Digital BW, The Print

My personal fine art work has been exclusively in B&W since I started in
photography 30 years ago. The process of how I made the transition from
sliver/fiber to digital was slow, calculated and mirrors the experience of
many on this list. The following are two anecdotes on the print quality of
what I am now able to achieve after beginning the digital journey four years
ago. 

A year into the process of learning the skills necessary to find a digital
workflow that worked for me, I had an appointment to show my portfolio to
the curator at a well known photography gallery here in Atlanta. Since I was
still early in the process of making the transition to digital, the majority
of my portfolio was silver/fiber. The curator knew my work but did not know
I had started printing digitally. I had included two prints done digitally
(Warm Neutral Piezography on Photo Rag), at the end of my presentation. She
liked my silver/fiber work and as she came to the first digital print she
said in a slightly excited voice, "I didn't know you were working in
platinum!". I knew then that I was on the right track.

Three years into the process of learning to print digitally, I decided to
purchase an Epson 7600 and convert it to Piezography. I found a local
photographer who had bought a 7600 new and four months into trying to use it
to setup a custom color digitally printing business, decided to sell it. I
bought it from him and when he learned I was going to convert it to quad
tone printing, he offered to help me set it up so he could see what it
entailed. My work area is in my basement and I have white walls with gallery
lighting to not only view and evaluate work prints, but I also use it as a
small gallery of my framed work. During the conversion, after one of the
many ink flush cycles, he started the film versus digital conversation many
of us have found ourselves in. As I am sure many of you have experienced,
his questions were based on what he read or heard from someone else. I kept
pointing out that instead of just asking or accepting someone else's
opinion, he needed to do the work himself. I kept repeating that only when
he did the work and saw the results, would he be able to make an informed
decision on what worked for him. He didn't want any part of the do your own
research conversation because he had read/heard that digital
capture/printing was not as good as doing it "traditionally". This exchange
was taking place in front of my gallery wall with the framed prints on it.
After the 20th. "I read that you can't make a digital print as good
as......" and getting my now standard do the work yourself and decide, he
points to my framed work and says in frustration, "You are telling me that a
digital print can give you the same quality as these prints?". When I
responded "You mean those digital prints?", the conversation ended.

Mark Maio