Re: The value of the handmade

>>> rs@AgX.st 03/15/05 11:00 AM >>>
>>Would you ditch "alternative process photography" and use "handmade
photography?"<<

No. I just do not consider an inkjet print to be a photograph in the
strict sense of the term. Converesely, a silver-gelatin print may be
factory-made, handmade, factory-printed, hand-printed, but it will still
remain a photograph regardless.

>>Another point. Quite a few digital printers use techniques to make the
prints look handmade. Gluing prints on canvas and smear wax over the
image, etc. Maybe the name needs to be "old style handmade
photography?"<<

Why not call those digital prints what they are (whatever that may be)
rather than trying to change the currently accepted terminology for
photographic processes or try to fool an audience? Why do we have
"digital PLATINUM giclee" or worse, pigmented inkjet prints being passed
off as "carbon prints"?

>>I think the value is connected to the history and small scale
methodology of processes to make the image and the print, not so much
to the photoreactive chemistry. In my view, different appearance of
the finished prints from those of Polymax dipped in Dektol or inkjet
prints may be an epiphenomenon, although it may be more intuitively
obvious distinction to average people.<<

I've seen large photorealistic watercolors, digitally-maniputed inkjet
prints, and gum bichromate prints that have very similar palettes and
textural appearences. I fail to see why appearence should have anything
to do with the classification. All three are prints. They may also
share the identical materials (pigments, vehicles, paper) to some
degree. Two are handmade prints using "small scale methodology of
process". Only one is a photograph. I think the photoreactive chemistry
is the distinction.

Even with an extended history, an inkjet print will never be a
photograph just as watercolor painting will never be a photograph.

Joe
Received on Tue Mar 15 10:42:41 2005