Bill Pierce
Well-known
I got a strange question the other day. “Do you look at you pictures on a computer or do you make prints?” Obviously - BOTH!! I’m primarily a digital photographer, but even for the scanned large format film work that I do, the first look, that initial edit, is on a computer screen. The majority of professional jobs these days are delivered, not as prints, but as digital files. And a lot of the personal work and family shots are sent out as jpg via email.
So, where do the prints come in to play??
Silly as it sounds, I make postcard sized prints of both family snaps and my pictures of any kind that I really like and mail them to family and friends. I have no idea why these are so popular in the day of emailed jpgs, but everybody loves them (and they make good initial proof prints if I want to make larger exhibition prints later). And on those occasions when I do get a really good shot, I make a series of large exhibition prints. Some of these end up on walls, my walls, friend’s walls, even gallery and museum walls (and file cabinets). But that’s not the reason.
Human beings die; prints don’t. Nobody is going to search our hard drives for photographs any more than they have searched and printed the negative files of the many photographers of the film era. There are exceptions, Gary Winogrand, Diane Arbus. But for the most part, folks can look at a glassine envelope or a hard drive and not see the images they contain. Not so for a print. I have five generations of family snapshots I have collected along with the pictures I have taken and liked in my closet and a few prints in the files of universities and museums. (A friend who is a major figure in the world of galleries and museums says you should sign all your prints before you die. Apparently this is as important as taking a good picture to museums and private collectors.) Be it for family, friends or the art world, it’s nice to have something they can look at. I don’t see a lot of people staring at hard drives.
Your thoughts?
So, where do the prints come in to play??
Silly as it sounds, I make postcard sized prints of both family snaps and my pictures of any kind that I really like and mail them to family and friends. I have no idea why these are so popular in the day of emailed jpgs, but everybody loves them (and they make good initial proof prints if I want to make larger exhibition prints later). And on those occasions when I do get a really good shot, I make a series of large exhibition prints. Some of these end up on walls, my walls, friend’s walls, even gallery and museum walls (and file cabinets). But that’s not the reason.
Human beings die; prints don’t. Nobody is going to search our hard drives for photographs any more than they have searched and printed the negative files of the many photographers of the film era. There are exceptions, Gary Winogrand, Diane Arbus. But for the most part, folks can look at a glassine envelope or a hard drive and not see the images they contain. Not so for a print. I have five generations of family snapshots I have collected along with the pictures I have taken and liked in my closet and a few prints in the files of universities and museums. (A friend who is a major figure in the world of galleries and museums says you should sign all your prints before you die. Apparently this is as important as taking a good picture to museums and private collectors.) Be it for family, friends or the art world, it’s nice to have something they can look at. I don’t see a lot of people staring at hard drives.
Your thoughts?
