Pico
(K=944) - Comment Date 6/16/2000
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Quality is that certain attractor which persists regardless of attempts to quantify or explain it.
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bill zelinski
(K=609) - Comment Date 6/16/2000
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Because of photographys ability or maybe expectation of being reproduced the idea of having an "original" work of art to observe is a lot more fluid than say a painting. Reproductions can enhance or detract depending upon a lot of variables but to really get the full impact and experience of a photograph I believe you still need to see the "original". Even something as seemingly minor as the size of the print that the photgrapher used can be a revalation. After seeing Steglitz's photo of the horses and streetcars in winter I was struck dumb because the "original" print I saw was a contact print that was much smaller than all the reproductions I've ever seen. Then when I saw G. Winograds 16x20 prints I was struck by how large he had made them (and the amazing print quality considering they came from 35mm). The Walker Evans exhibit just arrived here so I'm sure to be suprised again. Reproductions have a purpose but keep going back to see the "originals" if possible.
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Bill Mitchell
(K=659) - Comment Date 6/16/2000
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I just visited the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite, and found that the exquisite (and expensive) photographic prints were bettered by their reproductions on the calanders, books, etc.
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David Payumo
(K=77) - Comment Date 6/16/2000
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It all depends. Photography is about reproduction. It really about the technique, ability and work the printer(photograph and book) puts into it. I don't think you have seen enough good prints if you think reproduction are always better. I believe Weston looks a lot better in person. The tonality is subtle and detail is very small. You can see a lot more of Eugene Smith in his own prints than some book reproduction. 8x10 contact prints and enlargement have a unique tonality. I believe books with their reproductions quality let photographers use a lot of 35mm. I also think it easier to make a book than black and white prints. Salgado work is well reproduced however his huge 35mm blowups were a little lower in the quality control department. Publishing photos is important to get the work out. However seeing the work in person gives you a different emotional experience.
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Darron Spohn
(K=751) - Comment Date 6/16/2000
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Bill Mitchell, you haven't seen the prints Ansel made his own self. The prints the Adams Trust releases (I shall not name the printer for fear of getting him permanently pissed off at me) bear little resemblance to what Ansel did with the same negatives. I have a poster of "Aspens: Nortern New Mexico" that looks better than the fiber prints hanging in the Adams Gallery. I've seen one of Ansel's originals from this negative, and it blows away to current prints.
Moral: the current releases of Ansel's prints are crap.
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alan
(K=520) - Comment Date 6/16/2000
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For incredible originals look at Friedlander, Robert Frank, Robert Adams, Josef Koudelka. I loved Robert Frank's "Americans" book -- then I saw the prints - those are amazing. Because Frank used a 35mm at a time when the smallest camera most supposedly serious artists used was an 8x10, he had this reputation of not giving a fuck about print quality. Nothing could be further from the truth. He used grainy, high speed film in a small camera and created something else -- his prints would never be mistaken for ansel adams, but they would never be mistaken for the prints of a beginner either. The print treatment looks totally appropriate.
Friedlander's 35mm work (the originals I have seen) look like they were shot with medium format. I haven't seen any prints he has made that are bigger than 11x14 but his 11x14s look better than a 5x7 I slaved over.
Koudelkas prints are just amazing. The few that I have seen were all made with 35mm.
Steiglitz!
I often find the often church-like atmousphere of the gallery or museum hard to bear. Usually I spend as much time navigating around people as I do looking at the artworks. I like the crowded party atmousphere of the art gallery opening becuase I like crowded parties but it isn't good for looking at art either. The nice thing about photos in books is that you can look at them when and where you want.
Can it be that famous photos sometimes look better in reproduction because that is where we know them from? When they are "just a print" that I might have made in the darkroom on a very good day after wasting a lot of expensive paper IF I hadf that negative, maybe they lose some of the glamour of being distant artworks glimpsed through reproduction. Laughlin, Bravo, Mann -- three photographers whose prints were (to me) underwhelming after seeing the reproductions.
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Greg Klayman
(K=30) - Comment Date 6/17/2000
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I prefer to view prints out of the frame. Having access to a fine print dealer where you can experience the richness of Kenna, Sexton, or others is unparalleled.
Under glass with lights there is a lot of visual distraction due to reflections, and inherent loss of depth, especially the rich blacks of a selenium toned, fiber based print.
