The old idea that everything black and white has to be printed on traditional photographic paper to be legit is such hogwash. But I guess trying to change those minds... it's like teaching someone to swim who just can't let go of his or her arm floaties. Can't let go of the side of the pool. The fear of something new is just too strong... the ambiguity is paralyzing.
I wanted thousands of people to see this image of Lou but I couldn't afford (in either time or money) to print thousands of 16x20 inch, fiber, double weight Agfa Portriga Rapid prints to share. And the postage would have played havoc with my budget...if I had a budget.
We should all have three or four huge, major galleries dedicated to photography within a few miles of our homes; in every city and town in the country. And all of them should welcome new talent all the time. Right?
Dream on.
Understand that black and white images can be shared effectively on a good screen.
In fact, for the last twenty years our careers have been predicated on that being true.
I agree. However one of the things I love about using inkjet printers is that you have many choices of paper to print your image on. Alas, on screen presentation is 99.999% of how my images are seen and enjoyed I hope.
ReplyDeleteI have a question for you Kirk, if someone wanted and could afford to purchase one of your digital B&W images (and you were willing to sell it) how would you send it to them? As a digital file that they could print out anyway they wanted to, or as a finished inkjet print?
Eric
Besides, Agfa doesn't make Portriga anymore. In fact, Agfa doesn't make any papers anymore. Have a nice Christmas, Kirk.
ReplyDeleteSomewhat related to this, I thought it was just a little odd reading online reviews about the Pentax 17 half-frame camera this past year. Reviews about features or usability are one thing, but the remarks about image quality seemed a bit off kilter, and I know I'm generalizing. I don't recall reading much about how they scanned the negatives, which is a little relevant. Maybe some reviewers only obtained lab prints and based their reviews on that, I can't honestly remember right now. As to whether scanned negatives can be printed today to look like old timey prints, the number of people to whom this "equivalence" matters is decreasing every day. I'm not sure I even know what it means to do that. Personally, I was never any good at wet darkroom printmaking so I don't try to make my digi-scanned B&W negatives look like anything other than what I can do now. But I can see how it might be fun for a practiced wet printmaker to try to make modern prints look like historical prints if the look of those historic prints meant something special to them.
ReplyDeleteI can recall when screens could only display two colors, then 256, then thousands, then millions. Todays screens are so good that they render output as good as printed media. Prints aren’t needed to the same extent they were in the past.
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