Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 5   Go Down

Author Topic: Is printing alive and well?  (Read 15255 times)

Jonathan Cross

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 644
Is printing alive and well?
« on: September 20, 2015, 03:17:19 pm »

Back in pre-history, some years ago, I remember Michael writing articles on this site about new printers and new papers.  I do not seem to see him writing such articles now.  What happens to all the images we take?  Do we use electronic displays more than printed images?  I have read a couple of articles in the UK exhorting printing for two reasons, the joy of a printed image and a means of preserving images for future generations as in looking back at our parents' and grandparents' photo albums..  The upsurge in internet self-published books, however, also means  that we do not need to print ourselves and such books do not need images with huge numbers of dots.  The ubiquitous iPad with its retina screen is such an easy way to show images, yet does not need many pixels.  Even the 27inch Mac 5k retina screen only has 14.75 million pixels, so why do we need sensors with 2 and 3 times the number of pixels?  OK, it allows cropping, but do we really need that when it is possible to create large files by taking 2 or 3 overlapping images and stitching? 

I am not banging any sort of drum; this is just the result of me musing about what we do with our images now!

Jonathan
Logged
Jonathan in UK

Rand47

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1882
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2015, 07:18:27 pm »

Hi Johnathan,

Did you happen to see/watch this recent "cover story" on LULA?

https://luminous-landscape.com/past-present-and-future-of-photography-a-video-interview-with-brooks-jensen-michael-reichmann-and-kevin-raber/

Some of it goes to exactly your question. 

Regards!
Rand
Logged
Rand Scott Adams

LesPalenik

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5339
    • advantica blog
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2015, 10:24:26 pm »

Once you fill all the walls and portfolio cases, unless you are active seller or exhibitor, the incentive to print more new pictures, diminishes.
On the other hand, I still see many prints being submitted to camera club competitions.
Logged

tom b

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1471
    • http://tombrown.id.au
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2015, 11:35:28 pm »

I'm not sure that printing has ever been alive and well. Two interesting trends:

At recent photography exhibitions I have visited the prints have been very large and have been in the US$5000 range.

I'm in the process of downsizing, so I've been visiting furniture shops. I couldn't help but notice that there are lots of framed photographs on the walls for sale at bargain basement prices compared to galleries.

Cheers,
Logged
Tom Brown

Telecaster

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3686
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #4 on: September 20, 2015, 11:57:24 pm »

I enjoy making prints. But not big prints. Nowhere really to put 'em, and IMO if I were to force one upon a wall in my house it would rightly be seen—by me as much as anyone else—not as something pretty or interesting or compelling but as an ego display. So I make small-ish prints, 6x8/9" or sometimes 8/9x12", of my own-favorites as a kind of backup in case all my local & remote storage devices go Kablaam. Friends & family would much rather have digital versions for screen display…and most of the time so would I. The tech to make such prints at an excellent level has been around for quite a while. Not much to discuss now other than minor incremental changes. (IMO sensor tech has reached the same point.)

-Dave-
Logged

Schewe

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6229
    • http:www.schewephoto.com
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #5 on: September 21, 2015, 01:24:35 am »

Back in pre-history, some years ago, I remember Michael writing articles on this site about new printers and new papers.  I do not seem to see him writing such articles now.

Hum...is there a good reason why you didn't post this in the Printing Forum?

And, not for nothing, Mike ain't the only person writing for LuLa ya know. There was a recent timely review by Mark Segal about Epson's P800 printer https://luminous-landscape.com/new-epson-surecolor-p800-printer-review/.

You miss that one? Seems your post has an agenda...so what is it?
Logged

ashaughnessy

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 62
    • My wordpress blog
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2015, 02:00:31 am »

I still think of a print as the final stage. I print as much as I can afford to (ink and paper are expensive!!!) and also print to sell. I've got drawers and boxes of prints around and occasionally I like to get them all out and do things with them, like trying out new combinations.
Anthony
Logged
Anthony Shaughnessy
https://anthonyshaug

MarkL

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 475
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2015, 08:00:18 am »

I still think of a print as the final stage. I print as much as I can afford to (ink and paper are expensive!!!) and also print to sell. I've got drawers and boxes of prints around and occasionally I like to get them all out and do things with them, like trying out new combinations.
Anthony

I've printed hardly any of my work. I don't really want my own pictures on the walls so the only real prints made have been for family and friends.

I keep thinking about doing something similar to you and make a kind of portfolio box of reasonably sized prints since the experience is so much better than looking at them on a screen.
Logged

tom b

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1471
    • http://tombrown.id.au
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #8 on: September 21, 2015, 08:31:51 am »

I've just bought a new computer, I've been fighting new software changes.

One of the things that I love about prints is that you don't have to worry about what computer you are using!

Cheers,
Logged
Tom Brown

Otto Phocus

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 655
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2015, 09:17:04 am »

I have to admit that once going to digital, I can't remember the last time I printed.

...I were to force one upon a wall in my house it would rightly be seen—by me as much as anyone else—not as something pretty or interesting or compelling but as an ego display.
-Dave-

I feel kinda the same way. 

One of my biggest obstacles is choosing which photograph do I want to commit to by printing.  I look at my photographs and think to myself "that's a nice one.. but nice enough to commit the space to hang it on the wall?  Nah. 

It was so much easier in the film days when printing was pretty much the only way to see the photograph in the first place.
Logged
I shoot with a Camera Obscura with an optical device attached that refracts and transmits light.

tom b

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1471
    • http://tombrown.id.au
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #10 on: September 21, 2015, 10:51:28 am »

I've just bought a new computer, I've been fighting new software changes.

One of the things that I love about prints is that you don't have to worry about what computer you are using!

Cheers,

However, I would love to see some digital prints from the masters!
Logged
Tom Brown

FMueller

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 74
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #11 on: September 21, 2015, 11:27:55 pm »

Printing is alive and well with me but I struggle with presentation and good ways to share the printed product. The problem with digital presentation is the work is almost assured of having a very short life.

Every now and then I hear statistics about how many pictures are being taken every year and I think to myself that I needn't worry about this overwhelming stimulus overload since most of these photos will will disappear into thin air very quickly anyway.

Paraphrasing a quote from Koudelka (I think), just because everyone has a camera and takes pictures doesn't make them photographers any more than anyone having a pen makes them a writer.

In my mind the printed work is the archive of a photographer, the only way we know what they think is important.

Logged

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #12 on: September 22, 2015, 04:16:33 am »

In my mind the printed work is the archive of a photographer, the only way we know what they think is important.

And that can be a big error of judgement.

I used to print what I thought good or interesting on A3+ Hahnemuehle paper on my HP B9180. Then, at one stage, I discovered that the printer had stopped being produced and that HP themselves couldn't offer the complete range of eight inks at a time that I wanted to replace a few of them. Some well-meaning friends pointed out other sources of ink supply, but I didn't bite. If HP isn't interested, then I would be pouring more good money into vanity and simply delaying the moment when the supply of suitable ink (if non-HP sourced stuff is even genuine), from wherever, ceases.

I stopped running the obligatory 24hr power supply and let the machine gather dust.

Now and then, in between cursing HP, I get the desire to print something. But - you know what? - I no longer bother. I have a few boxes full of stuff that I like and realise that continuing along this line with a new printer/ink system is just an ego trip and nobody in the world that follows me after I'm gone will give a damn. And I don't blame them: apart fom some personal photographs of loved ones, what's the point of boxes and boxes of somebody else's fancies? There ain't one.

Even the traditional 'family snaps' thing is pointless. Like most families, I hold on to a biscuit tin of stuff from before I was even born, but it means zero to me. It still exists out of what might well be a totally misplaced sense of obligation, and nothing more. Two or three snaps of a lost loved one is all that's needed to ring the bell.

Generally speaking, unless there exists a commercial market for one's prints, then why bother? Your HD will show you all you've got worth showing so far, and looking back can be a curse, as I know too well, all by myself.

