Practicing what I preach….the first Peru prints are beginning to surface. I LOVE talking print, especially with “modern” photographers. You see, many people choose not to print, or they never have. We look to the future and see glowing screens and suddenly we want to write off the entire history of our medium. We look at things like an iPad and say, “Well, clearly that is the future, print is dead people.” Me, I no like so much. I simply don’t believe this. Yes, the screen is a great thing, but it ain’t the only thing. See, I like it all, appreciate it all and don’t feel the need to draw that imaginary line in the sand. Why? What is the point? (I’m sitting in my office with one tower, two laptops, an iPad and an iPhone)
I’ll tell you why I make these small prints. They make me think. They make me consider. They force me to edit, to think critically and to sequence. They allow me to dream. Like a puzzle with multiple ways of assembling. No right, no wrong, just endless choices.
I’ve never had anyone enter my house and say, “Hey, can I look at your work on the iPad.” What I HAVE had happen is people come over and ask “Hey, you have any prints from Peru?” Again, nothing wrong with perusing this stuff via iPad, iPhone, iMac, iWhatever, prints are just another flavor of candy.
The cool thing is to put these small prints on the floor and consider them at a distance. You can almost blur your vision and see them as an amalgam of one, continuous flow of color. Your eyes will play tricks on you but your eyes will also lead you to the promised land. What goes where? React and you will see. Forget what you know and just feel. Seems a little guru-ish but don’t take me that seriously. Just try it.
Peru in Print Form
28 Comments
Agree with you, for editing there’s nothing like print, you can play with them, rearranging then is easier,and touching holding is something special that can’t be done with screen
Steve,
I don’t know why I find editing on screen so difficult but I really do. My wife asked me to edit her Peru work and after five minutes on the screen I was going crazy. You can only see thumbnails, and a certain amount, and then moving and places the side by side, quickly, is agonizing. I KNOW now why photographs do these HUGE edits. I told her, “narrow it down and make some prints.” Never happen. I’m off the hook.
For me one of the great things about film is the prints. Yes you can print from digital cameras but for me it was something that I never really did. For the short while I shot digital I printed very few things, I was still shooting film at the time and everything that when to a lab was printed. Now since I shoot 100% film almost everything gets proofs. B&W and color.
I have a bunch of proofs coming back in a few days from the travels over the summer and can’t wait to do the same thing.
This is also the reason that I really enjoy shooting instant film.
Clark,
I love instant film as well. Use it all the time. Prints for me are just easier to work with. When I have to stare at a screen of thumbnails my brain just doesn’t like it one bit.
I don’t print very often, but I’ve started to do it more often now (thank you Trent Parke!) to do exactly what you describe. Throw them on the floor and shift them around. I am very new to this process, and it delivers surprises every time, because I’ll decide on an edit on the computer and come up with something different with actual prints because the sense of touch (specifically, what happens when I pick a print up and throw it around) seems to add some dimension in observation that I wouldn’t have had without. It’s the tactile handling, or mishandling, in my case, that does it for me. Sounds a bit loony, but there you have it. I’m sure this is only an early part of the process though, the whole “wow, i can DO all these THINGS with my pictures.”
Charlene,
I think you will be surprised how helpful and frankly how much fun it is to print. The problem I have with the computer is it isn’t easy to move images quickly, no matter what the geeks say. Just holding two images at arms length and moving them side to side…..much more interesting that side by side view in pixel world. There are things about digital editing I find really interesting however..can teach you other things.
Too all: Milnor’s right, try it sometime. Well done Dano!
Eric,
My mind control is working.
Look forward to seeing these images my friend!
My plan is to go through my America Del Sur images over the next few weeks, pick out 100 or even 200 and print them all, decorate the entire boat with them and then try and edit them – to figure out what sort of ‘body of work’ I have, what I want to do (if anything) with them.
FBJ,
That will be interesting. Curious to see whether you have a lot of images or a story? Both very valid, just different.
Print them small, then stick them up like post its around the house, on the side of your monitor, on the fridge etc etc. It’s almost like subliminally editing. I agree with Charlene, holding something somehow makes it “realer”.
