Re: And how sharp I am was/Re: Temperaprint & Gum

>From what I understand about the history of photography, 20 or 30 years ago
there was a reaction against the modernist f64 super sharpness obsession and
the general modernist elevation of craft in general (including making
photographs archival). I think that is where Judy is coming from, ie the
postmodern position (of the 70s) that photographs don't have to be sharp and
archival. But nowadays, the pendulum seems to have swung back the other
way. I saw a show of Joel Sternfeld's landscape photographs in a gallery in
NYC last week. They were SHARP! And that's what made them good. They were
also huge, and color.

I also saw in NYC another show of large color landscape photographs--again,
everything very sharp--taken in China where the Three Gorges Dam is going to
destroy some towns.

It seems that there is a trend right now in landscape photography toward
large format (8x10 negative?) color photographs, probably shot at f64 with a
long exposure, then scanned and printed on one of those light jet printers.
I love these huge, color, super sharp prints, and I wish I could afford to
make one. Maybe I will look into the prices. Anyway, part of the appeal
to me is the super sharpness. It's sharper than the eye can see, almost
surrealistically or hyper-realistically sharp.

I wonder if the light jet prints are more archival than the old C prints? If
you are going to spend that kind of money making them or collecting them,
you want them to last.

Also, this trend makes me think that if you are old-fashioned enough,
eventually you will come back into style. So, don't worry Judy: poorly
crafted, fuzzy photographs will probably be all the rage in say 20 years or
so!

--shannon
Received on Sat Jan 31 11:13:59 2004