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

[mh2000]

No one becomes an "expert" in digital printing in one hour... it has honestly taken me much longer to get great results from a scan than it did to get consistently great darkroom prints... I personally think that for most images that darkroom printing is much easier... do a test strip, expose and slosh your exposed paper around in a standard chemical and voila! an instant print... anyone can do it.

>>A few hours on any internet forum and Voila anyone can become an"expert" digital printer by knowing how to assing a profile to a specific paper. When I think of it I can't help but think of it as a pathetic practice. As pathetically easy as driving a bike. Anyone can do it.

 

[gertf]

that's the beauty of it, if it's art TO YOU, it's art. if you don't see the value in a Pollack, why put it down? why call someone who does see value in it snobby?
there are plenty of people who can't tell the difference between a picture shot with a one-time use camera and a $5k noctilux. are they any less intelligent?

I completely agree 🙂

 

[Gumby]

But HOW were were marketing the prints?

For your prints, where they identified as personally printed by you? Were you Master Printer prints identified as such?

My non-commercial work was high-end portraiture. Marketing was only by direct commission, in total honesty. No client ever seemed to care who, exactly, was making the prints but they sure cared who was "clicking the shutter." The master printer worked to my precise direction and nothing that wasn't up to my standards was delivered. My clients were buying my artistic output, not a guarantee that I personally labored over every phase of the production process. My master printer was highly valued by me, but not personally identified... any more than I would identify the secretary who typed this message for me. I made enough that another 25% wouldn't matter to me.

 

[dazedgonebye]

Clicking a "print" button and choosing paper settings while in pyjamas and scratching balls while yawning and burping the beer hardly commands a premium, no matter how goos the image may be. The price of such a print has to be limited by the cost or the paper + inks. There is no deep knowledge and sweat behind a digital print. A few hours on any internet forum and Voila anyone can become an"expert" digital printer by knowing how to assing a profile to a specific paper. When I think of it I can't help but think of it as a pathetic practice. As pathetically easy as driving a bike. Anyone can do it.

Once again, I find I'm not nearly as smart as I thought I was. It took me months and months to work out how to make digital prints that satisfied me and even with the process down pat, it still can take many proofs before I'm happy with a new image.
I didn't feel a single "voila" along the way either.
I feel so...pathetic.

 

[Goldorak]

No one becomes an "expert" in digital printing in one hour... it has honestly taken me much longer to get great results from a scan than it did to get consistently great darkroom prints... I personally think that for most images that darkroom printing is much easier... do a test strip, expose and slosh your exposed paper around in a standard chemical and voila! an instant print... anyone can do it.


LOL

 

[mh2000]

No way! I have never mistaken a print of a painting, but easily mistake good inkjet prints for traditional wet prints. If you can't see the difference... is there one?

I've already agreed that on an emotional level that good prints made by the photographer should command a higher price... just that the difference shouldn't be that much (more like +50% would be reasonable).

When I start showing again I am pretty sure that I will be using mpix so I can say they are "real b&w photos" and that I sent them out (like most photograhers I know do for exhibitions).

ITs a little like the difference between a painting, and a print of a painting. both have the same image, but one has the hand of the artist in it.

This is why wet photographic prints mean more, it has the hand of the artist revealed in it. It is both an aesthetic thing and a plastic thing at the same time. This is my opinion, and why for my exhibition prints I am still doing wet darkroom work.

(unlike others I have seen around who are getting digital photo's printed onto stretched canvas, I suspect in an effort to defeat this very concept by the weave of the canvas evoking the association)

 

[Gumby]

I've already agreed that on an emotional level that good prints made by the photographer should command a higher price... just that the difference shouldn't be that much (more like +50% would be reasonable).

Is architecture more valuable if the building is personally built by the architect?

How about a car... is the design any more valuable if it comes from a single designer than if it comes from a design team?

 

[Goldorak]

Once again, I find I'm not nearly as smart as I thought I was. It took me months and months to work out how to make digital prints that satisfied me and even with the process down pat, it still can take many proofs before I'm happy with a new image.
I didn't feel a single "voila" along the way either.
I feel so...pathetic.

😕
People are so defensive. Since when has digital printing become a science? Profile the thing, choose the paper and click print. If it took you longer then a day, well you can only blame yourself. Besides, it has nothing to do with skill, with talent. It's all technical. I could get a monkey to do it, really, since there is no deep thinking into a digital print.

I have nothing against digital printing which I am condemned to do for a majority of my work, modern times oblige, but for fine art there is an added value to a good wet print. And since almost no one here wet prints, well... it's starting to become an expert thing, a thing of rarity. There is a price attached to this, like it or not.

 

[dazedgonebye]

😕
People are so defensive. Since when has digital printing become a science? Profile the thing, choose the paper and click print. If it took you longer then a day, well you can only blame yourself. Besides, it has nothing to do with skill, with talent. It's all technical. I could get a monkey to do it, really, since there is no deep thinking into a digital print.

I have nothing against digital printing which I am condemned to do for a majority of my work, modern times oblige, but for fine art there is an added value to a good wet print. And since almost no one here wet prints, well... it's starting to become an expert thing, a thing of rarity. There is a price attached to this, like it or not.

You now state that a monkey could do what many of us have found very difficult indeed and you think "people are sensitive?"

I don't in any way dispute the beauty and value of wet prints btw.

Also, please send that monkey my way. I need a good print primate.

