Horses Think

I’m probably beating a dead horse with this post but what the hell…

Admittedly this is coming a little bit late as it’s kind of a response to The New York Photo Festival that happened in May as well as to contemporary photography in general.

While I still mostly use large format cameras (and some medium format) to produce my personal work, I am a huge advocate of digital photographic technology. That includes everything from the film-less cameras and digital editing software to the unbelievable quality and ease of printing at home.

Although one can argue that we are creating just as much pollution with our digital cameras and ink cartridges as we were with our film chemicals, I like to believe that the digital revolution can be good for photography as well as the environment.

At the same time there is no doubt that something has been lost in the changeover from film to digital. I’ve thought about this for a long time and wrote about it before.

These days it seems that photographers rarely print their work as traditional C-prints, myself included. Instead, many are making digital C-prints or Inkjet prints. Sze Tsung Leong’s recent Horizons exhibition was a notable exception to this practice.

Both digital C-prints and Inkjet prints can be done beautifully with a little effort but usually require a drum scan to begin with. Yes, drum scans are expensive but it obviously makes a difference especially when you want to make a large print. Other scanners can be manipulated into making good scans but that really depends on the scanner (Imacon, Epson, Scitex, etc.) and the operator in charge.

If you saw Gregory Crewdson’s last show, then you know what the best technology and the best technicians can do for you. Regardless of whether you like the photographs, one has to respect the amazing Inkjet prints he presented. Alec Soth is another well known photographer who recently made some beautiful Inkjets (he’s calling them Pigmented Ink prints).

This is not to say that you have to be Gregory Crewdson (with Crewdson size budgets) or Alec Soth to make gorgeous Inkjet prints.

I was quite impressed by the recent SVA MFA Photography Thesis Exhibition which contained a majority of what looked like really good Inkjet prints. This was a huge improvement in quality over the past couple of thesis exhibitions.

I myself am giving away Inkjet prints on this blog as part of The Photographic Project, but I have to admit that I really don’t know how I feel about them and their place in contemporary photographic practice.

Instinctually I don’t like the idea of an inkjet print. When I try to understand my aversion to them, I realize that it’s usually because of the bad quality of prints that I’ve seen around. The truth is that the scan of the negative or the digital file itself is more to blame than the actual print.

While having a conversation the other day with a fellow artist about contemporary photographic printmaking, we both came to the conclusion that it probably had to do with the chemical nature of photography until this point.

It seemed that the magic was quite possibly being lost in the new process.

I realized that when the photographers of the past experimented with all kinds of processes (Carbon, Gum Bichromate, Platinum, Salt Paper, Albumen, Cyanotype, Tintype, etc.), the majority of techniques were primarily chemical in nature. I guess that excludes many other techniques like the photogravure process that Stieglitz used (although it starts out chemically with the development of the negative) but you get my point.

I know that the definition of what makes a photograph a photograph has nothing to do with the chemical nature of the printing process. But it does bother me when a photograph can’t be differentiated from say, an illustration printed on similar paper.

Walking around The New York Photo Festival’s main exhibitions, I was struck again and again at how wonderful and engaging many of the photographs and projects were. But on the wall many of the prints were just plain ugly especially upon closer inspection.

From what I could tell, digital scanning, over-sharpening, over-saturation and poor printing were mainly to blame. This is unfortunate as it shouldn’t be that big a problem. When one thinks about the great history of the photographic medium in all it’s glory and compares that to what we see today in terms of photographic presence on a wall, we are bound to be disappointed.

Once you realize that many of these photographers are using large and medium format film it gets even more annoying. A photographer should know they’ve got a problem on their hands when the finished print doesn’t hold up in relation to the film format they’re using.

The only conclusion I can make regarding all this is that photographers are getting lazy, don’t really care or just don’t have a clue about what they are doing and are afraid to ask. Luckily for them, the general public as well as the photographic community (collectors, gallerists, curators) doesn’t seem to mind either. Although I believe that given adequate time to look and learn, they too will see what’s missing.

On the one hand, I’m extremely disappointed and annoyed when I think about what I see on a constant basis in many contemporary galleries and museums. It’s basically an affront to the great photographic tradition of beauty and excellence in printmaking. On the other hand, the Crewdson and Soth prints as well as the SVA Thesis exhibition give me great hope for the future of photographic printmaking.

One last thing worth mentioning is the discussion of photography on a computer screen vs. printed and framed on a wall. It seems to me that viewing work online can easily give a false impression about the quality and integrity of a photograph. It’s much easier to make photographs look great on a screen where as in reality, in print form, things are much more difficult. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve looked at work online only to be disappointed by the work in person. In this case it isn’t just how the photographs are printed but how they actually feel and read on a wall.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 9:38 am and is filed under Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.