Why not one of one?

<p>This is aimed more at you dark room types than the digital artists. There is one Mona Lisa, One Starry Night.</p>

<p>After dialing in a wet print and coming away with that prized keeper why continue? Instead of 15 of 25 why not one of one? For commercial and publishing applications digital files and internet interpretations of that image could satisfy the needs of those who are interested. If the photographer were fortunate enough to become "known" wouldn't that one original print have a value far beyond that of #15? Thoughts please.</p>

<p>I don't think of photographic prints as monotypes. Nor do I think that Adams (for example) did the value of his prints any harm by making more than one of them. And if you are banking on publication or online viewing of the image to make your reputation, you've got a lot of eggs in one basked when a single print is the only thing you can put forth for the reproduction process. <br /><br />Likewise, I don't think that five (or fifteen) truly great prints are going to so dilute the value of the photographer's prints that selling all of them will add up to less revenue then finding just the right customer for the purchase of a one of a kind single print. And, of course, you're also left without an original print for your own personal collection.</p>

<p>The short answer is that the photograph is not analogous to (for example) Hogarth's paintings but to his engravings. The first cannot be produced in multiple; the second can.<br>

However ... my real answer is that it depends on the thinking of each photographer. I know photographers who <em>do</em> produce only one single print, and that's for them. Just as photographs are not inherently monoprints, nor are practitioners a monolithic group.<br /><br>

Relatively few photographers think in terms of the appreciating value of the individual print, anyway. Those who do will clearly tend to think differently about uniqueness from those who do not. <br>

Nor is even the individual practitioner necessarily always after the same thing. For instance, photographs which I aim into "fine art" sales are limited edition while photographs which I hope will serve a cause are given away in unmonitored quantity.<br>

<br />And all of this, by the way, applies as much to digital as wet chemical imaged.<br /></p>

<p>Matt and Felix have both put their finger on the answer - that photogaphy, like engraving, is a process designed for multiple identical copies while painting is not. The same is true in sculpture of the processes of casting a metal mould from a clay original (multiple copies) or making a single sculpture in stone. The techmnology dictates how many copies there are. Digital imagng is of course the copying medium par excellence as the original digital image can be copied without any degradation.</p>

<p>Interestingly (at least I think so) until Fox-Talbot's calotype process showed the way several early photograpic processes were single unique copy. In the Daguerrotype process for example the image is formed in a silver / mercury amalgam layer on a sheet of copper. By contrast in Fox-Talbot's Calotype process the image was formed in silver salts on a transparent waxed paper negative. The daguerrotype is therefore a unque object while the calotype is designed to make copies.</p>

<p>If you want uniqueness there is nothing to stop you making daguerrotypes (except possbly mercury poisoning).</p>

<p>There's also the value of process and the challenge, complexity and reward of being able to produce consistent, repeatable results. For someone who enjoys printing and appreciates the subtlety and complexity of the craft, there's more pleasure in making several prints than a single print - and more personal reward in being able to make perceptibly exact copies.</p>

<p>Colin C:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>“Interestingly (at least I think so) until Fox-Talbot's calotype process showed the way several early photograpic processes were single unique copy.”</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think so too! Thanks for the line of thought :-)</p>

<blockquote>

<p>“If you want uniqueness there is nothing to stop you making daguerrotypes...”</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Or, for that matter, destroying or defacing the negative (in wet darkroom practice). Adams did tht with negatives after a limited run, so that the image could stillbe available for academic study but not as the original art object; it could equally well be done after one print. The digital equivalent being to destroy the RAW file and/or overlay something (the word "cancelled" perhaps) across a TIFF or JPEG.<br>

Or, of course, rather than go all the way back to Daguerrotype, try (as Adams also did) Polaroid. Or, on a different tack, photogram/Rayogram/Schadegram.</p>

<p>Neil A: thank you for the reminder that photography is a million things to a million practitioners.</p>

<p>It wouldn't. Even no. 1 has no intrinsic value as such.</p>

<p>Many occasional (non-dedicated) photographers confuse print value (price) with image value (emotional weight, thrill, memory). Their idea of "value" seems limited to the<em> prices</em> they read about: that's Walmart-think.</p>

<p>It seems to me (from evidence in galleries, museums) that the "best" contemporary photographers have committed to inkjet or other digital media. The inkjet-print is obviously becoming more <em>valuable</em> in the<em> image </em>sense than silver print because the silver print is less responsive to the the photographer..it's an inferior medium. Because the image is the value, its price will inevitably reflect that. </p>

<p>Some photographers and galleries do tout "gelatin silver" in order to enhance sales to rubes (PT Barnum marketing strategy), but that doesn't work for viewers and buyers who are visually sophisticated enough to enjoy contemporary images for what the photographer chose to offer, rather than thinking in terms of the antique collectibles peddled by ye-olde-gifte-shoppe (Edwin Curtis and Ansel Adams come to mind).</p>

