It looks like we are going to have a small sale of two of Bob's bird pictures. Bob is working on it. Also, Ctein is emigrating to Ireland in response to the Trumpocalypse, and might not be taking his dye transfer archive with him (he might have to pay import duty on his whole collection), so later in the Spring we'll have a bon voyage sale of some of his remaining rare dye transfers. Dye transfer was to color printing like a rare orchid is to flowers; it was always rare and prized and now is very rare and prized. Original Cteins are among the very best, as he was world-famous as a dye-transfer printer (that's a small niche, but he was).
There are lots of things I used to regularly remind readers about that I have let fall by the wayside as the years have gone by. One was that when you're looking at an online JPEG of a picture, you're not actually seeing the picture. I used to say that all the time, and now I no longer do. Many of our earliest print sales were designed to let you hold a print in your hands or hang it on your wall so you could compare the real thing to the online representation. You might have personal memories of how striking that could be.
I suppose that outlook is outmoded now. Most pictures by most people—including myself—are never "made real" in the old sense. They don't end up as paper artifacts. They are created, exist their existences such as such may be, and are archived and forgotten (or deleted or lost), as digital images on screens, first last and always; that's all they are, all they ever will be, perhaps all they were ever meant to be, and there it is.
When you look at an illustration of a painting, at least, like a good reproduction in the Museum Shop or in a book, it's never disputed that you're not looking at the real thing. Same thing when you see a two-dimensional photograph of a three-dimensional sculpture. Never an issue. But what's a photograph? Is it more "real" when it's on paper? Printed in a book? An original print? And what is that, exactly—is it essential that the print be made by the photographer? Well, some photographers never printed their own work. So does it depend on the approval of the artist, who supervised the making of the print and approved the result? The FSA photographs, stored in rows of filing cabinets at the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress in D.C., are essentially proof-prints mounted on boards—the photographers worked in the field and the prints were made by the FSA-OWI (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information) photo laboratory staff back at the Auditor's Building in Washington, D.C. You might say those are documentary records, not art, but "Migrant Mother" is among them, and it's one of the best-known photographs in history. Dorothea Lange didn't supervise the printing of "Migrant Mother." The LoC sells reproductions made from a copy negative. The original negative is considered too precious to work from directly. I made my version (our very first print sale on TOP, very successful—I only wish I'd kept one for myself) from a scan the Library provides.
So it's not clear-cut, never has been. Are digital images seen on screens not "photographs"? Of course they are. Well, unless they're not faithful to a lens image, but let's not go into that here.
In any event, I think I will go on thinking of a "photograph" as being primarily and preferentially a paper artifact. The screen image being a proof, a working file, raw material, an approximation. But not because of any grim principle or anything. Not as an assertion or a position. Mainly because the old way was so much fun. Printmaking is a craft, and craft isn't as front-and-center as it used to be in photography. It was fun to make prints, satisfying to get them exactly the way you envisioned them to be. It was always great fun to see original prints, and often a revelation, even. It was fun to see prints made from different processes—I stood dumbstruck in front of a particular Woodburytype at the Smithsonian once. I have memories of where I was when I saw certain prints. It was fun to compare early prints and late prints, as in the famous case of "Moonrise"—Matt Witkovsky lined up the various versions on a rail in a back room at the Art Institute of Chicago once, for Ken Tanaka, Michael McCaskey, and me. Fun. Some prints were made to be seen in bright light and some in dim light. Some were significantly interpreted and some were "Q&D"—quick and dirty. There were good printers and great printers (the word used to mean the person; now it means a machine. Has to be some kind of moral in that). Seeing a great print could make a deep an indelible impression on you. Exhibits were memorable. Seeing prints could be an occasion.
Another thing I used to say, and sometimes still do, is that inkjet prints of digital images on fine papers, done well, can be one of the most beautiful of photographic printmaking media. Still true.
Keith F. Davis, the great curator at the Nelson-Atkins who is retired now—I don't begrudge him, but I'm sad that there will never be any more of his fantastic books—once told me on the phone, "I still think of a photograph as something you can hold in your hands." I think I'll think so too. Not as a diss against the current medium of pictures on screens, though, not at all. Just because the whole world of the photographic print was and is so amazing and wonderful. And fun.