Brendan…
Tactile is just different. It’s like looking at a book on paper vs the Kindle.
My girlfriend pointed out to me the other day that i had a number of prints scattered about on my desk, and other places. She wondered why i don’t place them in a box… Organize myself….my reply was that the printed images are meant to be seen, looked at, handled. She apologized, realising thay ‘yes’ your right, the prints i do are not meant to be “collected”, but instead looked at, seen. As a kid, it wasn’t what generation of ipad or computer or what folder contained the images, it was that peculiar photo album with flowers and grass on the cover that contained and told the story of our summer vacation, and still tells that story to this day. Sure i can scan my dad’s negs, but i cannot reproduce that photo album. So part of the story, is told on how we visualize it. Once again Daniel…thx for posting this story.
Randy,
My aunt used to make books out of our family snaps, complete with storylines and captions. I have a HUGE wooden box in my living room filled with random prints People come in, reach down, snatch a HUGE pile and just begin to shuffle through them.
I like making prints and it puzzles me when I come across photographers who don’t.
There’s a couple of things I dislike about displaying images on a computer screen.
First of all, I want people to get their grubby fingerprints over my work so they have that tactile experience with it.
Secondly, screens almost force you into shooting in landscape rather than portrait.
Sure you can turn a tablet on it’s side but you can’t turn a computer.
And thirdly (I know said a couple at the start but hey) giving someone a print gets you so much more kudos than emailing them a file.
Andrew,
I totally agree but also realize I’m in the minority. I run into young photographers all the time who have literally never made a single print, nor do they have any interest in printing. I’d go as far as to say that several have been downright hostile in regard to doing ANYTHING relating to print. Most of the time, these same folks have never ready edited in their life either. But, I totally get it. I really do. Had I grown up with a cellphone in my hand, I might be right there with them. Me, I had paper in my hand so I’m stuck with the print.
i know what you mean, the younger folks dont seem to be into prints as much. I ve been carrying around a little small print in my wallet and show it to folks sometimes. It seems like some ancient relic to them but they enjoy it, they can touch it feel it. Prints rule.
Mike,
I carry a 50 year old print in my wallet. Yesterday someone gave me a print of me, shooting in Los Angeles. It’s sitting right here. People have come in my house and picked it up…”cool.”
daniel, did you shoot the squares with the Fuji GF670? How’s it working for you?
I may yet buy that camera, once I’ve rationalized and right-sized the hoard of gear I already own!
Good looking work, BTW.
Michael,
Yep, I did. Great camera. A bit slow, a bit fragile but with practice…a super sharp, quiet machine. Great finder as well.
I’m writing a short piece for a tech conference about how we’re losing our collective memory without prints: no more boxes of prints in the basement, no more more old photo albums, no more envelopes with a roll of prints and negatives. No more photos that you KNOW are old and are because of the paper. No more notes on the back about where and who.
I love buying old prints at flea markets, preferably with annotations. Who are these people? Why were these photos made? Why saved? What’s written on them? What’s the story?
Nancy,
I bought a box of 120 slides at an estate sale. It’ was incredible. I want to do a post about it. You could tell so much by ONE box. Family history is very important to me, so prints are part of my workflow.
Have you considered the wide version of the gf670? Fuji reps told me at the PDN expo that they would not be importing it to the US.
That means either pay yourself to import or get the Voigtlander version for $3000.
Joseph,
Not really. I like the medium lens. Wide would be cool, but I’m cool with this one.
a print is the end .
a file is intermediate data ,
a camera is intermediate tooling , as is the eye , it’s our brain which matters , you just have to use use it well , Dan does this , extremely well. Thank you very much for sharing it with us, me, ( open space )
Thanks for that..appreciate it. I’m just trying to make something interesting…sometimes I do…sometimes I don’t……
I can’t edit in the computer either it’s very hard for me to move things around and have a whole view of the images. I don’t have a good printer now though, which one are you using for working prints?
Maria,
I totall agree. I get so frustrated trying to FEEL images in thumbnail form online. Maybe at some point I’ll be good enough to do it but right now….I can’t. “Hi” ti Miguel!