Technically Perfect Print

Here's a question that would hopefully put me in correct perspective.

 

How important is a technically perfect print? We all know that there

are photographs that are not considered technically good prints

(Agtet's for example) but are great photographs. There are also

photographs that aren't considered well photographed (Robert Capa's)

in the technical sense, yet, are considered documents of significant

achievement. And there are those that are perfectly executed from neg

to prints (Caponigro's) and are highly regarded.

 

Is it quite senseless to spend countless hours printing a neg to

perfection? Would a less-than-perfect print make any photograph less

significant? Would it express less of the content that is present in

an image? Or does a less-than-perfect print distract that much from

the original intent of the photograph. Is it our ego to show that we

can print so well and in the process, spend less time shooting? Would

a reasonably well-printed (sensitively) photograph be sufficient?

 

I do not print very well but I'm not trying to take the easy way out

and say I do not need a technically perfect print to make a great

photograph. I'm asking if it is really necessary to make that perfect

print in the expense of less shooting time and more money spent on

printing materials. Is there an easy answer?

The answer is no. That is why there are multigrade papers, dodging and burning, things like that. The different methods of getting a good negative are meant to make it easier to get a good print. You will get a better print with a better negative, but then in the real world, how often do you get a scene with an exact seven stop range? Depending on the subject matter would you even want to? Even practitioners of the zone system do a bit of dodging, burning, bleaching, split-filer printing etc to get the print they want.

Is there such a thing?

 

I think it is the outcome as you see it that should count. I've seen photographs considered "perfect" by some, yet found flawed by others. I'm sure there is a distinction between a good and bad print, but "perfect" is taking it a bit too far. This is especially true when some printing techniques are used to alter the image so it's, for example, textured. How can any viewer possibly know what was on photographers mind?

 

If it matches your visualization then it is indeed perfect.

 

 

 

A flawed print might be one with obvious scratch marks, finger prints etc. (and even this could be at times argued as intentional). Some bad prints would show an obvious ugly grain, lack of detail everywhere, lack of contrast, yet all this could still be intentional.

 

Last, I would not compare technical aspect of old images to the newer ones. The technology has changed too much to make it a fair game.

I'm not sure what a technically perfect print would be. I'm sure the technical eggs at Kodak would have some very scientific definition based upon density measurements and contrast scales. Whether its aesthetically pleasing is another story. My theory is that a print has to be compelling in some fashion. How that's done is up to the photographer/printer. One also has to look at the circumstances. For example, Capa's photo of the Spanish soldier; its extremely compelling. I doubt that the negative is technically perfect since the photographer stuck his head up in a hail of bullets to get it. Adams took great pains with both his negatives and prints but he wasn't being shot at. Even though he labored over the exposure, he carefully manipulated the print to make it more compelling than if he printed the straight negative. Your question will bring about some interesting discussion.

The above posts are totally correct. Who's to say what is a perfect print? Every aspect of a print is subjective. I think a "perfect" print is one that exactly matches how you previsualized the shot. Thus, what seems perfect to you, might seem pretty bad to me.

 

Since a good print represents your previsualization of the scene, it is important to have total control over the entire process (including exposure, development, and printing). Logically, it seems that through the Zone System, which allows you control over the whole process, you can create "perfect" prints.

 

These are just my opinions. I'm interested in hearing what the others have to say on this one.

Aaron,

 

IMHO Photography is both technique (the craft) and art. For me, technical perfection is something I continually strive for; yet know in my heart of hearts, that it's not possible.

 

I do, indeed, spend countless hours printing a neg to my perception of the perfect print. Photographic B & W printing is one of the few exercises that permit, nay encourage the artist to 'go to far' with his technique in pursuit of 'finer' art. If a 15 second burn in the upper right corner improves the overall print effect - would a 30 second burn in the same area make it better yet, have no real effect, or kill the effect all together? We have to try it and discover for ourselves. The time and materials spent are not wasted. We've learned something either way.

 

Many years ago my young daughter said that she liked a print I had made. She asked me to make a print for her. We had made a few prints together, so I said that she'd have to make her own. She knew the basics of exposure, burn, dodge, contrast. But I had always talked her through every print. This time she was on her own. When she showed me her work I was amazed at how different her interpretation of the same neg had been. Contrast, composition, emphasis on special areas were totally different than mine. Was my print right and hers wrong. Both were right. Just a different impression, a different feeling using the same starting point. We both signed her print. It's still on her wall.

 

A.A. said that the negative is the score, the print is the performance. In composing the music did you put all of the right notes on the page (image on the film)? Did it matter that you are not the greatest musician (printer) for that music (image)? I'd say no. Many fine photographers have their work printed by others.

 

In my own work I look for the "Gotcha" principle. Did I make you look?

