Re: Monitor vs. print (was Re: Post-Factory Photography)

Peter Marshall (petermarshall@cix.compulink.co.uk)
Thu, 14 May 1998 19:08 +0000

In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.94.980512221728.1067J-100000@panix2.panix.com>
> But let me add a point we discussed & more or less agreed on last year
> --
> about how books do or don't supply the "experience" of the original
> photograph. Peter Marshall said and I agreed (or maybe it was vice
> versa)
> that in some cases the *book* actually looks better. Better or worse,
> the experience is MUCH closer to the original photograph, and the
> disjunction in no way so complete.

I suspect that I was pointing out that the print is not necessarily the
'original' so far as photography is concerned, in that many photographers
have worked for the printed page, the print being simply a stage towards
that end (a theme I wrote about many years back in Creative Camera and
elsewhere).

I'd agree with much that has been said, but for me the most telling point
is economics. Probably I would almost always prefer a good tritone or
quadratone or photogravure to an image on screen, but I can provide the
latter for pence while the others cost thousands. On screen we can think
of well-illustrated small run publications, while to do this in print form
requires either a mass market or generous sponsorhip.

Peter Marshall

On Fixing Shadows and elsewhere:
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ds8s
Family Pictures, German Indications, London demonstrations &
The Buildings of London etc: http://www.spelthorne.ac.uk/pm/