Are Wet Prints Printed Personally by the Photog Worth More? I think so.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I make my own silver/gelatin prints, always have, and I've got qujte a few of them that are forty to nearly fifty years ago. They're holding up well.

You wouldn't believe how lazy or lacking in knowledge some photographers can be when it comes to darkroom work. When I was a student, we did everything in the darkroom....this was right before people began experimenting with scanning film and printing with the primitive inkjets available in the late 1990s. Digital cameras were so expensive then that no one considered them. My fellow students were so lazy about proper processing of prints that many of the prints were yellowed or stained by the time they'd dried! Most of them must have eventually realized that they didn't have what it takes to be photographers, since only a couple of us are still doing anything with photography. My prints from that time and the years after when I still did wet printing are still perfect....like you Al, I knew how to process archivally and I did it. I liked wet printing but the chemicals started making me sick. Digital printing lets me keep doing my work. Should I have stopped because I'm not able to make 'real photos' anymore? NO WAY!

 

[Al Kaplan]

Chris, if you're allergic to the chemicals then you don't have much choice.

 

[JTK]

I make my own silver/gelatin prints, always have, and I've got qujte a few of them that are forty to nearly fifty years ago. They're holding up well.

Al, that's no surprise. My collection of family photographs goes back to cc 1880 and many are spectacularly good. I acquired a box full of a Russian family's photographs via some gypsies...again, many are perfect and some date from the era of Tsar Nicholas.

 

[JTK]

You'll never find a print by Robert Mapplethorpe which he printed but that has not affected their value. He had no darkroom skills at least as far as development and printing went.

Mapplethorpe's work sells for more than Paris Hilton's only because Paris Hilton isn't in that business. If she sold digital snapshots, they'd sell for as much.

 

[johnastovall]

Mapplethorpe isn't in any business. He's dead.