[alt-photo] Re: new website and show

[Jon Lybrook]

Hi David,

My opinion is how you display your work on the web should be determined 
by your audience and the degree to which your process is integral to the 
work.  If your main audience is people who understand and appreciate 
process and the work is hand-worked or reflects the process to a large 
extent, as with gum or bromoil, then showing images of the actual print 
is the way to go.

With monochromatic prints that closely reflect the original photo, I'd 
say less than 1% of people who view such images on the web neither know 
nor care anything about the process' affect on the final print.  They 
care about the subject and composition, not the nuances in the actual 
rendering, again, at least with monochromatic work that is faithful to 
the original photograph's tonal and granular nature.  These nuances 
can't be properly conveyed over the web, as you pointed out, so why 
bother going to the extra time and trouble to rephotograph prints to 
satisfy that 1% (which I realize is 100% of the readership of this forum).

Better to spend your time making more beautiful photographs.  I don't 
think any collector who buys your work over the web will feel cheated 
when they see it is grainier or with a little less tonal range than 
found in the 100% digital images displayed on your website.  They should 
know it's integral to any handmade process, and I'm sure you would tell 
them such a difference exists, just to be safe.

That said, I'm sure many of us are interested to see how accomplished 
you are in the process after 3 years by seeing the actual prints sometime.

Best wishes,
Jon Lybrook
http://intaglioeditions.com



On 6/12/2011 11:06 AM, David Ashcraft wrote:
> Thanks for the kind responses.  All the photos are from the digital 
> files, I wanted to put up the finished prints but would have to do so 
> using a camera and just didn't want to hassle with all that.  Might 
> get to that later.  What is the usual way people are going about this?
>
> Thanks,
> David


-- 
This message was sent from a non-secure email account.
To communicate with us securely, please use our
company's private Word Secure system at:
https://wordsecure.com/?did=XfUsSxYzMC9LDDLY