I'll keep you apprised about our progress on those print sales, but keep your eyes open.
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Rolex is not rare, just expensive. They make over a million watches a year, and Rolex carefully regulates it to keep the prices high on the secondary markets. During the Covid era, they seem to have prioritized the grey market, where huge premiums reigned over list price over the genuine users serviced by authorized dealers, as did Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet. It is one reason why I will never buy watches made by these three companies - and believe me, I am squarely in their target market as a watch nut with money to spare. Rolex, like Montblanc pens or Leica cameras is a complete triumph of marketing over quality for the prices they charge.
Posted by: Jayanand Govindaraj | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 10:09 AM
FYI, a scan of the original negative of "Migrant Mother" (as well as many other FSA photos) is available for download from the Library of Congress:
https://loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8b29516/
All the FSA work is public domain. So you can download and make your own print with your interpretation (performance) of the negative. I've done this. My print hangs in our dining room. The scan is dirty and requires a lot of spotting, but all the detail is there for you to work with. Since Lange did not print her own work, I see no real difference between my print and ones made by darkroom workers at FSA. In fact, I think my print is pretty good.
Posted by: Dave Levingston | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 10:37 AM
I own printers. I make my own prints ... which are "photographs." So, what do I call myself? (Besides, Mike.)
Printmaker is sort of accurate, but would also include, say, silk screen, wood block, etc.
The negative is the score ...
Posted by: MikeR | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 11:21 AM
I closed my darkroom half a dozen years ago after having had one, or two, for some forty years. I tested so many combinations of films (and papers) and developers that I almost forgot to take pictures. I have had an Epson SC-P700 inkjet printer printer, or a previous version, for some ten years, but mostly printed on plastic paper. Of late I have been looking at my images mainly on my MacBook Pro. When I was recently asked to show some of my prints at a local gallery I decided to make a new print of each image on fine paper to ensure a coherent impression. So I think I am well experienced to confirm what Mike wrote, and I quote;
- when you're looking at an online JPEG of a picture, you're not actually seeing the picture,
- inkjet prints of digital images on fine papers, done well, can be one of the most beautiful of photographic printmaking media.
If, in spite of all this, you still want to see a few JPEGs of the images on show, click my name below. The exhibition highlights two types of landscape photography, extremely manipulated iPhone images and traditional work. (More manipulated images will be added to the web page soon.)
Posted by: Christer Almqvist | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 02:07 PM
Mike: But what's a photograph? Is it more "real" when it's on paper? Printed in a book? An original print? . . . Are digital images seen on screens not "photographs"? Of course they are. Well, unless they're not, but let's not go into that here.
I still make prints and I agree that it’s satisfying to hold a printed photograph in your hands. Or hang it on a wall.
But the technology is moving beyond that. Digital cameras automatically capture a much greater tonal range than it is possible to reproduce on paper, and anyone with a Lightroom license and a recent MacBook Pro can process a raw file in high dynamic range to create an image that is a much more accurate representation of the highlights and shadows visible to the human eye and brain than any print. (No doubt there are MS-Windows laptops with HDR-capable displays, as well.)
These HDR photographs can’t be printed on paper because it is impossible to print highlights that are brighter than the white of the photo paper. But they can be displayed on many current cellphones as well as some laptop computers and television sets—and the entertainment industry is increasingly emitting HDR content, which is likely to increase consumer demand for HDR-capable display devices.
Posted by: Chris Kern | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 02:34 PM
I still regard photographs online as somewhat ethereal beings- a print does seem to give life, substance and credulity to a temporary online image. The trade off, of course, is that many fewer people have the opportunity to engage in that direct experience. I was fortunate to have a few digital images printed at a reasonable fee, a service no longer available, but it did allow me to see what the 'new' technology was truly capable of- and I was impressed indeed!
Now, I just make zines when I desire the print form; they can achieve quality on par with self published books, and are one very economical and convenient way of organizing images into themes one can ponder for further study or distribution.
