Print Size

[daniel_ob]

When I make a decesion for the print size for exhibition (or even in

general) I consider the size of the smallest detail on future pic and

viewing distance (assumption), and the print importance among other

prints (e.g. to emphase it). I tend to make as small as possible

print, and as a role they are from 5x7 to 11x14 inch. I do not go

bigger.

 

Just sometimes landscape from 4x5 in is 20x24 inch because it can

contain very large number of details.

 

Just one fact: Avedon made photographs without a lot of details and

even used his view camera (like for portraits) but look it turned to

murals at MOMA exhibition.

 

My question is:

 

Why many photographers, when print for exhibition, tend to make

prints close to mural, even from Leica format that just cannot

contain a lot of details. And it looks that curators have some love

for murals, and this is not an assumption, this is very fact. How you

base your decesion for print size.

[bhneely]

I like the look of great big prints, especially for exhibitions. One, when people see a big print, they stop and look. Two, if you have a big print, a lot of people can look at it at once. Three, why shoot something that has tons of detail if you're not going to show off that detail - in my nudes, I love that in a big print you can see all the fine hairs on a body. In a portrait, I love to see the shadows of eyelashes. In a landscape, I like to be able to see small stones on the road, or the microdetail on bark.

[brian_teufel]

Big prints have much more visual impact.

 

Look up Andreas Gursky.

[jay ott]

Small prints would get lost in the vast spaciousness of museums.

[Brian]

In the world of painted art, size matters. Big canvases fetch higher prices than small ones. I suspect that many photographers take this on board and make their prints bigger because they feel it adds value.

[vdp]

I tend to agree with RML, the bigger the print the more people think it is somehow art. Of course big huge prints can be art but more often than not I have seen that big huge mural size prints are a cover for mediocre work.

[pawel_czapiewski1]

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/reflections2.shtml

 

Reflections of Alain Briot on this topic. Regards,

[matt_borengasser]

I tend to agree that big sells and that size often masks inferior art. Recently I was at the St. Louis Museum of Art and looked at some very small photographs of clouds. They couldn't have been more than 4x5 inch. They were beautiful because they were small, like little jewels, and dispite their size there was no problem feeling the openness of sky in those small works.

 

I think these photographs may very well have been blown up for gallery audiences who don't have time, patience or the sensitivity to become intimate with small works such as these. Sure, detail is nice, and its always fun to see great detail in photographs. But great detail is not what resonates within a person, and will never be. Great detail, in my opionion, is sort of like the gleam on a pair of newly polished boots--it delights, but its not as important as the way the boots feel. I shoot medium format and I never print anything larger than 8x10. I find works larger than this loose their ability to pull the viewer near. But that's just me.

[rich_ullsmith1]

I was at a foriegn gallery recently and saw a series of mural size prints, maybe

three feet by four feet, they were stunning. But I couldn't help wondering what

they would look like if the sublime elements were compressed into a 20X24.

[daniel_ob]

Going into details more, I think also that approach to art photography also have something in common with print size. As US photographers tend to concentrate on central point of the picture, they search details within that object going to smaller and smaller details. Canadian photographer, with more influence form GB in past, and China in present time, tend to slip away from the central object searching for informations all over the print. Not going into smaller details, I think it also determines that US photographer posses tend for murals, while Canadial photog (not all) tend to some medium size of print, plus/minus in accordance of living place (or influence intensity) within the country. And print size now became also one far element of art photography, or the way how artistical problem is solved. I also think that work of artist cannot be influenced by size of the wall where his work will be presented. He (artist) is always so deeply concentrated on his work that he only have in main the best for his brain and nerves, and wall size became part of his work just when work is done, at the moment he became aware of enviroment away from the work. This point have something in common with question in which degree art work is AND commercial work. It becames commercial just when it is done.

[mike butler]

I was fortunate to have once viewed the Peekamoose portfolio of George Tice. They were

all 5x7 prints, drymounted on black boards. I can't recall if they were contact prints. In any

case, they were stunning to me. And they didn't make me think that they ought to be

larger.

 

Of course, a portfolio is a more intimate experience than a gallery or a museum.

[neil_rankin1]

Size is very important. Photographs have sizes that are appropriate. Too many times, I see photographers go big all the time. They might as well roll em up, put a rubber band around them and sell them as posters, because that's what they're worth. Too many photographers are tech weenies that have really poor aesthetic judgement. And their big posters are just plain tacky. Appropriate size. Take the time to step back and look at a photograph, don't just look at the emulsion. In artist's circles, you look stupid when your face is eight inches from the surface, and you don't even seek out the proper viewing distance.

[lee_shively]

Once I saw a Man Ray exhibit that included 2"x3" prints matted/mounted to 16"x20". I loved it. You could get up close and become friends with the images. I'm turned off by mural-sized photographs. Even Avedon's photos are more appealing to me on the printed pages of a book.

 

I print pretty much everything centered on 11x14 paper. The size of the image depends on the format--square negatives are about 9x9, for instance--I don't remember the sizes for 645 or 35mm. That's big enough to see detail from a comfortable distance but not so big it overwhelms a viewer. Of course, no curators are asking to exhibit my pictures either.

[spanky]

Well, if big prints means a particular work will be considered to have more artistic merit by the buying public then I guess that has to be taken into consideration by those who want to sell their work or be considered "artists". I enjoy printing all sizes although recently I've been on a 16X20 kick. I must say that I really like how some of these prints look compared to 8x10. I don't think 16x20 is really that big. I also don't agree with the statements that such sizes is used to compensate for inferior art. At this size and larger any flaw in exposure, developing, and/or printing becomes glaringly obvious (as I have painfuly discovered numerous times lol). Furthermore a boring image at such size will be that many more times boring. Imagine a whole chamber orchestra hitting the same bum note as opposed to just one musician.

Lastly, I'm often asked by friends and co-workers to do portraits of them and their families. One time I brought in a 16x20 of a friends new born son as a work print to get his feedback on. Well, I was surprised at the number of people who approached me to have similar size prints made of for them. So I think 16x20 is a good general size.

[jeffpolaski]

In Chicago, I went to see an exhibit called "The Model Wife", photographs by photograsphes of their wives. Most of the prints were small.

 

I rounded the corner into another section and was hit, with almost a physical sensation, by a contact print of Andre Kertesz's "Fork, Paris". This photo has been enlarged and commercialized since, but that small contact print was exquisite.

 

Perhaps enlargement is proportional to the photographer's opinion of his work.

[robert x]

so can this conversation be happily distilled down to:

 

'some photographs look good big whilst others look good small' ?

[pico_digoliardi]

Composition: If a print of ~2"x3" looks good, then it's a success. From then on, it's all about viewing distance.

[john_bourne1]

As a recent photo.net viewer I was fascinated by some of the reasoning behind the 'big is better' philosophy. On reading through this forum I could'nt help but reflect on the first ime I saw the Mona Lisa painting in Paris, It was so small...