 

[CameraQuest]

My non-commercial work was high-end portraiture. Marketing was only by direct commission, in total honesty. No client ever seemed to care who, exactly, was making the prints but they sure cared who was "clicking the shutter." The master printer worked to my precise direction and nothing that wasn't up to my standards was delivered. My clients were buying my artistic output, not a guarantee that I personally labored over every phase of the production process. My master printer was highly valued by me, but not personally identified... any more than I would identify the secretary who typed this message for me. I made enough that another 25% wouldn't matter to me.

What photographers charge, and charge for, is usually a matter of how they market themselves.

The next time you give a quote, why not try giving two quotes?

One with custom prints from your master printer.

One with prints personally done by yourself with a hand written message on the back about all the technical details of how it was printed, at a premium of 50% more than your master printer.

See what sells.

Stephen

 

[Goldorak]

Is architecture more valuable if the building is personally built by the architect?

How about a car... is the design any more valuable if it comes from a single designer than if it comes from a design team?

Wrong logic. Here's why:

A building will be more valuable if it's made with Quality materials. Also, if skilled workers are needed for the Manual job, such as let's say the ornaments on a ceiling, then you will see the value go Wayyyy up. 200$ an hour is not unusual for those folks.

At last, if the architect is renowned, the building will gain tremendous value.

Let me guess, Gumby, you are among those who think a Noctilux should cost 900$, correct?

 

[Gumby]

What photographers charge, and charge for, is usually a matter of how they market themselves.

The next time you give a quote, why not try giving two quotes?

One with custom prints from your master printer.

One with prints personally done by yourself with a hand written message on the back about all the technical details of how it was printed, at a premium of 50% more than your master printer.

See what sells.

Stephen

Sorry, amigo... I KNOW what sells. If you do better by printing your own work, I am happy for you.

 

[Gumby]

Let me guess, Gumby, you are among those who think a Noctilux should cost 900$, correct?

No, I couldn't care less about the price of a Noctilux. What does that have to do with the conversation?

 

[Bill Pierce]

Bill,

this isn't a thread about silver vs digital.

this is a thread about whether or not photographers can successfully charge substantially more in the marketplace for wet prints they personally printed than for the same size digital print of the same image.

Stephen

Stephen -

I think most galleries and reps feel that at the present time they can charge more for silver than inkjet.

At the present time I think most high end galleries dealing with black-and-white prefer silver and want to avoid inkjet altogether. Of course, they would also prefer that the photographers they represent be dead. (This naturally favors albumen, platinum and silver prints over inkjet.) We are talking about rarity. (I know of one artist's rep that actually asked an older photographer to stop shooting so much and please stop printing his well known stuff.)

Can you get more for a silver print in that world at this time? Absolutely, without question. Is it a better print than an inkjet? Really good printers in both mediums seem to prefer the potential of inkjet.

Contemporary photography is slippery slope for galleries. There's so much of it. And it's a little difficult to determine whether it will increase in value or lose value to the point of worthlessness over time. But, eventually, some of today's contemporary becomes tomorrow's valuable collectable. And more than likely, it will be in the form of inkjet prints.

Of course, it will have to be a strong image to make it. And an early albumen print that is absolute crap will probably go for a higher price. We're talking rarity.

Bill

 

[dazedgonebye]

Yes, I have been in a darkroom. I'm no master printer, but I have struggled enough to value the process and those who master it. I also know that I probably never would master it. So, I admit that, at least for me, the digital process is easier. Something I am able to master...more or less. Still, I think even a lesser light, forced to digital, has something to offer the process beyond what a monkey could provide.

Again, I don't dispute the beauty and value of the wet process. Certainly though, it is a technical process as well.

I'm thinking of trying to describe the creative end of wet printing. I know it's there, but I'm at a loss as to how to describe it beyond the sort of intuitive feel for applying the technical steps that make up the physical process.

Maybe a wet print person here could describe the creative aspects?

 

[Gumby]

Or give your work to an art representative who will leave you a circumsicion cut.

Only Ruben could say such a thing! 😀

 

[JoeV]

I suspect many photographers are mentally stuck in the small world that is photography, and haven't seen the bigger art world. Take the field of print-making -- lithographs, for instance -- where each print pulled is a true collaboration between artist and printer. Does the print have intrinsic value only because a certain printer pulled it, or only because the "artist" oversaw the printer's work? Certainly a master printer's skill adds to the value of the artist's vision implanted within the physicality of the crafted final print; and conversely a not-so-skilled printed the opposite; which is why certain master printers are highly sought after, and likewise certain lithography studios. But when the "artist" signs the print, he/she is confirming for the customer that the final product -- the work of both artist and printer -- conforms to the artist's initial vision as does the quality of execution.

A similar relationship exists between photographer and master printer; the difference being that many photographers think of themselves as master printers, because of the ready accessibility to printing technology (both darkroom and lightroom); but that doesn't necessarily mean they ARE master printers. One doesn't have to be both photographer and printer, yet, for economic reasons, many attempt to do so.

~Joe

 

[gns]

I was at a gallery show in San Francisco recently showing large B&W prints by Joel Leivick. They were pigment prints. They were beauitiful. They were priced at $2,000.
If you saw these, you would not ask, "Can I get it in silver?".

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Keith]

I think a print purchased by an art appreciater with information added in the form of how the process was done and signed and written in the photographers own hand is similar to including the exif data of a digital equivalent.

It's almost like carrying a gearhead mind set right through to the final result ... why not include camera and film information as well?

 

[Al Kaplan]

I consider myself a good printer. My son keeps telling me to stop shooting and spend lots of time in the darkroom printing. He also said that he'll pay for the paper and chemicals. Then he said "Just think what those prints will be worth after you're dead!"

Seriously, the real problem, regardless of how you produce your prints, is marketing them.