I go to the opening for the wine and conversation, then return later to look.
Greg Klayman
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E.L.
(K=135) - Comment Date 6/17/2000
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The two most breathtaking prints I have have ever seen were in the same show. One was Weston's view of Death Valley from Dante's View. The white slivers of salt on the flat were amazing. The print was captivating. There is no way a book could touch that look. The other print was a Sally Mann image of her son laying on his bed with the sheets hanging from the ceiling. It was probably also an 8x10 contact. It too was incredible. The smoothness and richness could not be done in a book, at least I have never seen anything approaching it. But, yes, a lot of galleries have dreadful lighting and seem to not care much about presentation. Besides, photographic content has nothing to do with print quality. People often think a rich print is the final goal. They don't react to the content. I can remember powerful images that I have no idea whether or not I thought the printing was any good at the time. That is not what stuck with me.
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 6/17/2000
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Right Greg. I am frustrated by printing to within 1 or 2 units (agonizing) and then slamming 15 units of green glass over the final. Not to mention changes in color temp between printing and viewing light. I really can't afford megabucks conservation glass or the cost of replacing acrylic because of scratches for every other exhibit (although all my big prints get acrylic, just for the weight consideration).
I did just see Frank Hunter's platinums at Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta and having veiwed them days before "in the flesh", there is no comparison. He has been printing on a tissue weight paper lately and the luminosity reminds me of the early albumen prints by Eugene Atget... they just glow, and that is almost completely lost in a glazed frame.
Pete you should make a trip to a good photo gallery and ask to veiw a portfolio that you might enjoy. Even if it's a dissapointment, it's good for the "little grey cells" and adds to the database. Everyone I know who has published a book or done any offset reproduction nows that a good pressman is a critical link in the chain, not to mention the scanner operator and the resulting seperations. Book publishing is an art, no doubt... t
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 6/17/2000
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Consider all the different versions of Edvard Muench's (sp?) "The Scream" you may have see. When I finally saw the original, it looked like it was painted on a paper bag. It's still a great image, to me, but it's power is in the concept, not the execution. sooo... no generalization is completely true (hahaha) when it comes to this question... t
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alan
(K=520) - Comment Date 6/17/2000
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I have printed several versions, some a little lighter, and then tried a mat and sheet of glass over the prints. Sometimes the one that looks slightly lighter looks better under the glass. Not a perfect solution.
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josh
(K=292) - Comment Date 6/17/2000
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Why use glass at all? Unless you can afford the special museum glass why degrade your images. protection of the image? but most paintings that are far more valuable than photographs do not have a protective layer of glass.Even if some unlikely catastrophe destroys the print you can alwys reprint the neg.Whats the use of protecting something if the protection ruins the object does that not defeat the whole purpose.-J
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alan
(K=520) - Comment Date 6/18/2000
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Oil paintings are fairly durable, at least compared to photographs, and can be cleaned without harming the painting. Many galleries and exhibitions insist photographs be appropriately framed. Judging by the dust and other schmutz that gets deposited on my framed pictures when they are hung out in public and the fact that if I go to the trouble of hanging a print in public I have usually invested a lot of time in printing it (there is a cost involved with fibre paper, chemistry and matt board too - its not just the cost to me, think of it in terms of waste to the environment - the less chemicals I use the better) --no, I will suffer along with using glass.
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mark lindsey
(K=1720) - Comment Date 6/18/2000
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Darron, just to let you know, all prints at the gallery of Adams images are not printed by someone else. Only the "special edition" prints are printed by Alan Ross :), and those are all 8x10s, they have plenty of original Adams prints on display and in storage.
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Pete Andrews
(K=835) - Comment Date 6/19/2000
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I think the response to my post has highlighted an American/European divide here. There seems to be an assumption that exhibitions of Original Photographs are readily accessible everywhere. They aren't. The morons that run British, and a lot of European galleries and museums still don't regard photography as "proper art". They'd rather show some idiot's unmade bed, or an unbelievably tedious video "installation" than the real art of the 20th and 21st century, (i.e. photography).
