Digital BW, The Print

> But in my opinion, these materials still
> aren't good enough to hang next to silver prints without suffering in
> the comparison

When I exhibit (not as often as I'd like) I include older prints that were 
made in the darkroom and newer ink jet prints from scanned 4x5 and 8x10 
negatives. The darkroom prints are gelatin silver on glossy fiber base 
paper.  When framed and under glass on a wall the two types of prints are 
indistinguishable for all practical purposes.  Nobody has ever said anything 
to me about some being one and some being the other and I price them the 
same. When someone buys a print (also not as often as I'd like) I tell them 
which it is. I've never had anyone turn down a print when they learned it 
wasn't made in a darkroom.

>Why will they suffer? Why the >comparison? Inkjet prints aren't >wannabe

I don't make a conscious effort to duplicate the look of a gelatin silver 
print but my aesthetic sense of what  any given b&w print should look like 
was formed by many years in a darkroom and I think it's natural to carry 
that over to ink jet. In fact I don't think I could change it even if I 
wanted to.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Watson" <bwyg@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 11:26 AM
Subject: [Digital BW] When will people see inkjet as a separate medium?


will gibson wrote:
> But in my opinion, these materials still
> aren't good enough to hang next to silver prints without suffering in
> the comparison.
>
Why will they suffer? Why the comparison? Inkjet prints aren't wannabe
silver gelatin prints!

The two technologies have little in common. Why this insistence by so
many of us (it's certainly not just Will -- he just said it so much more
succinctly than I could have) that inkjet emulate a "look" from another
technology? Why can't inkjet prints look like inkjet prints? What is so
wrong with that?

If people really want the look of an air dried glossy silver gelatin
print they should return to the darkroom and make the real thing. At
least then they'd have an authentic silver print, and not an imitation.

When will we embrace what inkjet prints can do? Instead of looking to
the past, when will we start looking to the future?
-- 
Bruce Watson
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Bellis wrote:
     
 "I don't make a conscious effort to duplicate the look of a gelatin silver 
 print but my aesthetic sense of what any given b&w print should look like 
 was formed by many years in a darkroom and I think it's natural to carry 
 that over to ink jet. In fact I don't think I could change it even if I 
 wanted to." 
 
  And there is no reason to. All the skill and knowledge a photographer brings from the traditional wet darkroom to inkjet printing is valuable. At the core of beautifully made photographs--in any medium--is a refined vision of what a print should look like. 
 As deeply invested is digital printing as I've become, over the past ten years, I can honestly say that the "digital" part of the digital darkroom is least important to me. I simply want to make photographs by using ink on paper, and all the learning curves I've had to grapple with to make that possible are just the price of admission. 
 Personally, I don't think there's ever been a better time to be a photographer; either film-based or digital. The options--including the range of media we have to work with--are amazing to anyone who remembers trying to master the Zone System and make beautiful silver gelatin prints in the mid-70's-to-early '80's. 
  
  The Texas Photographic Society, a wonderful organization that now enjoys an international membership, started as the Austin Photographic Cooperative; formed by seven photographers who had to pool their money to order Agfa printing paper by the case because our local camera stores couldn't/wouldn't keep quality papers on the shelf. By comparison, the materials we have available now--film and digital, wet darkroom and digital darkroom--is almost an embarrassment of riches (not that I don't want manufacturers to continue improving their wares).
  
 As a university and workshop teacher, I look for ways to emulate wet darkroom practice in our digital printing labs. And, while some portion of the vocabulary changes, the way we talk about prints, and do critiques, is the same regardless of the method used to make the print. 
 
  Bill Kennedy K2 Press Austin, Texas
        
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, BKPhoto@... wrote:
>
> Bellis wrote:
>      
>  "I don't make a conscious effort to duplicate the look of a gelatin
silver 
>  print but my aesthetic sense of what any given b&w print should
look like 
>  was formed by many years in a darkroom and I think it's natural to
carry 
>  that over to ink jet. In fact I don't think I could change it even
if I 
>  wanted to." 
>  
>   And there is no reason to. All the skill and knowledge a
photographer brings from the traditional wet darkroom to inkjet
printing is valuable....


Bill, I think your post and Bellis' points are valid and even wise.
But I think you are talking about craft and Bruce was talking about
materials.
In fact, many people with a strong traditional print background
(silver, platinum, or whatever) would know the futility of trying to
make one process mimic another without even going there.
I spent weeks trying to make a UCK3 SilverRag print look like an old
Portriga print. Superficially they are nearly identical, but
ultimately they just have different qualities and it's not just the
paper. My time would have been better spent working on making the SR
print excel in it's own way.
A Strat will never sound like a Les Paul but both sound great...

Tyler

Good points, all.

>A Strat will never sound like a Les Paul but both sound great...

Great analogy!

When I first got started at this I spent a very uncomfortable period
until I finally accepted that ink prints had their own look and feel.
 Once I let down my defenses I was able to explore the medium for it's
own hidden treasures.  You couldn't drag me kicking and screaming back
to the darkroom.  

Regards,
Clayton


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