[pure-silver] Re: numbering prints?
- From: Lloyd Erlick <lloyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 10:50:38 -0400
At 03:17 PM 9/15/2006 , you wrote:
>I have been very persuaded by Brooks Jensen's (of Lens Work) article 'What
>size is the edition?'
>
>I can't find a link to it and I think I can't post it here as an attachment.
>Does anyone have the link?
>If not I can forward an attachment privately
>Tim
>http://www.worldoflithprinting.com
September 16, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick,
The article appeared in Lenswork 36, Jul-Aug 2001. Here are some snips from
the one I found online. Would it be improper to paste in the whole article???
I like his idea of 'true editioning'. I also like to add a good strong dose
of caprice or even whimsey. But I do like the notion of an edition
consisting of production from a fixed time period. I occasionally make a
'first edition' from the satisfactory prints I can produce in a day, or a
single darkroom session, or maybe two. So that could be maybe four to six
or maybe a dozen, rarely. But I can't see why I have to limit myself to
such a stuffy moniker as 'first'. I like a certain print developer, which
has potassium salts instead of sodium. I have a few 'Potassium Editions' as
a result.
I think it was Jan Saudek, the European photog, who mounted his prints on
butcher paper and dated them a century early, e.g. 1871.
Am I a rat for doing the following: inscribing a print "Paris, 1927", even
though I've never been to Paris, and was born in 1949? I look upon it as
exercise for future curators. Let them dig through the pure-silver
archives. And if there are no more future curators than there are lineups
at my door to snap up my prints, then what else is there in it but whimsey
and pleasing myself?
regards,
--le
-------
LensWork Home Page --> LensWork Special Editions --> Why We Do Not Limit
Our Editions
The LensWork Special Editions
Why We Do Not Limit Our Editions
The following article first appeared in LensWork #36. It offers the
reasoning behind our decision to stop limiting the edition size of LensWork
Special Editions. This article is also available as a downloadable PDF.
What Size is the Edition?
by
Brooks Jensen
Numbering only
The first idea is this: do not limit the number of copies of a photograph
but do number them. This creates a sequential history for the image and
allows collectors to know where, in the sequence, any particular version
was created. This method is simple, easy to administer, and honest. It
neither limits the image nor ignores the importance of time in the
production of the photograph or in the maturing and creative vision of the
photographic artist. Instead of "1/250," why not just "#1"? To collectors
this delineates the vintage print without denying the photographer the
opportunity to refine his or her vision or execution of that negative.
True editioning
The second idea is better, albeit somewhat more detailed. Follow the plan
of the book publisher, using the ideas in the dictionary definitions above.
Books are printed in a "First Edition, a "Second Edition," etc. Each
edition is limited by the number of copies produced at that time. Also, a
"First Edition" might undergo more than one printing ? "First Edition,
First Printing" followed by a "First Edition, Second Printing," etc. Each
of these are dated and so enumerated.
I see no reason why this paradigm can?t be adopted verbatim in photography.
Begin with the creation of a "First Edition" with a defined and limited
number of copies, printed all at once, dated and defined in time. Should
this "edition" sell out it could be reprinted as a "second printing," and
so designated. Instead of a second printing, a variation in the image could
be created with improvements in the execution and be called a "Second
Edition," again with a defined and limited number of copies, printed all at
once, dated and defined in time. In fact, the first edition need not even
sell out to create the second edition. Maybe the first rendition would be
preferred by some collectors or buyers.
This strategy has the advantage of allowing the photographer an unlimited
number of prints in their lifetime, allows for artistic growth in creative
vision which would be realized by the various editions, and at the same
time defines the work precisely for the collector/gallery who value such
information. For example, in book printing a "First Edition" will often be
more valuable than a later edition, even though the later one might be
"better" ? that is, more durable, legible, etc. The collector looks for the
most valuable edition, the reader might look for the most functional, the
decorator look for the most handsomely bound, etc.
---------
Conclusion
I am sure that painters, sculptors and other artists will laugh at this
idea of editions and the convolutions of this debate. But we are
photographers and our chosen medium allows us to define ourselves
differently. It is this freedom to define that also places on us a
responsibility to think clearly about these issues and mold our career and
our artwork in the best possible way. To deny the reproducibility of
photography is to deny its very nature. To ignore the implication of
artificially limiting the size of an edition is to be numb to the realities
of our production.
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