Digital BW, The Print

Stephen,
 
To add to the photographic background of limited editions. As to the economics within the artworld for collectors, you can give a lot of credit to Ansel Adams's business manager to finally bring the limited edition printing to photography. A excellent business man, from whom Ansel (and now us) benefited greatly. So for the business/collecting side: supply and demand, if you print less, then they start to take on more value when the supply becomes very limited (scarce). As to how limited editions work, e.g. proofs, artist proofs, first editions (yes, you can have more than one edition for a limited edition, go figure, but you have to appreciate your gallery business partners regarding their resourcefulness, also having been one), etc., that will be a message string for another time.
 
The other side of photographic limited editions is the making of the prints, when the silver bromide prints were made by the artist photographer or his chosen printer. They take awhile to do, e.g. 6, 7 or 8 solution trays in the darkroom. More so with Palladium printing. Thus a photographer could choose to spend his time in the darkroom or out in the sunlight making more images. Artistically, an artist should want to continually develop their vision and evolve forward, not stay rooted to their past. Thus print an edition of your current best, then time to move on.
 
Okay, my soapbox for a brief moment. What I perceive is that from some of the silver bromide photographers, their digital thinking is that you use Photoshop to quickly alter the image, then hit "print" and go have a cocktail while the edition prints. Thus you see the galleries and new associations dedicated to the preservation of the silver prints as "Art". Reminds me of the days that the art community argued, was photography "Art"? My opinion: digital prints will quickly become "Art" when collectors pay high prices to the galleries for the prints. Enough said.
 
Best regards,

Stephen Petegorsky <petegorsky@...> wrote:
Steve - In my experience, an edition usually refers to a specific image
printed in a specific way and at a specific size.  Some people who make a
small edition of an image and then wish they had made a larger one get
around the issue by producing another print at a different size, etc.

The whole edition thing is a little strange in photography, as I'm sure you
know.  Originally, sets of prints were limited in their numbers because an
etching or engraving plate or a stone for a lithograph wore down as
successive prints were made, so that it simply wasn't possible to go beyond
a certain number of prints before there was a loss in image quality.  With
negatives and digital files, that obviously doesn't happen.  I think it's
more about business than about art - dealers and collectors feel that
something has more value, and can thus be sold for a higher price, if it
exists in limited quantity.

Maybe you've even seen a price structure where the first prints in an
edition sell for a certain amount, and the next ones go for more money as
the edition runs out. Ah, capitalism...


Stephen Petegorsky




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