Digital BW, The Print

Jerry:

I appreciate your input to my query for information about printing on 
uncoated papers. In your message, you bring up a good point for 
discussion...What is a satisfactory print?

During the years I've been doing traditional wet darkroom silver 
photography, many times I've heard the term 'technically perfect 
print'. It usually referred to the Ansel Adams stipulation that a 
photographic print should be grainless, full depth of focus, detail 
in the shadows, printed on cold black and white silver-rich paper, 
mounted on pure white mat board, etc....

When I got into digital printing, I accepted that it was a new 
medium. I'm not trying to copy photography, duplicate the silver 
look. I have no loyalty to photography, or a set of standards other 
than my own, which is to try to express a feeling in my art. Step 
wedges are ok, zone system is ok...but if the resulting finished 
piece is 'dead' in it's soul, then it is of no use. What I'm trying 
to communicate here is that the field is totally wide-open...with the 
pinnacle of purpose for me being...get the feeling in the work. 

How black does black have to be to equate a feeling? Does detail in 
the shadows make more or less feeling? Can a soft print express deep 
feeling? If glossy paper makes the best detail, but it's plastic 
appearance spoils the aesthetics I was trying to imbue into the work, 
then I failed!

you get my point...I want a knowledge of this new medium, it's 
limitations, so I can find my own place within it and still be loyal 
to my purpose of expression. If it has to be the look of a watercolor 
or charcoal drawing, instead of a photograph, then maybe I've found a 
new path to express myself. Making art for me is a wild exploration 
into my self...it cannot be fettered by old science and dogmas. 

The stipulations put on traditional photography by its icons, its 
schools, and its market has always been curious to me. Other forms of 
art: painting, sculpture, drawing...don't have these stipulations. It 
is difficult to go beyond the limits of the camera, the accepted 
precepts of a medium....but how else will we express a unique vision?

ken


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Jerry Olson 
<jerryolson@r...> wrote:
> Ken, doubt you'll ever get satisfactory prints on uncoated papers. 
You'd be the first one to do so,....