Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Tina Manley jotted down the following: > How can you judge something without seeing it first? I'm not judging the quality of the prints. I'm making a comment on the relationship between an artifact and its price. I don't know or care whether piezography prints look better or worse than silver gelatin prints, which is irrelevant to the point I'm making. What I do care about is that computer-controlled print production will allow you to produce large numbers of absolutely identical prints, while traditional print making doesn't. Or, at least, requires a hell of a lot more work to achieve the same thing. But that is too, beside the point. The main point is that computers are great at doing the same thing over and over again (series production) while humans are not (craft). Introducing an element of series production into a craft reduces something of the craft-ness ;) It's this fundamental nature of the process that is interesting in this relationship between artifact and price. > As anyone who has tried printing with the Epson printers can tell you, > humidity, inks, temperature, paper surface, paper weight, thickness > settings, etc., can all make a difference. It's not as easy to get > identical prints as you might think. Ah, but if I'm using the same file to print the same image on the same paper, then only temperature and humidity remain as variables. (If, as part of this discourse, we're assuming the strive to make identical prints in the darkroom, then the same premises should apply to the computer-controlled print production too). I'm willing to make an educated guess that they affect the final image quality much less than equivalent variables in a darkroom. > I still think we pay for uniqueness of image, not uniqueness of process. Uniqueness of image *comes* from non-uniqueness of process, to some extent. Image has to be seen holistically, or I could go out and photograph a friend jumping over a puddle and sell it for as much as a new print of the Gare St. Lazare negative. Still, I believe it's a combination of the two. While not an art dealer myself, I believe I've read enough about the buying and selling of works of art to draw this conclusion. Buying art, like stocks, has more to do with psychology than anything else. Which is why paintings sell for more than photographs and why silver gelatin prints sell for more than ink-jet ones. If you can get away with selling your piezography prints for the same as your silver-gelatin ones, congratulations. But I'm pretty sure that you're an exception to the rule. Tina, please don't take any of this personally. I love a good discussion and have no problem with the fact that we disagree on some points. I know that you are much more experienced in these processes than I, but I'm much too stubborn-headed to conceed to seniority alone! ;) ;) ;) M. - -- Martin Howard | Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU | It is essentially contestable. email: howard.390@osu.edu | www: http://mvhoward.i.am/ +---------------------------------------