<< HCB don't print. >>
Pascal
I know that he never did in later years - are you sure he never did from the
start? I thought some of the prints from the early thirties he made himself,
(I have a feeling even for exhibitions) but that could just be a fading
memory. He'd been going around 20 years before Magnum and Picto remember.
I had the interesting experience of going round the big Magnum show that
toured round the world a few years ago with one of printers who had handled
Magnum work in the UK (I think he had worked for Grove Hardy - the Hardy of
course being Bert) who had personally printed from a number of the negatives
used for the show, although not for the prints in that exhibition. Printers
often have quite a different perspective on the work.
We are actually discussing this in the wrong group, but I think that there
are factors that are neither technical nor sentimental involved. Even the
closest collaboration between photographer and printer isn't I think the
same as the photographer him/herself printing. Technically the team effort
may be better, but somehow I still feel the other is somehow more
interesting, somehow closer to the photographer.
Also, as I have discussed in many times and places, there are fashions in
printing which come and go. (Responsible for much greater changes in the
nature of prints than anything technical.) With purist hat on I might want
photos from the 1930's to be printed in the style of the 1930's - just as
some people like to play early music with authentic instruments. This way on
gets perhaps closer to the photographer's intentions at the moment of
creating the work.
Having looked at some length at many of the HC-B prints in one of the major
reference collections - I think he supervised the making of several sets of
what he though to be his greatest work - I have to say I was in general
unimpressed by the quality of the printing (presumably by Picto) in any
case! Fortunately his work does not require great printing.
Peter Marshall
Fixing Shadows and elsewhere:
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/cgi-uva/cgiwrap/~ds8s/Niepce/peter-m.cgi