Digital BW, The Print

Hi all,

Last wednesday I went to what was probably the first
photographic exhibition of Piezo prints in Spain.

An historical moment! (at least for me) that I want
to share with this list.

There were 20 to 25 pictures made by Julian Thomas,
a series of street shots taken in London and Barcelona.

I have to say that I was amazed by the technical
quality of the pictures. Julian prints showed rich grays,
deep blacks, sharpness, no banding, no posterazation, just
a perfect digital darkroom work.

You could not tell that those prints were made with an Inkjet.

In fact the prints were technically so good that you quickly forgot
how they were made (if you knew that they were Piezo, of course)
and concentrate on what was really important: the pictures.

And let me tell you the pictures were great. Some of them
full of irony or humour and some other capturing beautiful
moments of those cities.

bottom line: lots of sensibility.

Congratulations Julian! My virtual applause.

Jose Luis Martinez
Barcelona - Spain

PS. Cone and Hahnem\ufffdhle should be sponsoring this. They would
sell inks and papers like crazy! ;-)

Robert,

First of all I'm sorry to have missed Julian's show in Spain. Hope he 
does one in Paris soon so I can admire his images in real life and not 
just from a web page.

I also had my first all PiezoBW show recently - in Italy last July, and 
your question is pertinent. I called mine Carbon Pigment Prints (and 
explained the process in detail to any and all who asked), not that it 
matters much, but as regards the glass I did frame them under glass, 
mostly for protection but I didn't like the effect. The prints lost that 
deep velvety almost three-dimensional look typical of Piezo inks. Piezo 
prints on fine art papers also have a wonderful tactile quality and it is 
too bad to lose that behind glass. On the other hand there isn't really 
an alternative. I don't trust the spray coatings floating around.

Chers,

Nina

>Forgive me...you probably already said this...but what did you call your
>prints?  Did you frame under glass?