Re: "Image Disembodiment" Sorry..Bernard's way off

[mrleonard]

I'm sorry..but some of these 'essays' are just too much for me. I think this one...from it relating a successful 'marketing' photographer, Alan Briot, with a..well..a true artist, Ansel Adams to statements like "Reality itself might then become a thing of the past",well, I couldn't just let this one just sleep cozy I guess.
 I think anyone with a cursury interest, knowledge or experience with modern technology can see how daft some of the things posited here are.
 Central photo repositories?!?
 Anyway..this stuff is all elementary....read Ray Kurzweill...he'll lay it all down for you.
 The 'next step'...as far as it pertains to a 'threat' to fine art photography/print photos is cheap disposable 'paper-like' reflective screens.Electronic screens that look like paper (see Sony "e-ink" etc. for the current state of this tech) and are as 'disposable' as paper(mass/cheap produced). THese screens will display all manner of info,media,text,video..whatever.
 It may be that you will 'buy' the art when they buy the technology itself,as the license for this material will(mostly) be marketed with the tech. Sure...there could be a different model..but like now, when you buy a laptop, you could get it $150 less if it wasn't bundled with a "windows OS", but that's just the way they sell computers. You buy the hardware and the software license.
Of course you can just download whatever you like from a plethora of places on the web..both legal ( "iArt.com" let's say) and 'illegal' (highreztorrents.com let's say).
Of course..this will not be any threat to the traditional Fine Art print....Quite the opposite actually. As the cheap digital technology affords a "free" and very high-quality visual experience for the art lover, the art 'buyer' will more and more seek out more esoteric,archaic and 'physical' (not digital) created photo prints. These kind of qualities: unique,one of a kind, hand-made...etc. These desirable traits will actually inform and influence the very 'aesthetic' of photography. I bet we'll see more and more 'digital' photographers using lomo's and holga's etc...lol.
 I own/run a photo art gallery that displays many different types of media, but mostly, when it comes to something photographic, it is "digital". Either a digital print (most of the time) or a chemical print from a digital negative. A gallery close by to me (Stephen Bulgar http://www.bulgergallery.com/) mostly deals with just chemical prints.Why? He deals in photographs as "art objects"...TRULY fine-art photographs. The market for true fine art photographs mostly prefers and desires 'wet darkroom' prints. The very 'noise' and distortions in that process are usually seen as a desirable element to the artwork.It gives them a market value.
 
Yes,in the future of a plethora of digital crapnology,these paper prints may be a "niche" market at best... but it is pretty much a niche market right now.
It's called  Fine-Art Photography.

The digital camera doesn't matter... ;-)

[dalethorn]

Well, yes, one important factor adding value to the print is evidence that someone actually cared about making it.  It's hard to see the evidence when it looks suspiciously like mass production.

[BernardLanguillier]

Thanks for the feedback.

The markets in developped countries are large enough to let basically any valuable niche survive. I don't doubt that there will still be artists willing to make very high quality prints and to sell them in 50 years from now. I am less sure that corporations will still be willing to invest huge amounts of money to develop new printers targetted at the fine art market, or to keep producing the inks for such printers.

Other than that,  you speak about disposable reflective screens, yes, why not? I don't disagree that there are applications for these also.

In my view though, things tend to always converge naturally to the best performing solution, and those will be active screens that emit light IMHO. will these replace totally high quality prints? Probably not, but the main point of my essay was that such devices have the potential to expand the reach of photographers and the traditional distribution channels starting with galleries like yours.

As far as you comment about Alain's work, I find it to be irrelevant. My point was only that there are people exhibiting prints from him in their homes, just like there are people exhibiting prints from Adams. You will have a hard time proving me that none of those people own work from both photographs, and have considered at some point of time whether they had enough room at home to display both...

Cheers,
Bernard

[mrleonard]

My main point was to actually discern the "fine-art photograph" that got lost in your essay. That gallery I mentioned (Bulgar)HAS an Ansel Adams print worth over 40 grand even though his original negs could be scanned and be better reproduced with a wider gamut etc etc.
 Light emitting or reflective....the main need is consumer driven. Digital replacement of paper would the logical conclusion of that. The very success of ANY technology would make it cheaper and thus undermine it's "unique artistic value". So your idea of a screen that gives the best viewing of a still digital image is a moot point, as far as it pertains to fine-art photography.
 I mean think of it....it will just be so much "easier" to make the process "harder"...more exclusive...for it then engenders a unique quality.

 I don't doubt that there will be cheap, widespread technologies (in this case screens) that will reproduce photo stills with better quality than any 'fine-art' paper.
They just won't be used for and traditional photo still fine-art.

Even now...the term 'fine-art' papers being applied to digital printer paper (or 'giclee'..french for 'spray of ink'..lol) is a bit bogus. It's the manufacturer's trying to add this 'artistic exclusivity' to the mass-reproduction industry..to the photographers that desire an artisitic legitimacy to their art prints.

Most of the general public can be fooled by all that jargon...thankfully so, as it keeps 'art' selling in my gallery. Don't be fooled though...the way forward is one step back. Expect cyanotypes for art prints...not some digital ,throw away screen.
These tactile qualities may be unimportant for the "creative quality" of the image ,which can be rewarded through licenses, advertising or some as yet unseen "download/feedback controlled system" funded by ISP fees/costs...but they are most certainly, and ever more so, going to be important to the desirable qualities of a "fine-art photo print".

[BernardLanguillier]

My main point was to actually discern the "fine-art photograph" that got lost in your essay. That gallery I mentioned (Bulgar)HAS an Ansel Adams print worth over 40 grand even though his original negs could be scanned and be better reproduced with a wider gamut etc etc.
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Sure, I understand what you are saying.

I would probably have been more realistic to use another term than fine art prints.

Cheers,
Bernard

[dalethorn]

Or another possibility - as televangelists have used a really low quality medium (TV) to sell an ostensibly high quality product (spirituality), the proliferation of small cheap screens will be used to seque the curious and interested into fine art.  Or to look at it from the other end of the stick, "what will Fine Art be after years of filtering through the lens of digital papers?"

[gdanmitchell]

The market for true fine art photographs mostly prefers and desires 'wet darkroom' prints.

But they'll get over it. Ultimately, artists decide what media are used to create art, not gallery owners.

Dan

[mrleonard]

But they'll get over it. Ultimately, artists decide what media are used to create art, not gallery owners.

Dan
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You misunderstand...'the art market'  is the art buyer, NOT the gallery owner OR the artist. Neither artist or gallery owner can really dictate what people will buy...but the reality is that they tend to meet the supply of what people WANT to buy.In the 'fine-art photography' market they tend to want to buy traditional wet darkroom prints.

You will find that most photo artists working in that market tend to adhere to that, because realistically, they prefer to sell more of their artworks for more money and not less for less.

 If you were saying 'mixed-media', 'visual artists' or somesuch...the media gets broadened. I was focussing in on the "fine-art photography" market.

 There are alternatives to this...take Martin Parr...he sells his artwork not in the traditional "limited edition" fashion of old, but seems to market and sell his art with books and other alternative streams. He recently had some of his work on display here in Toronto as part of the CONTACT festival. THey were archival digital prints printed from an HP printer. It is my understanding that these artworks were to be destroyed after the exhibition, as they were not meant as ... well...'archived' artworks, but rather just a temporal exhibition. He makes his money from the books he sells and commisions less than from 'fine-art' print sales . ( Im not sure on the details...if any know more it would be great to know , as I really admire his work).

[JohnBrew]

I have to agree with mrleonard. I feel Bernard is trying to "stir the pot" so to speak, but to no good end.