Did I make you look at something that you pass over every day and pay no never mind. Today�s weeds in the lawn are tomorrow�s fine art black & white extreme close-up. If I made you look then I've succeeded. How I got there is not technically or artistically important.

 

That�s my sorry and I�m sticking to it. I could be wrong.

 

Sorry for the ramble.

Oops. Should have typed - "That's my story . . . ."

Hi Aaron. I think that I understand your question, but forgive me if I'm mistaken. When I'm in my darkroom printing, I often make many work prints of different negatives, because sometimes I'm not convinced of a negative's potential based on the contact sheet alone. Some of these work prints warrant further investigation, and some go no further than the work print. Among those that I feel merit further attention, some prove too difficult for me to print well, while others fail to maintain my interest and are given no further attention. The very few that remain are those that I feel are worthy of the time, effort and material necessary for me to print to the very best of my ability. I am not a very experienced printer, so there are occasionally negatives that I feel are worth persuing, but beyond my current abilities, and these are filed in the "salvage" file for another day, but the vast majority of my prints that I deem successful (never perfect) are very nearly straight prints. Those prints are my benchmark, and if I can manipulate a print to that point without ruining it, then I consider it successful and move on. If I can't get VERY near that benchmark within ten iterations, I file it away and move on. Between printing sessions, I research possible solutions to my problems with negs in the salvage file, be they different materials or chemicals or techniques, and when I think that I have a possible solution, I pull a neg and have another go at it. I guess my point is that I have a benchmark that I aim for when printing, but it is definitely not perfection, and I'm not willing to waste a lot of effort or materials on negs that are beyond my abilities. As my printing skills evolve, the benchmark moves up, and some of those negs are rescued from the salvage file, while new ones are added. For me, most of my successes have come from learning to make better negs, and not nearly as many from learning to print difficult negs better. In the end, it all comes down to how much you care about a given negative. That alone should determine how much effort you're willing to put into printing it. Good luck, and don't let the pursuit of perfection keep you out of the darkroom.-jdf

As others have said, I'm not sure that a "technically perfect" is possible. To leverage the reference made to Adams' score/performance analogy, one performance may be better than another, but none is likely to be perfect, because "perfection" will vary for each listener and each member of the orchestra.

 

On the other hand, it may be possible to come closer to artistic perfection - assuming that the definition is limited to the print precisely representing the photographer's vision. Even there, however, a rub exists. The next print might show a difference in mood or interpretation of the negative, and be just as "perfect", albeit substantially different.

 

In the more artistic sense, I believe that the importance of the quality of the "performance" depends to a large degree on the subject and the nature of the message of the photograph. In some cases, an technically excellent negative printed very well may actually detract, or conflict with the message and its impact on the viewer.

 

My suggestion, Aaron, would be to consider the nature of your subjects and determine whether better prints would contribute to the visual impact and understanding of the message. If so, and you don't enjoy printing, find someone who will work with you and take directions regarding how you want it printed. I would agree with the idea that master printers are often not good photographers, and that the reverse is also often true.

Hi Aaron,

 

As a fine art photographer, these are the questions that you will ultimately have to answer for yourself and there is no right or wrong answer. While the opinions of other phtographers are interesting, answering these questions for yourself is the only way to be artistically authentic.

 

You may already know the answers and are resisting them because the path is difficult. If you do not yet know the answers for yourself, shoot and print, shoot and print, shoot and print, and reflect on the experience and the results.

 

Best wishes.

Aaron, I hope someday you will have a less than perfect negative of an image you have a great passion for. I made a photograph of a friend under bad lighting. My friend later died. The image captures my friend's personality. I spent two or three evenings to make the best possible print I could from this negative. The final print is no Zone System model. I made three prints of the image. They were carefully processed archivally, mounted matted, framed and given to my friend's widow and family. There is passion in the image. The hard technical work I put into printing helps portray that passion. I felt my friend and the image deserved the best possible presentation. Don't settle for less than your best.

Putting aside technical imperfections like scratches, poor focus, fogging, bad spotting, etc., a perfect print would seem to first imply a perfect neg along with flawless printing, but there are few, if any, objective standards. As mentioned above, if the print reflects your statement, then it's 'perfect.' Could you shoot a crossword puzzle from the daily paper and make a perfect print of it? Someone would surely find fault with it. First you must define 'perfection' as it may apply here, THEN you may seek to achieve it. Good luck.

In my opinion, too many photographers worry about getting "a good black and a good white" in their prints. It's as if that's the be all and end all of a print. I've seen many excellent photos that don't meet textbook definitions of what supposedly makes a good black and white print. I think many photographers get caught up in the contrast trap, and as a result, their prints, to me, look too contrasty and garish. The emotional appeal and composition of a print matter more to me.

