Digital BW, The Print

Hello Sanders,

>I am contact-printing my 4x5 and 5x7 negatives.  They are lovely...
>In the SuperSized world we inhabit, people are infatuated with all 
>things huge...a 4x5 contact print is a rare and beautiful thing.  
>It is sweet and modest and jewellike.  

Yes, right on bro!  Over the past 10 years I have come more and more
to love small prints.  My first realization of that was at a traveling
AA exhibit with many well known images, all 16x20 or bigger.  As I
looked at the prints I found myself thinking that I liked looking at
them in books better than I did in person.  The thought disturbed me
and I kept mulling it over while I was there, and I finally realized
it was because the prints in the books were smaller and that I liked
the intimacy of holding it in my hands and the close examination.  It
was sort of a coming of age for me, and was the beginning of a trend
downward in my print sizes.

I also began paying attention to what kinds of art work people have in
their homes.  It is very common to see lots of very small art works of
all kinds, on walls, shelves, tables, nooks and niches.  "Miniatures"
is an entire recognized category of oil painting.  Why not in
photography?

Unfortunately, small works usually bring less money than large works,
so gallery people want big stuff.  That's really unfortunate because
it fosters the "big" mentality in the photo art world.  I am always
heartened, however, when I read the auction results and see that
somebody paid $300,000 for something that is 6x8".  Gives me hope that
true lovers of photography aren't captive to the BIG disease.


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm