Digital BW, The Print

Some additional thoughts...

In the wet darkroom...
On a good day, with a decent negative it would take at least three hours to set up the chemicals, the enlarger,  run test strips/prints, burning, dodging, developing, washing and drying one fiber based print (toning/spotting, cleaning up not included).  The decisions I made in the darkroom about what the final print should look like are completely my own.  I  make notes about how much I burned/dodged and where, the f-stop and time exposure so that if I ever had to make another print (anyone else trying might be an impossibility) it would be as close to the original as possible.  What I am left with is a print on traditional photographic paper.

In the digital darkroom...
On a good day, with a decent negative it would take at least two hours to scan the negative, adjust the levels, burn, dodge, print tests, tweak the curves, and make one Carbon Ink Jet print.  The decisions I made in the digital darkroom about what the final print should look like were completely my own.  The final file I saved with all the corrections exists for either myself or anyone else in the future so that if I ever had to make another print it would be exactly like the original.  What I am left with is a print on beautiful variations of fine art paper.

So why, other than a bit of time, and the fact that one is done in the dark with chemcials, the other in daylight with inks is a digital print any less valuable than that of a silver print? I may understand it 10 years from now when there are fewer and fewer silver prints being made thus making them rare, but right now I just don't see it.

- Jennifer Drucker

http://www.jdrucker.com
jdrucker@...



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: William Nettles 
  To: piezography3000@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, March 01, 2002 11:49 AM
  Subject: [piezoBW] B&W mag is Scared!




  My B&W silver prints are basically sepia toned and my work attempts to pick
  up where Pictorialist photography sank into senitmental schmuck in about
  1930. Since 1932 and f64 we've all been at the feet of Weston and Adams and
  snappy full range B&W prints (actually since 1931 and new richer glossy
  photo papers making the f64 aesthetic possible). If we don't make our
  pictures netural B&W like f64 Adams/Weston did we make them in another way
  in reaction to them. Its just our place in history.
  I've also been closely studying Weston in part because of a terrific exhibit
  at the Los Angeles Public Library (it closes March 17) and have made a few
  neutral B&W prints in response.



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