[pure-silver] Re: "Hand Printed"
- From: "Dana H. Myers" <dana.myers@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:57:04 -0800
Elias Roustom wrote:
Today I went for a bike ride - it was in the mid forties and sunny.
Yesterday's jaunt was a very pleasant club ride that
included a 6-mile, 2200' climb into a fog that condensed
on both sides of my glasses. The descent was a bit harrowing
since my glasses fogged-up again and I couldn't tell where
the wet or muddy patches were in the road. No one crashed
and it was a fine, social 39 miles. Today's ride started in fog at
7am but it cleared into a fine, brisk morning by 8am, temperature
in the high 40s, total of 58 miles including a loop through Napa
vineyards.
Very refreshing.
Yup, same here.
[...]
but I had a laugh when I read the title advertising
the quality of the prints: "Hand Printed on an Epson..."
While I, too, question some of the pretense around giclee
and carbon-pigment prints and so on, I don't see why this is
worth snickering at.
> so when you think about
the leap to digital, and all the losses of manual control associated
with it, not to mention that the digital image itself does not even
exist as a thing, the prospect of a human mind concluding that an ink
jet print is made by hand is simply astounding.
Losses of manual control associated with "digital". Digital
what? Digital capture? Digital manipulation? Digital printing?
Digital SLRs today provide at least as much manual control as
the film SLRs they grew from. If one, like me, starts with capture
on silver halide film and scans, there are a range of controls
available there, as well.
Digital manipulation, at a very minimum, provides all of the
manual control practiced in the darkroom, including dodging,
burning, cropping, exposure and easier selection of image curves.
It is certainly easier to do bizarre manipulations via
digital means, but that hasn't prevented some pretty odd things
from coming out of darkrooms.
Digital output via inkjet doesn't need to be a turn-key affair,
either. Many artists experiment with ink-set selection and profiling
to tune the output. People that might have experimented with developers
and papers are probably the ones mixing their own inks today.
So, the notion of "Hand-printed on a Epson" really isn't worthy
of a snicker once you have anything beyond a superficial appreciation
of the craft.
My take is that the artist uses the phrase "Hand-printed" to express
the attention given from capture to print, or, perhaps, it's yet another
bit of artistic pretense in the name of marketing. But the same can be
said of most "hand-made" silver gelatin prints, no?
Lest any think it, I am not offended in the least. In fact there's a
mischievous streak in me that actually appreciates the statement. At
worst it reveals a character flaw of mine, a real need for "calling it
like it is" on a number of levels. But it gave a me chuckle that I hope
I've passed along.
Heh, I suspect I have that character flaw as well, the one about
"calling it like I see it". Why would you be offended by someone
practicing their photographic craft with care? (Even if their craft
differs in process?)
Ride strong -
Dana
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