Indeed, printing can be fun, especially during the learning period, which may or may not go on for ever. But as with shooting, once you know how to get what you want, it takes something special to make you go out and do it. Otherwise, you are but a robot without an off switch. Therapy is one good reason to continue, but pray to God you don't discover the need.

Rob C

Tony Jay

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2965
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #13 on: September 22, 2015, 04:31:08 am »

I think printing still has primacy, but definitely not exclusivity, as a visible expression of photography.
If one looks at the volume of images viewed electronically versus as a print the latter is a very small proportion of the former.
Yet a print can still show, on several levels - technical and creatively, what the same image would struggle to convey on current electronic devices.
It may be, as electronic displays of various types continue to improve, that in the future printing - perhaps as an artistic expression at least, becomes much less important that it is now.

Tony Jay
Logged

michael

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5084
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #14 on: September 22, 2015, 11:59:00 am »

A print made on OBA-less rag paper using pigment inks will likely retain 90% of its gamut and almost all of its luminance 200 years from now.

I wonder which web pages will still be accessible, or what electronic media will still be readable.

Michael
Logged

Otto Phocus

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 655
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #15 on: September 22, 2015, 12:57:21 pm »

If Archive.org keeps getting funding, Webpages will be accessible.  While specific types of electronic storage media may change, the data stored on them can be re-saved when there is a change in storage media.  We all had plenty of time to save off our data from 5 1/4 floppy disks. 

So if the data is important to someone, I would opine it will be available in 200 years.

The advantage may be that the electronic data is available in several locations, there the hard-copy print is in only one location.
Logged
I shoot with a Camera Obscura with an optical device attached that refracts and transmits light.

ednazarko

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 42
Alive maybe, well... not so much
« Reply #16 on: September 22, 2015, 05:41:57 pm »

My state ASMP chapter struggled with their annual photo competition because it was print based - bring in your printed and framed work, and the judges worked from that.  The last few years hardly anyone entered, because they just don't print their work much anymore.  By going to a "submit files, we'll print the winners" format they significantly increased participation.

Except for me.  If I can't 100% control my print, it won't be my photograph.  As someone who developed during the days when you thought about how your printing technologies (wet sloppy technologies to be sure) would render an image, at the time you shot it, I still continue to do that.  I know when I shoot whether the image will be a cold press rag print or a satin baryta print.

When I get together with most of my photographer friends, they're showing work on their screens.  I'm dragging a 24x36 portfolio.  Odd man out.
Logged

tom b

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1471
    • http://tombrown.id.au
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #17 on: September 22, 2015, 06:21:55 pm »

A print made on OBA-less rag paper using pigment inks will likely retain 90% of its gamut and almost all of its luminance 200 years from now.

I wonder which web pages will still be accessible, or what electronic media will still be readable.

Michael

You are right, I'm assuming that nobody will care about my images in 20 years let alone 200 years. Maybe a couple of my paintings will still be around.

Cheers,
Logged
Tom Brown

FMueller

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 74
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #18 on: September 22, 2015, 08:35:06 pm »

On occasion I have a daughter and another stepdaughter that ask me to do some prints for them. The email or text the pictures they want printed. They are all from their instagram feed.

Seems these kids living in their screens like adorning their walls with rows of their favorite instagram pix using using string and clothespins... 

Printing will be just fine.
Logged

JimAscher

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
    • Jim Ascher Photos
Re: Is printing alive and well?
« Reply #19 on: September 23, 2015, 04:44:58 pm »


In my mind the printed work is the archive of a photographer, the only way we know what they think is important.

For me, personally, I would modify the above (quite perceptive) statement to read: "In my mind the printed work is the archive of myself as a  photographer, the only way I can really know what I think is important."  I have no more room on the walls to hang new photographs, other than to rotate them among the limited available wall space, but I do have many boxes of such prints -- which I suspect, as others have commented, no one after myself will really be interested.  My adult children, certainly not (as of yet?).
Logged
Jim Ascher

See my SmugMug site:
http://jimascherphotos.smugmug.com/
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 5   Go Up