Posted by: Stan B. | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 02:57 PM
I agree. Its a finished photograph when you are holding or viewing ( not on a screen) a print, approved but not necessarily made, by the photographer.
But then thats just my opinion and even at my age I believe its reasonable to think that in less than a decade 98% of the public will never have seen a finely made print- just images on some type of screen.
Posted by: jim | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 03:12 PM
In a world that changed slowly, a photograph made sense. A link to a continuum.
But in the world of today, where change is frenetic, just how relevant or relatable is the past anyway?
To have and to hold... not any more.
Posted by: Kye Wood | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 07:56 PM
I qoute Mike, "when you're looking at an online JPEG of a picture, you're not actually seeing the picture" and add the following variations:
- a low res image on phone screen,
- a medium res image on a laptop screen,
- a high res image on a calibrated hi-res large s1ze monitor,
and all the variations in between.
And yes, a print of the right size on the wall would solve all these problems, or at least eliminate most of the variations, except the circumstances surounding the viewing.
I started my cateract operations this week and had one eye done, and man, what a revelation! My "new" eye is 1 f/stop brighter and 1000k higher than my "old" eye, now that I can easily compare since I have both eyes on me. (this comparison will be gone next week!)
I checked out my recent Lightroom files and realised that I have to go back to re-do them, and I don't know how far back I have to go!!
Now, talking about showing your print to someone else, you'll never know what they are seeing. :)
Imagine someone holding your print and say "to be honest, I think your white balance is a bit off, and it's too dark for my taste."
Posted by: Edwin | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 10:25 PM
I make paper prints of my favorite new photographs. The image on the screen always looks good and “final” with just a few slider moves in Lightroom. However, the first print on quality paper from my photo printer nearly always disappoints. Is the LCD screen more forgiving? Is it just that the backlit screen provides a brilliance unparalleled on paper? I don’t know—I can quickly edit a promising image on the screen to make it look fine. Yet, I often need to make three or four (or more) paper prints before getting it right. Making a print from a digital file in our current era is always filled with revelations about the picture—revelations I miss if the screen image is all I create.
Posted by: Peter | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 10:33 PM
"I still think of a photograph as something you can hold in your hands."
As do I, and, I hope, many younger folk for at least awhile.
Posted by: bob p | Thursday, 24 April 2025 at 10:58 PM
As a side note to this column I think the reason there are so many bad prints is that many photographers (younger mostly?) have not had the opportunity to look at a well made print; either inkjet or from the chemical darkroom. And so their only reference is viewing online jpegs. And as you point out, at best, online should only be considered as a proof (another concept newer / younger photographers may not understand). An acceptable substitute, I think, would be to look at photographs reproduced in books. There are still publishers producing very high quality work. Perhaps TOP could consider this avenue in the future (I do recall you doing this in the past) by writing more about books and even offering book sales.
Posted by: Michael T. | Friday, 25 April 2025 at 02:22 AM
I bought through here Michael A Smith’s wonderful reprinting, on different papers within the one book, photographs of Edward Weston. Lodima Press. Years later he and his wife were interviewed in a long interview in the now defunct New Zealand online magazine, still accessible, f11. I think Paula Chamlee is the better photographer. Their process was described in detail. As a photograph came off the printer it had to have presence. If it didn’t, it was quickly binned. I experienced this presence once with a photograph selected by my wife to print. I conceded it might turn up a reasonable print. Half out of the 3880 I nearly fell over. Although it’s the reverse of the primacy of the print, I learnt a different idea spoken by Michael Smith: “Artists are more interested in making things, than things made.” Prints in the pages of a book are often almost as good.
Posted by: Richard G | Friday, 25 April 2025 at 04:09 AM
I was in an analog film and print class just yesterday where 20 undergraduate students at Washington University in St. Louis presented portfolios in a photography class final. Ah yes, actual paper prints!
