Digital BW, The Print

Hello all,

O.K i've seen top quality  ink  prints or dye transfer prints
in color , and usauly in large format in local gallerys.
I have seen a few street vendors selling their work in inkjet
prints, though lately some photographers are advertising
that there prints are -REAL- photographs on REAL photo paper.

Now as far as color prints go I have seen some beutiful stuff made in
injet prints ( but I'm never really sure what proccess was used
lately).

But I've yet to see any blake and white home brought machine made
prints for sale in any of the local or commercail gallerys in NYC.

I'm all for inkjet prints and thats what I have been using 
lately,though mostly for convinence.
question is, before I get too involved in inkjet printing -
how well do so called inkjet prints sell?... not that I have great
shots for sale, but I;m  curious. Thanks for responding in advance.
jten

I must say that in the last 10 galleries I have visited only 3 had inkjet
prints (colour or B&W).  I too am interested in what people see out
there....

> From: jonnytenz <jonnytenz@...>
> Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 18:04:33 -0000
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [Digital BW] quality prints for gallerys
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> O.K i've seen top quality  ink  prints or dye transfer prints
> in color , and usauly in large format in local gallerys.
> I have seen a few street vendors selling their work in inkjet
> prints, though lately some photographers are advertising
> that there prints are -REAL- photographs on REAL photo paper.
> 
> Now as far as color prints go I have seen some beutiful stuff made in
> injet prints ( but I'm never really sure what proccess was used
> lately).
> 
> But I've yet to see any blake and white home brought machine made
> prints for sale in any of the local or commercail gallerys in NYC.
> 
> I'm all for inkjet prints and thats what I have been using
> lately,though mostly for convinence.
> question is, before I get too involved in inkjet printing -
> how well do so called inkjet prints sell?... not that I have great
> shots for sale, but I;m  curious. Thanks for responding in advance.
> jten
> 
>

I see large and very large digital prints in perhaps half of the
prominent Santa Fe NM galleries that show a lot of photos. 

I'm aware of three that show inkjet only or primarily, one that shows
digital/laser Ektacolor/Ciba murals. I'm aware of two that show
vintage silver/etc only (Russell etc), one that shows only the
photographer's own very fine silver prints, and one that has shown 
inkjet and silver/etc but seems moving toward vintage-big-names-only,
which means no inkjet and, perhaps, no young photographers. 

The low cost of inkjet prints allows photographers readily to show 
huge prints...size is said to be good for sales if the image is
worthwhile to begin with. Most buyers are said to like strong images,
not images they need to peer closely into. They're rarely collectors,
they often just  buy photographs for the same reason they buy
paintings, for room decor...a small print in a frame is not decor,
it's just something obscure in a frame. My favorite inkjet gallery
sells small (11X14) prints in racks and hangs large prints
(16X20-4'X6')...all the work of the obviously very successful gallery
owner/photographer...I actually want one of her $400.00 20X30 inkjet
prints, which seems nuts :-)

Djon


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale
<stevekale@b...> wrote:
> I must say that in the last 10 galleries I have visited only 3 had
inkjet

> prints (colour or B&W).  I too am interested in what people see out
> there....
> 
> 
> > From: jonnytenz <jonnytenz@y...>
> > Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> > Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 18:04:33 -0000
> > To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: [Digital BW] quality prints for gallerys
> > 
> > Hello all,
> > 
> > O.K i've seen top quality  ink  prints or dye transfer prints
> > in color , and usauly in large format in local gallerys.
> > I have seen a few street vendors selling their work in inkjet
> > prints, though lately some photographers are advertising
> > that there prints are -REAL- photographs on REAL photo paper.
> > 
> > Now as far as color prints go I have seen some beutiful stuff made in
> > injet prints ( but I'm never really sure what proccess was used
> > lately).
> > 
> > But I've yet to see any blake and white home brought machine made
> > prints for sale in any of the local or commercail gallerys in NYC.
> > 
> > I'm all for inkjet prints and thats what I have been using
> > lately,though mostly for convinence.
> > question is, before I get too involved in inkjet printing -
> > how well do so called inkjet prints sell?... not that I have great
> > shots for sale, but I;m  curious. Thanks for responding in advance.
> > jten
> > 
> >

The low cost, to whom? The photographers, because they can print them  
themselves?
Mark

On Jun 2, 2005, at 3:34 PM, Djon wrote:

> The low cost of inkjet prints allows photographers readily to show
> huge prints...

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Mark Savoia
<mark@c...> wrote:
> The low cost, to whom? The photographers, because they can print them  
> themselves?
> Mark

Yes, in some instances. 

But some photographers (including my local favorites) use individual
inkjet printing craftsmen, who have their own studios (perhaps at
home), working on project basis (same with framing).. cheaper than
traditional free-standing photolab work because there's so little
overhead. An Epson 9600 costs 20% of a comparably sized color paper
processor, not to mention plumbing and maintainance, and the materials
may be cheaper (I've not compared). I doubt any of the gallery work
I've seen was done in a photolab. Why deal with a lab? 

I've watched the work of a woman, who successfully photographs horses
and horse events, first selling darkroom horse portraits, then her own
Epson 2200 prints (12X18 max), then murals printed by someone
else...her photos are hung for sale all over the place, several
restaurants, various public events, galleries etc...very appealing.
She is constantly around horse people and she gets a lot of publicity
through horse publications, and she's very good... so the sky's the
limit for her.

