith
Member
I was browsing a book on printmaking at Barnes & Nobles last night - very fascinating. Went from the history of ink prints to photographs, lithos, through modern, computerized half-tone plot patterns, etc.
Toward the end of the book, on one page the author had a painting and said the difference between that painting and the print was that there will only ever be "one" of that exact painting...with the brush stokes exactly so, with the colors exactly as they are; with what we might call "minor imperfections", etc...precisely as the artist rendered it (the painted scene) that time.
I got to thinking a little about this. OK, that's scary, I know!
But I'm curious how my fellow photographers feel about this subject. Do you feel that the value of photography in general would be greater if only one "print" was ever made of each original scene? I know there are "collectors' editions" of various famous photographers' work. However, it is still possible that they could make another print from that negative or digital file.
What if you made only one print, and then sold it or displayed it with the negative right next to it...or maybe even damaged the negative in such a way that another print could not be made? That almost sounds like sacrilege to me - destroying a negative, but I wonder what it would do for value? Nothing or everything? :confused: And as a side discussion - could this ever be done to a digitally captured photograph? Wonder what the value difference would be there?
Just looking for a little discussion on this.
Thanks,
Jed
Toward the end of the book, on one page the author had a painting and said the difference between that painting and the print was that there will only ever be "one" of that exact painting...with the brush stokes exactly so, with the colors exactly as they are; with what we might call "minor imperfections", etc...precisely as the artist rendered it (the painted scene) that time.
I got to thinking a little about this. OK, that's scary, I know!

But I'm curious how my fellow photographers feel about this subject. Do you feel that the value of photography in general would be greater if only one "print" was ever made of each original scene? I know there are "collectors' editions" of various famous photographers' work. However, it is still possible that they could make another print from that negative or digital file.
What if you made only one print, and then sold it or displayed it with the negative right next to it...or maybe even damaged the negative in such a way that another print could not be made? That almost sounds like sacrilege to me - destroying a negative, but I wonder what it would do for value? Nothing or everything? :confused: And as a side discussion - could this ever be done to a digitally captured photograph? Wonder what the value difference would be there?
Just looking for a little discussion on this.
Thanks,
Jed