Also, European photography doesn't have a tradition of "quality for quality's sake", as exemplified by Adams and Weston. I previously cited Adams for the reason that his subject content is apparently almost irrelevant and the effectiveness of his work is purely in composition and technique. I say "apparently", because it's also obvious that he had great awe, respect and affinity for his subject matter, when that subject matter was a landscape. Adams' least successful work was of subjects other than the landscape, but I can't believe that he treated them with anything less than his utmost care, attention, and superlative technique. So why aren't we as moved by his portraits? And why are even mediocre reproductions of his work able to capture its essence?
European photography is generally the antithesis of the f/64 approach. Vis Cartier-Bresson, Bill Brandt, Tony Ray-Jones, Don McCullin, etc. None of them appear to be, or have been, overly concerned with technical perfection, but having seen original prints of Don McCullin's, Ray-Jones, and Cartier-Bresson's work; the originals often have a far greater impact than book reproductions.
So, my question basically still stands. What is it that is able to transcend the boundaries of mass reproduction, or get lost in it, when it seems to have little to do with technical quality?
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Bruce Wehman
(K=75) - Comment Date 6/19/2000
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I've often thought that there is a specturm that exists between the medium being the message and the message being the message. To use photography as an example: you would have F64 on one end and great photojournalism on the other. And the issue of quality would apply to each independently. If the Aspens were fuzzy, the power of those images would be totally lost...sharpness, in this case would be a quality issue. The street execution in Saigon, by Eddie Adams on the other hand has such power by virtue of it's content that more detail would be distracting. Quality, in this case, would be more concentrated on such things as timing, angle of view and selection of subject matter and less on getting everything in focus.
Is this convoluted mess making any sense? .....Guess what I'm trying to say is: Quality is in the tears, not on the paper.
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 6/19/2000
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First paragraph: perfectly clear, and on the mark.
Second paragraph: huh?... is that (phonetically) "teers" as in weeping or "tares" as in torn? (it's weeping, isn't it. I still like the first paragraph better, but I'm thinking about your metaphor. I'm such a sucker for the ambiguous metaphor)... t
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 6/19/2000
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and what if my tears are on the paper? "Signed by the tears (sweat, blood, whatever) of the artist!"... t
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Bruce Wehman
(K=75) - Comment Date 6/20/2000
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I've been moved to tears by reproductions of images in mediocre quality magazines, and bored to tears by dimly lit originals in galleries. Can anyone explain?
Less of a metaphor for Mr. Andrews, perhaps. But yes, it does kind of fly off to parts unknown and was too hastily drawn....It came to me, at some point, that whatever we might do in terms of recording gobs of detail, or timing a shot just right, the final arbiter is the response of the viewer. And that, from what I've seen of the art world in recent years, can be achieved by almost anything placed on a piece of paper. Not that quality is dead - It's just more situational than we would like to think.
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 6/20/2000
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Pete Andrews
(K=835) - Comment Date 6/21/2000
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A metaphor, in my understanding, is the expression of a complex, or abstract, idea in a simplified or concrete way. Was I being metaphorical? I didn't think I was; I thought I was merely communicating my feelings.
Is art a metaphor for life? Is life a metaphor for art? Is a question a metaphor for its answer? Am I being rhetorical? In one way, yes, and in another, no. Am I being obscure enough to make myself clear? What was the question again?
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 6/21/2000
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The question was, "what was the question?"
To perhaps further complicate the issue, I believe Mr.Wehrman thought his comment was less a metaphor for you than for me, and he appears to be correct... t
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Jeffrey Rodgers
(K=454) - Comment Date 6/22/2000
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To further complicate things I will add that whatever quality is attributed to a photograph is transient and the same person viewing the same photo, at a different time (and space?)may judge the quality differently because of his/her mood at the time (if one is hungry, a picture of some delicious food will affect them differently that if they just ate). Also, as you mentioned, the lighting used for viewing can be just as important.
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Dan Smith
(K=19) - Comment Date 6/23/2000
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If you shot it with a Leica, it has to be quality. I read that right here some time back.
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Tom Meyer
(K=3514) - Comment Date 6/26/2000
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Good point Jeffrey, it reinforces my belief that the real art happens inside the viewer's head, as well as the artist's.
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Brian
(K=351) - Comment Date 6/28/2000
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Dan's right. You need particular kinds of camera to get quality. Can't remember all they names but they cost lots. Got to be German or Swedish I think. And the prints got to come out in black and white, not colours.
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