Digital BW, The Print

David,

The master photographer you are studying with is probably Harold 
Feinstein. I visited his exhibit at the Julie Saul Gallery in New 
York in May of 2000. In fact, here is a URL that describes the show; 
it includes a few sample images. As I recall, most of the prints were 
labeled 'Giclee' and were priced at around $1200. The prints were all 
beautiful, and his use of color was completely logical in term of the 
expressive results he achieved.

I'll just add my two cents worth to the discussion and say that in 
art, whatever works, works, an no justification or apology is 
necessary.

By the way, Feinstein's second book, "Foliage," is on sale at 
www.hamiltonbook.com for only $17.95.

Regards,
Alan Henriksen

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., <david_bookbinder@s...> 
wrote:
> Richard,
> 
> I study with a master photographer in the Boston area. Two of 
> his books contain spectacular images of flowers and other plants. 
> Though he usually shoots with an 8x10 view camera, he manipulates 
> each of these images in Photoshop. Sometimes he merely "helps" 
> the image by increasing the saturation or doing a little cloning, 
> and other times he alters them considerably. His publisher either 
> did not ask or did not care that he had altered the images in 
> Photoshop, rather than in a darkroom or with filters on his lenses, 
> and neither (since he makes a good part of his living doing direct 
> print sales) do the people who buy his prints. Perhaps he is 
> the exception, but he says he has had much more financial success 
> and recognition in the last several years, during which he has 
> been using a computer to process and alter his images, than he 
> did in his many previous years processing images in a darkroom.
> 
> He is not selling to the photographer community. For instance, 
> his books, when I went looking for them, were actually in the 
> gardening section of Borders Books.
> 
> When he displays his images in galleries, they are identified 
> as inkjet prints, but that's it. No further qualification asked, 
> at least at the galleries I've seen his work shown. Were he asked, 
> I'm quite sure he'd readily describe how he did whatever he did. 
> But the images are so good, why, as Jerry pointed out, would 
> anyone care?
> 
> So, I don't know who you have been talking to, but your mileage 
> and his have apparently varied widely.  
> 
> - David
>