Similarly, a woman who for years has sold lovely transfers of
Polaroids is now moving up in size with digital prints (maybe 11X14
max?)...Weston-like color still lives of plants and vegetables...we've
bought  several of her Polaroid transfers, are used to looking at them
4X5 in matte/glass/frame, so it's hard for me to imagine her work
mural size...but it'd be cheap and easy for her to give it a whirl. 

Djon

> 
> On Jun 2, 2005, at 3:34 PM, Djon wrote:
> 
> > The low cost of inkjet prints allows photographers readily to show
> > huge prints...

I agree (sort of).

Well, we are a lab, and our pricing is comparable to individual  
"edition only" printers, perhaps even less. We get more for a 16x20  
fiber b&w then we do for a 16x20 inkjet quad print. It sure takes a  
lot longer to do a traditional print. And we are based in one of the  
most expensive parts of the country to run a business. Just how it  
works out.
Mark

On Jun 2, 2005, at 4:50 PM, Djon wrote:

> Why deal with a lab?

Mark, didn't know you were a lab, sorry.

Maybe you'd agree that the biggest inkjet/digital advantage for
someone who's serious about selling prints is the ability simply to
order up or print a proven file, getting identical tones, contrast,
"dodging/burning" every time.     
 
Lets assume someone has a dozen successful negs they want to print
repeatedly into the future, 16X20 per your mention. This customer pays
his rent with these images. How much would he pay your lab for each,
inkjet and fiber/silver, if he ordered, say, 10 at a time from each
negative? That's the kind of business some of the serious gallery
photogs do.  

A lab I worked for (I did sales/marketing) did a deal like that for
someone in San Francisco...we held perhaps twenty 6X7 color negatives,
continuously maintaining inventory of maybe a dozen prints each in our
facility. After a while the photographer never actually ordered us to
make prints, he just ordered from our maintained inventory. Nice deal
both ways...I think he paid about 2/3 our ordinary 10+ print price and
he'd order twenty or thirty prints every couple of weeks, walking in
to shoot the bull and drink our coffee each time. I think he got $125
each for them, mounted and simply framed, selling directly to business
front offices (like an insurance salesman!..amazing!) 

Djon


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Mark Savoia
<mark@c...> wrote:

> I agree (sort of).
> 
> Well, we are a lab, and our pricing is comparable to individual  
> "edition only" printers, perhaps even less. We get more for a 16x20  
> fiber b&w then we do for a 16x20 inkjet quad print. It sure takes a  
> lot longer to do a traditional print. And we are based in one of the  
> most expensive parts of the country to run a business. Just how it  
> works out.
> Mark
> 
> On Jun 2, 2005, at 4:50 PM, Djon wrote:
> 
> > Why deal with a lab?

J ten,

    I sell both color and monochrome (galleries and fine art fairs).  I
print with  52² ColorSpan 11 color printer, as well as a very old manual
method -  Carbon (gelatin pigment). Color sells best to the casual, impulse,
buyer.  Quality monochrome sells best to a (minority) or more sophisticated
(I think) group of people.  J Vee


On 6/2/05 1:04 PM, "jonnytenz" <jonnytenz@...> wrote:
>  in any of the local or commercail gallerys in NYC.
> 
> I'm all for inkjet prints and thats what I have been using
> lately,though mostly for convinence.
> question is, before I get too involved in inkjet printing -
> how well do so called inkjet prints sell?... not that I have great
> shots for sale, but I;m  curious. Thanks for responding in advance.
> jten



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hey J Vee,
I'm glad to hear this. Personally I prefer silver gelatin for B/W
but as I said I have come across some very beutiful color ink-prints.

Only I think it can be over done sometimes. Like when I went to see
some color photographs of ERNST HAAS , at a local gallery in nyc.
I was familar with the work they had-
from books and web sites,- and I remembered that he used a very 
strick dye transfer proccess that was suppose to be time consumming 
and expensive. Well the shots they had of his were great, except that
 they looked more like paintings with a very heavy coat.

 Yes they were beuiful but not what I expected.
 But again I am glad to read that ink-jet prints are becoming more
 exceptable.

 Thanks for the good word.
J Ten   

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, J Vee 
<j.vee@g...> wrote:
> J ten,
> 
>     I sell both color and monochrome (galleries and fine art 
fairs).  I
> print with  52² ColorSpan 11 color printer, as well as a very old 
manual
> method -  Carbon (gelatin pigment). Color sells best to the casual, 
impulse,
> buyer.  Quality monochrome sells best to a (minority) or more 
sophisticated
> (I think) group of people.  J Vee
> 
> 
> On 6/2/05 1:04 PM, "jonnytenz" <jonnytenz@y...> wrote:
> >  in any of the local or commercail gallerys in NYC.
> > 
> > I'm all for inkjet prints and thats what I have been using
> > lately,though mostly for convinence.
> > question is, before I get too involved in inkjet printing -
> > how well do so called inkjet prints sell?... not that I have great
> > shots for sale, but I;m  curious. Thanks for responding in 
advance.

> > jten
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]