Jorde,
Another show that I use as a reference was this Richard Avedon retrospective held at MOMA in the mid 70's. The exhibit was shot with an 8x10 and comprised life sized prints of celebs in B&W.
My favorite image was of Andy Warhol lifting his shirt to expose the scars from when Viva, a groupie of his, caught him in an elevator and emptied a 38 into him.
Bullet wounds are mighty ugly.
So the most recent reference is the last show at the old ICP: Salgado's "Genesis." These were large prints, up to 4x5 feet, that used small format digital and medium format film to create digital negatives that were used to make silver wet prints.
Salgado had the best lab in Paris, so pretty much this was a demonstration where digital and analog merged, no compromise, and the body of work was seamless in that unless you had a highly trained eye it was difficult to determine if the image capture was film or digital.
I viewed the show three times/ways. One was for content, and I selected my favorite images; next was an over view of the curation, and I looked into creating a critical review of the work; and lastly I tried to figure out which images utilized digital and which utilized film for image capture.
So I found that my eye is pretty well trained. Perhaps this is because I consider myself a fine art print maker who specializes in B&W. I was able to accurately distinguish between the digital and analog image captures accurately.
The giveaways were: enhanced shadow detail in the digital image captures; and wonderful smooth roll-off in the highlights on the film image captures.
Given that this French lab made perfect negatives.
So John once said that, "The best asset for printing is a trained eye." I agree.
Also know that it took a while to realize that I can print what I can't see. I use a calibrated 27 EIZO as my monitor, I dim it down to 80 Lux, and this is in a room that is darkened. The idea is to eliminate high contrast.
When I made a print for Joe I took notice of a squirel in the foreground in a shadow that I did not see on my EIZO in his shot. People that rely on heavy contrast don't realize that they are eliminating shadow detail.
Also the scale of the image and print are a factor. I say, "Big prints don't lie."
So I said, "Pick your poison," to Phil. If you do a "Dan" and go crazy you can set up a darkroom for wet printing. You can print large digitally with Piezography like I do and spend tens of thousands on paper and ink. You could contact print large format for ultimate IQ.
The problem you have to know is that printing gets expensive, and that is one reason why few shooters print.
Kinda funny that I took a lot of heat for just making negatives, and having a disregard for printing.
Cal
