Steve Shapiro (sgshiya@redshift.com)
Sun, 25 Jul 1999 09:39:07 -0700
To: Altphotoprocess List <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 1999 7:48 AM
Subject: What is the photograph, print or negative?
> Jeffrey, thank you for taking time to comment.
>
> Some photographers last century used to mark the back of their prints
"COPY OF
> PHOTOGRAPH", meaning of course print copy of a negative.
>
> >From a technical point of view, I think that considering the negative to
be
> the photograph and the print being an expression of it emphasizes the
> importance of making negatives that can be expressed effectively
(according to
> your own interests and values) and later re-expressed later in new ways
after
> experience and changes occur in the artist. It is not the work of art
itself
> (other than very large color transparencies).
>
> >From an esthetic and artistic point of view, the print is the photograph
and
> the one everyone values. Even the artist/printer might have a very
difficult
> time recreating the same result using the same negative, and in that
respect
> the print holds its place as "the photograph" and the negative is the road
to
> it.
>
> I destroy "photographs" (negs and prints) occasionally, although it isn't
the
> advice I give to students. I do it to make room for better work.
>
> Ström
>
> --- "Jeffrey D. Mathias" <jeffrey.d.mathias@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> > =?UNKNOWN?Q?Str=F6m?= (known as Ström) wrote:
> > >
> > > The negative is the orignal--not the print.
> >
> > To me the photographer's seeing is the original, and
> > the print the
> > product. The negative is only part of the route in
> > getting there.
> >
> > > ...
> > > The photograph is far more important than any
> > collector.
> >
> > Do we know what is more valuable: a human life or a
> > significant
> > contribution of someone's life
> > ???????????????????????????
> >
> > > No negative that is valued by a photographer
> > should ever be destroyed. The
> > > negative is the photograph--not the print--no
> > matter what technique was used
> > > to create the print.
> >
> > Me thinks you have an impossible task of arguing
> > this point. I have
> > already declared that the print is my photograph
> > while the negative,
> > like the camera, is a tool to get there. I do
> > concede that there are
> > some whose end product IS the negative. At times I
> > will even edit
> > (destroying prints and negatives) and move on.
> > Although some are
> > preserved for research purposes.
> >
> > > ...
> > > Keep your negatives until you die.
> >
> > Why???
> >
> > > If you want to limit your prints, here's the
> > technique:
> > >
> > > For every print you create, you increase the price
> > for the subsequent print by
> > > a percentage. It might be 2% or more.
> > Eventually, no one will buy it,
> > > because it's too expensive. That is its rarity.
> > ...
> >
> > This does seem to be a viable technique. In fact,
> > similar to what I
> > do. Since I value the ability to continuously
> > enguage in new ideas, I
> > hasten to the point of "no one will buy it".
> >
> > A thought to ponder: How does selling one's work
> > affect their work???
> > Is one able to completely disassociate the creation
> > of their work from
> > the sale of their work especially if that is a
> > substantial part of their
> > income??? There seems to be a great deal of freedom
> > in not selling
> > anything. Just how do we go on??? Does one have
> > more credibility; is
> > their art more pure without sales??? Not easy
> > questions to answer; not
> > easy answers to live by.
> >
> > --
> > Jeffrey D. Mathias
> > http://home.att.net/~jeffrey.d.mathias/
> >
>
>
Jeffery, I wish to add to this thread only in so much as it is a weighty
question that has been presented and with answers here in one of the US
original Art Colonies, Carmel, CA.
Here, at the time when painters argued with pictorialist photographers that
theirs was not a fine art but a craft, one young artist was convinced that
the final product was the art. Brett Weston burned his negatives to prove
that his photographs wer like paintings, and while could possibly be
reproduced at will were not the same as was the feeling when he did the
edition he released.
>From a family of three generations of fine artists, comes the comment that
'amily pictures and snapshots are done for sentimentality, but fine art --
the finest or most refined exicution of the craft as possible by the
artist -- is meant to show others.
Personally, I say it's the difference between offering something to others
versus making something for yourself.
On the point of professional qualification, or qualifying something as
professional it seems acceptable to me what the insurance companies deem
professional, which is the percentage of time of your life you use those
tools.
So, to couple the most of your life that you use the camera, making
negatives that require your touch alone and render prints that give you both
joy from the process and the product; it is certainly reasonable that those
values and the value of your approasial for what all that is worth is a
simple matter of offering both the print and a number all collected
information after years and years of contemplation and rationale, finessed
into a fraction of a second and offered to someone who might like to have
it. The time and finess encompassing all those things to do it again is,
for me, a simple question of joy.
There are negatives I don't save, they've given me no more joy. Same with
prints and cameras, while the latter is also dependent on other material
considerations like phonebills, specifically; but it comes down to this as
material value for artworks: The worth begins to calculate from the first
sale.
In photography, for me it's the print.
Steve Shapiro, Carmel, CA
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