<p>Many gallery-goers and buyers are fine photographers themselves, therefore they are <em>superior aesthetically</em> to mere collectors.</p>

<p>I'm a longtime printer...B&W, Ektacolor, Ciba, inkjet. For my own work, and in the work I've seen in galleries, inkjet is visually superior in <em>virtually </em>all respects to old media. "Virtually" because I've yet to see inkjet that, as an object, beats the <em>best</em> platinum (eg Irving Penn's) and various less common media, such as daugerrotype and gum bichromate. Those "less common" media seem to me to have inherent object-value, perhaps more like sculpture or jewelry than like photographs.</p>

<p>My advice to the OP is to try it. Why not try it and see how it works out ? Just because that's not the way it's done (for a multitude of reasons, some of which are stated above) shouldn't stop you from taking the road less traveled.</p>

<p>I'm not a darkroom type, except for how much I respect what could be accomplished there and sometimes try to emulate it, but even I, of the digital world, wonder about printing one and only one print of a photograph, not wanting it to feel more "mass" produced.</p>

<p>Thanks for the post. Just when I think I'm so very unique, I find others thinking the same way, even when they're not clones of me.</p>

<p> The only time I've come close to that is on two different types of occasions: When someone agreed to model on condition I never exhibit the picture, or as a gift to me, or....as an exclusive gift. With this type of situation, I've always made two prints, one for them, and one for me, and whenever I look at mine, I wonder where the other one is. They become metaphors of entanglement.</p>

<p><em>"metaphors of entanglement" </em> - Luis G</p>

<p>Yes...photo-as-metaphor (or photo-as-reinforcement or echo, as in journalism...or even superb illustrative commercial photography) seem to me to be more weighty than photo-as-decor or photo-as-collectable.</p>

<p>...so, although my own photographs barely exist for me until I've printed, for someone else (Fred for example), the lonely digital file may have more significance ("value") than the prints that command the high prices in NYC auctions. </p>

 

<p>Kim Weston did this for 10 years. He would make one print and attach the negative to it on the back. You might contact him via his website to get his opinion on the marketing value of editions-of-one prints. </p>

<p><strong>John</strong>, though my digital files do have great value to me (at least the screen images do), that's not what I was getting at. I was saying that, even as a digital photographer, I've considered making one and only one print of something and whether or not that might be a significant move for me to make at some point with some of my photos. In that respect, I was relating to how the OP feels. Of course, this has nothing to do with price value at the moment, at least for me. It would be maintaining something unique about a particular print. I am suggesting that the same consideration can be given digital prints as the OP is giving darkroom prints, despite the fact that there are other differences between the two.</p>

<p>Yeah John silver or digital wouldn't really matter when it comes down to one original print except the wet print is unique in that I can create a digital copy of the negative or the print but it's just that. The original stands. Only I can control if and when that negative is printed again. If if the master file of a image that began as digital is passed on say for commercial purpose then anyone make make a copy that looks like the original. I mean imagine if you had a famous Adams printed by the man himself and it was the only one in existence?</p>

<p><strong>Michael</strong>, one can maintain control of a high resolution file just as securely as one can maintain control of a negative. A negative can be destroyed and a file can be erased . . . if that's what is desired. Or, either can be allowed to come into the hands of others.</p>

<p><em>"The original stands." </em> - MF<br>

It makes no difference value-wise unless you can find someone who buys your story and pays you for it than it's worth to you to keep it. In other words, it's mostly valuable as a hustle.</p>

<p>"There is one Mona Lisa, One Starry Night."</p>

<p>In some photographic means, from Dauguerrotype to Polaroid, that is true of each exposure. Not all photography produces a replicatable original.</p>

<p>"After dialing in a wet print and coming away with that prized keeper why continue? Instead of 15 of 25 why not one of one?"</p>

<p>Some photos may have one only expression, and some may suggest several valid interpretations or expressions. I'd ask, what motivates the search for 'the one' for all exposures printed? Why shouldn't each print made from a negative be different instead, if the material suggests it? Perhaps there are two or three "prized keepers" in one exposure.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>One man's hustle is another's sales transaction.</p>

<p>I see no hustle in my OP. Just legitimate tongue in cheek pondering.</p>

<p><strong>Michael</strong>, there is no hustle in anything you've said. Any hustle perceived is just a projection.</p>

<p>Fred, thanks for clarifying. I mistakenly thought my perspective was worthy of consideration.</p>

<p>Your perspective is always worthy of consideration. Just pointing out that the "hustle" part is a fabrication.</p>

<p>John K: your perspective is worthy of consideration; but you often seem to feel that the same is not true of perspectives offered by others.</p>