Steve Shapiro (sgshiya@redshift.com)
Tue, 23 Feb 1999 20:14:49 -0800
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: A modest proposal -- the imp. signature
>
>
>On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Carl Weese wrote:
>> ... Even if a negative is technically perfect and is to
>> be printed in silver, printing is a feedback process for
>> photographer/printmakers who uses it that way. I have to print my own
>> negatives--even though they are quite consistent--because I can't
>> possibly tell someone else how I'd want them printed. I have to see it
>> to know what I want, and the really subtle interpretations are the most
>> important ones.
>
>My paradigm is the photographer one way or another making the prototype
>print themselves, with or without an assistant, then giving the data AND
>the sample print (paper, exposure type & range, toning, whatever, already
>chosen) to the printer for an edition.
>
>You're talking about print quality anyway. That wasn't the original
>argument, which was *market value.* Since when are the two related?
>David Vestal, for instance, says his more recent prints are lots better
>than his early ones. But what his dealer gets big bucks for are the
>"vintage prints," usually made when ANY photographer is too harried &
>inexperienced, overwhelmed & distracted to make the *best* possible print
>of any given negative.
>
>A whole mythology, hagiology if you will, has grown up around the "vintage
>print," purely a marketing construct, with a VERY flimsy rationale. I
>think the "made by" wants to be another. Do you think, Carl, that when
>your prints are auctioned at Sotheby anyone gives a damn (or knows diddly)
>about print QUALITY? Well, maybe they'd notice a crimp in factory paper &
>knock off 25% for that. But otherwise? Anything YOU would fuss about? The
>fact that *not* is frequently stated. I myself am not a judge -- nor have
>I ever been to an auction, I hasten to add.
>
>This list expresses feelings and desires, values and priorities of the
>photographers taking part. It may even, or often, express an "ideal"
>(though not always mine). But it is not necessarily a picture of the real
>world as she is ... for better or worse.
>
>Judy
>
I'm afraid to have to admit that I have been to auctions, and have seen the
25% come off for bent corners; and all those things. But, the main thing
missing in this discussion is this:
The photographer took the picture, made the negative, souped the print --
whatever; was emotionally moved.
The person who took to sell it was also emotionally moved.
The person who bought it was emotionally moved, too; and that consistency is
missing in these discussions.
I woul dlike to elaborate my proposal is more like a voluntary registration.
Guild members simply describe their processes, register this with The Guild;
then it becomes a reference to which we can subscribe to find out if the
print inquestion is a Guild Print or one of the media prints, a fun print;
one made from colaboration and if these were all guild print making
photographers.
Today, we'd have to die and go into the archive to have this
informationlisted.
All in all, this may be a way we living artists, photographers can have the
benifit of archived recognition and for what it's worth have their technique
... guild registered.
You don't have to use your guild stamp is it's not photographed, negative
processed, and printed by you; or there could be a silver stamp that shows
the negative was processed by a lab or another person; or a green stamp that
shows the image was a lab processed with your overseeing; or it could all
become fishwrap.
I'm outta here.
Steve
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