Arnold Newman, the renowned portrait photographer, once commented on his desire to achieve the best possible print that he could get. He said something along the lines of the following, and I am relying on memory as I read it years ago. His thoughts were that if you consider the amount of time that someone will actually spend looking at one of his photographs in a gallery setting, a mere few seconds or maybe a minute at the high end on most occasions, then he had better be sure to make something as "perfect" as possible. He was commenting on his humbling realization, and amazement at the huge amount of effort that goes into a single final print and the fleeting moment of a viewers attention to it.

 

The struggle for impact to grab the attention of a viewer and the viewers' subsequent close scrutiny once attention is achieved demand technical perfection if one is printing for exhibition purposes.

How good your printing technique needs to be depends on what your vision is for the print you want to make. If you are making prints that express your artistic vision, then you are making prints that are (at least at present) as "perfect" as they need to be. If, on the other hand, you are conscious that what you can produce in the darkroom does not come close to what you envisioned when you tripped the shutter, then you need to improve your printing skills.

 

To your question, "would a less-than-perfect print make any photograph less siginificant?" my answer is an emphatic "yes." Consider (if you have the opportunity) Bruce Barnbaum's 1985 photograph "Boulder in Tenaya Creek" (Visual Symphony, Plate 7). this quietly ecstatic, light-suffused image would die entirely if it had been printed even a little darker, or if Barnbaum had been any less skillful in balancing the high zone gray tones. It is easy, looking at the work of the great landscape masters, to multiply this example endlessly.

 

Both Barnbaum and John Sexton, another modern master, have written extensively about the elaborate and painstaking craftsmanship that goes into their photographs. They do not employ all that technical virtuosity for pointless technical display. They do it because it is necessary to make photographs that move them, and so move us.

Having the ability to make a print that is 'perfect' also changes your ability (or how) to see. Learning to make a 'perfect' print also enables mastery over the printing process. The more you understand how values show in the print, the better you learn to 'see' in black and white. This understanding will change the way that you make your negatives.

--Aaron

I believe as artists or craftsmen or whatever we wish to call ourselves, that we have an obligation to ourselves to create and present the best we are capable of at the time. However perfection is boring.

 

Take the analogy of a beautiful woman. You can see a woman who is beautiful, absolutely perfect, flawless, a goddess, and yet you can see another woman who is not so beautiful but there is something about her that you can't take your eyes off, some kind of magic and aura around her. There is an intangible there that you can't name.

 

I believe in photography that phenomina is called impact. A great or perhaps famous image has impact. An intangible that you can't take your eyes off, and are somehow jealous that you hadn't seen it or created it. All the technical expertise in the world cannot take the place of this impact.

 

So I guess what I'm saying is we need to educate ourselves in all the photographic knowledge we can, but when were holding the camera if what we see through the viewfinder has no impact, it will never be a great photograph.

 

Just an opinion,

 

Michael McBlane

There are two issues at stake here: technical mastery and artistic vision.

 

If technical mastery is your end goal, then obviously nothing short of a

technically perfect print will do, regardless of subject matter and/or the

photographer's emotional response.

 

Personally, I think the goal should be mastery of vision. Any means to that end

are totally acceptable, in my opinion.

 

Every artisitic vision is worthy of a technical assesment of the craft and

process necessary to bring that vision into being. For some that mandates

total technical control of all variables. Others rely on the happenstance of the

shooting and processing disciplines. Neither is wrong persay, but it can be

very obviously seen when the wrong approach is used for any particular

vision.

 

Stay true to that inner vision, and I dont believe you can really go wrong.

The connection "map" of you neurons in you visual cortex that produce or percieve the image in the ground glass or in the print is different to mine and others' commection maps. Threfore, my perception is different from yours or anybody else! It is great that we can wander on what is a perfect print but, inevitably all these wonderings will just produce another case of over simplified wishful thinking.

"TECHNICALLY PERFECT" ... is in the eyes of the beholder.

 

 

dee... (usually technically imperfect.)

If you are a serious artist you will make the best print you

possibly can, whatever the effort, without any compromises.

Whether it is "perfect " or not is irrelevant.

 

Michael A. Smith

I think some of my best prints were done when I was in a big rush and didn't have the time to do and redo and analyze and redo again. I'm talking about getting back from a newspaper assignment and having to have a print on the editor's desk in half an hour! Pick an image by looking at the negatives, not a contact sheet, making a couple fast test strips, choose a filter, do the dodging and burning just because "it needs it". I used to get some great prints. Now I spend too damned much time trying to finesse things, and it often just doesn't quite have that feeling of "fire in the gut" that I once was able to get.

Thanks everyone for your generous contribution. Your answers have given me clarity. It has been enlightening for me to learn from you and think about things I've not thought about before. Appreciated it.