"Reference" print?

[rbiemer]

I am getting ready to start printing again and the last time I did any wet darkroom work, I was in high-school and had a bunch of people around me doing the same thing. Which meant I got to see a lot of prints--both good and bad.

This time around, I'll be working by myself and I won't get much opportunity to see any other prints but mine.
The very few local photographers where I am show/sell digital prints and very much color rather than BW.

I think I need one(at least) truly good print to see so that I have a better idea what to strive for.
And I think it should be of one of my photographs.
So, I am thinking I need to find a very good custom printer, send him/her the best digital print I can make (by way of indicating what I'd like the "real" print to look like) and the negative and have a top notch print made--not huge, 11 x 14 ought to do--and hang it where I can see it as I re-learn what little I knew.

>Does this make sense to anyone else but me?
and
>Suggestions for who I should hire?
Thanks,
Rob

 

[ibcrewin]

Why not try making prints and experimenting until you get the print to where you want it. I just started printing and I am begining to see the direction I want to take my prints.

You could always go to target or walgreens and have a print made there. But in that case you don't have the same controls you would have had at home. YMMV.

 

[rbiemer]

What I'm thinking of above isn't going to stop me from doing just that. But I'd like to have something to strive for and looking at images on my computer screen is not the same as looking at prints.

Why not try making prints and experimenting until you get the print to where you want it. I just started printing and I am begining to see the direction I want to take my prints.

Not sure that those places make optical prints--I think they scan the negs and then make digi prints-- and neither(in my area) make BW silver prints.

You could always go to target or walgreens and have a print made there. But in that case you don't have the same controls you would have had at home. YMMV.

I have seen truly good prints at museums and exhibitions and they look nothing like any other versions of them selves. I mean, seeing a photo in a book or magazine or on-line is not the same as seeing that same photo as an actual print. Much the same as seeing a painting in person is different--and, in my opinion, better than seeing a reproduction.
Rob

 

[ibcrewin]

How about calling up a shop here in NYC.. Maybe you can mail them the neg.

 

[rbiemer]

ANy suggestions as to which lab?
Rob

How about calling up a shop here in NYC.. Maybe you can mail them the neg.