I had not been in a chemical darkroom in two decades, but they have a wonderful and extensive darkroom facility. The print sizes were about 5x7. It was wonderful to see their work, and realize that chemical printing is still being taught, and is a popular class. Oh, yes they also have very very modern digital printers at hand, but they only use chemicals in this particular class. When they discussed filters, it was filters in the printing.
https://www.macdonough.net/Photo-Class/n-mKt8Rp/i-phrn6nb/A
Posted by: Jack Mac | Friday, 25 April 2025 at 10:39 AM
My main gripe with digital photography (and this may or may not be relevant) is that one is chained to a computer to progress from taking the picture to printing or viewing on screen, which could be said for many things these days. There is no way to go from camera to paper without one (even if that’s a phone or tablet); there has to be a screen. After “driving” a computer all day for work, that’s the last thing I want to be doing. I’d rather (and I know that’s niche and a luxury) go into the darkroom and print 100 rough 5x7s or contact sheets to see what I have. The luxury of the amateur!
(Yes one can have their assistants whittle the interesting ones from the uninteresting ones and have them printed for you to see on paper for not much more a cost, but who can afford assistants? Did I say I’m an amateur?)
Posted by: Stelios | Friday, 25 April 2025 at 11:28 AM
Sorry, that meant to say there has to be a screen, not have. I hate typos.
Posted by: Stelios | Friday, 25 April 2025 at 11:29 AM
I have two of Ctein’s dye transfers. They’re everything they are supposed to be.
Posted by: Dave Richardson | Friday, 25 April 2025 at 01:54 PM
I would love to say that a print in your hands is the essence of the photo, but realistically, it’s only the result at a certain stage of the image, like a proof. I’ve printed on buildings, vehicles, food, and lots else as a final result and it gets to be pretty undefinable to say that what the result should exist as.
Posted by: Bob G. | Friday, 25 April 2025 at 09:05 PM
My film days were from the early 1960’s to 2002, my film of choice was black and white negative. I didn’t think of the negative as a photograph, the positive paper print was the photograph.
From 2002 to today I only create digital files that may or mostly not be printed onto paper.
I think of the out of camera raw file and the paper print as photographs.
Many photographers in the film days produced transparent positives that resembled digital files in their ability to be projected and viewed as finished products without the need to make a paper print.
Posted by: Richard Alan Fox | Friday, 25 April 2025 at 09:14 PM
I just had that "Is a photograph that has never been printed 'real'" discussion with a photographer friend yesterday. I was showing him some photos of Bloodroot that I took on my morning walk, which I had just finished editing to post on Facebook. Because I am an ancient photographer (80) and 'grew up' on wet photography, I have a bias toward prints, but most of my photographs these days never get printed. When I edit them for FB presentation, I add a white border. That, in my mind, makes them feel more real, more print-like. I know I am just kidding myself, and that since the meaning of 'photograph' is 'written by light', any such image is technically a photograph, even those that I created by scanning objects on a scanner with no camera involved.
Several decades ago, I attended the creation and destruction of a Tibetan Buddhist mandala. The monks laboriously spent several days depositing colored grains of sand on a cartoon to create a mandala that was about 4' across. I was allowed to photograph it from a ladder before the ceremony, where they swept it up. Those present were given a small amount of the sand; mine still resides in a small silver box on a shelf near my computer. After gathering the remains, they were carried to the nearby river, where they were scattered.
Photographs viewed on a screen need the light of the screen to be seen, so perhaps I should consider the image as created anew each time it is thus viewed. The print that endures is an artifact of the technology of the era when photography began, as am I, so it is hard to let go of it as being 'real'. I still struggle with the lesson of impermanence that was the point of the mandala.
Posted by: James Bullard | Saturday, 26 April 2025 at 12:00 PM
PSA:
A Gallery for Fine Art in the French Quarter in New Orleans is an incredible experience. We come to Jazz Fest every year and always stop in. The Herman Leonard jazz club prints, and works by Jerry Uelsmann and Sebastiao Salgado are something to see. Oh and there's a stunning Moonrise Over Hernandez hanging there too.
Photographs = prints imho
Posted by: JimR | Sunday, 27 April 2025 at 10:50 AM
Wow. James Bullard! That's perfect.
Posted by: gadfly | Sunday, 27 April 2025 at 07:50 PM