Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/03/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I printed mostly for my clients. Hundreds of them. I very seldom printed for "myself" other then maintaining my own portfolio. I'm sure for every 100o prints I made at least one was for "myself" Between 1974 and 2009 I had about 20 print showings. One gallery show was all 20 x 24 inch prints. One was 5x7's. Most were 16x20 fiber prints. For a while a while back my prints we being sold for $350 each by a gallery in Ohio called Photo Central that some Portland friend of mine sold to them or he had them sell them. My prints have sold to private collectors. Sometimes not directly from me. I've sometimes personally printed my events and weddings. Point of purchase displays. Some were 30 x 40 inch color. I printed my pictures for three columns I shot and wrote for papers in Portland those were 4x5's or 5x7's. Meeting deadlines every week. I've printed in bulk promo prints for musicians actors and dancers who want a hundred copies of something. Head shots usually. More so when I was first starting out. One of my very first fashion jobs for a department store, Meier and Frank in Portland I had to print 16x20's of the main shot of the model. The print dried as I ran down the street with it to meet my deadline 7 blocks from my photo studio in downtown Portland Oregon. I printed 3 20x24's for a theater set and hand colored them. I printed a dozen or so murals for the Oregon bank in Eugene 4 by 5 feet on roll paper rolling them though my hand and knees in my parents garage. That was my first job in Portland. I was for McCann Erickson advertizing. They were trying to get the account for this new shoe company people were just starting to hear about. It was called Nike. I do believe this image of the print with all the myriad instructions all over it numbers and lines was picked out like the Avedon shot has been for its value as an anomaly. It has little value in the real world. It was a moment of odd obsessivness by the photographer. Probably laughed about at the time. My black and white printing I did in my darkroom I built myself at my various studios. But sometimes I'd print at a rental lab in Portland. And that was where I'd for sure print my color neg or direct form transpancy prints such as Cibachrome or a Fuji process. While making those I printed shoulder to shoulder with countless other pros and their assistants. Over three decades. Thousands of people. So while many printers may have an isolated view of how things get done in their darkroom namely their own I did not. I was subjected weekly to how a whole ton of people got their printing done. And was given advice while I printed from the experts at the lab whose job it was to do that. I came into working their after a decade of printing by myself mainly but I certainly learned a lot be being in an open environment. Never in my three decade experience printing by myself, at school at the custom lab I worked at in Webster Groves, Mo or at the rental lab in Portland Oregon did I see anything which came even close as to being as obsessively ridiculous as that sketch. I don't know what making a sketch like that is an exercise in other than mental masturbation. A joke. Or to impress some idiot. -- Mark R. http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/winterdays/ > From: Marty Deveney <benedenia at gmail.com> > Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> > Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 19:07:30 +1030 > To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> > Subject: Re: [Leica] Magnum & the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing > > I've seen your prints, Mark, so I know you're a great darkroom > printer. But I'm also pretty sure you mostly or only printed for > yourself. I'd be surprised if even your simplest prints didn't have a > diagram that looked like this if you actually wrote everything down. > This diagram isn't the result of OCD or even really that complicated; > for instance all those concentric circles around James Dean's figure > just indicate a dodge with an oblong dodge tool, lifted and dropped. > The closeness of the circles and the numbers are like a topographic > map, and show the gradient and overall difference from edge to edge of > the dodge (or burn). > > This kind of diagram, of course, is necessary when the photographer > doesn't print their own work and doesn't have time to see, or is > separated from, the printer. These days, of course, you can do it > over the web face to face. I've printed many, many negs from diagrams > like this. After a while the printer and photographer start to > develop a visual-graphic synergy and the number of reprints drops > (from the printer's POV) and the first sets of prints increasingly > match expectations, and describing what they want gets easier (from > the photographers' POV). > > It's pretty much all academic now, since so few master silver gelatin > printers still work commercially. > > Marty > > > > On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 3:36 PM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> > wrote: >> I cant figure out if this is an example of a kind of obsesive compulsive >> psychosis or an attempt at humor. There is also a famous one of a head >> from >> Avedon. An image marked up way past any reason or comprehension. >> I'll tell you what I think it is its drugs in the 80's. >> But it might be Public relations. Your clients are supposed to think that >> even though you ?yourself are not making the prints the relation between >> you >> and your assistant or printer is so involved that its worth all the >> ridiculous money they are paying you for the job and or print. >> >> In reality when you go through sheets and sheets of paper in the darkroom >> its a rather organic process of trial and error. And you cant be reminded >> of >> it from a mark up or controlled by someone giving you a marked up thing >> like >> that. The printer has to sweat it out themselves. Adams called it a >> performance of a score. But your head is not buried in the score. You have >> to look up from time to time and cue your orchestra. >> -- >> Mark R. >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/winterdays/ >> >> >>> From: Philippe Amard <philippe.amard at sfr.fr> >>> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> >>> Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2012 22:21:14 +0100 >>> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> >>> Subject: Re: [Leica] Magnum & the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing >>> >>> Nice document >>> >>> OTT: since manipulated comes the latin word for hand, as in handled - >>> I agree that LR is just on the right track then >>> >>> Thanks again >>> Philippe >>> >>> Le 7 mars 12 ? 18:25, Robert Baron a ?crit : >>> >>>> If you've never seen a notated print map, look here: >>>> >>>> http://theliteratelens.com/2012/02/17/magnum-and-the-dying-art-of-darkroom- >>>> pr >>>> inting/ >>>> >>>> If that is necessary to achieve an excellent print from a film >>>> negative, >>>> why would it be inappropriate to do similar manipulation to achieve an >>>> excellent image from a digital negative? ?Or to put it another way, >>>> why >>>> wouldn't it be a necessary part of your work? >>>> >>>> --Bob >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Leica Users Group. >>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Leica Users Group. >>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information