How To Describe Your Work?

photosynthesis.......the harmonizing of mother nature with man's machines

I have so many workflows it's ridiculous, everything from 35/120 c-41 -> print to full digital

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by eddie

But you can produce a silver gelatin print from a digital source. I think the OP wants to differentiate between the two.

---

Does anyone think the world is ready for "Analog Silver Gelatin Print" ?

The photographs hung in the co-op gallery I belong to are identified as "silver gelatin photograph," or "sepia toned silver gelatin photograph" or "silver gelatin lith print." But I also have a card hanging with my work explaining the analog nature of it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mr Man

Hi jnanian, if the process isn't important why were you having so much trouble convincing the galleries that the work you were producing was photography, If the process isn't important then anything from a photogram to an image produced entirely digitally, and anything in between, can be classed as photography.

---

hi again

i really didn't did try that hard. i was a 20-something year old kid and it was the early 1990s ...
the galleries ( even famous ones ) didn't know what to make of what i was doing, so they sent me to other galleries
that might be working with similar "looking" prints ... if i really wanted to convince them
i would have had them in my darkroom or have a friend shoot a vcr tape of me making the images
so they could see what and they were and how they were made, but i didn't and ended up
part owning a gallery with a bunch of other friends / artists / writers &c because it was the art that was important
not the other BS that revolves around it ...
so, nope, it doesn't matter and yes i do believe that anything from a photogram to a image printed entirely digitally and everything
inbetween can be classed as photography. photography is a broad and general term ... using cheap construction paper
leaving it in the sun with something on it which will fade and photogram and image can be considered photography,
or taping acetate with words on it to your back or arm and getting a tan print can be considered photography ..

it might not be what YOU consider to be photography, but it is exactly that ...

good luck with your labels !
john

btw people talk about hybrid photography and hybrid prints today and it is a mix of digital and analog media
i was using the term in 1988 to mean something totally different ... i don't refer to my single edition prints made with
non camera negatives as that sort of thing anymore, i just call them photographs ... labels just confuse people

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jnanian

... labels just confuse people

---

and yet people are determined to give everything a label, and if they can't do that they just dismiss it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mr Man

In the “olden days” it wasn’t a problem you called it a silver gelatin print or toned silver gelatin print and every one knew what it was and that it was printed from a film negative. But these days there is a lot of digital / analogue hybrid work going on and a silver gelatin print (or any alt process print) can be produced from any number of and combination of processes. So how do you describe your work so as to inform the viewer that it has been created from a totally analogue process and differentiate it from work that has been produced on a computer and then just printed onto photo paper?

“Silver gelatin print derived from analogue negative” bit ambiguous and could still contain a digital stage.

“Silver gelatin print printed from film negative” film negative could have been produced digitally.

“Silver gelatin print produced from analogue negative”

Suggestions welcomed.

---

I believe the process is important or there wouldn't be a site called APUG, so this notion that only the final product is what matters is nonsense, IMO, at least within the confines of these forums. So, I think you ask a relevant question. That said, I like folks knowing that it's a film capture and I like folks knowing that the print is hand made (hell, these days, clicking a mouse all day in PS could be considered hand made) by the traditional wet darkroom process.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mr Man

and yet people are determined to give everything a label, and if they can't do that they just dismiss it.

---

not really sure what you mean by that ..

no need to be nasty ..

good luck with your labeling

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jnanian

not really sure what you mean by that ..

---

I simply mean that the public and general media like to label and pigeon hole people and their work as it makes them easier to pin down and ridicule.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jnanian

it might not be what YOU consider to be photography, but it is exactly that ...

---

I did not attack your work at all, I am fine with your work, if you shine light at something and create an image then it is photography. I was just interested in the contradiction within your post.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jnanian

good luck with your labels !

---

I could consider this as nasty. I never asked for “labels” I was just interested in how others describe their work for exhibition purposes. As curators, the media, the arts establishment and the public like to put “labels” on peoples work. You obviously have done a lot of exhibitions and so your work is valid I have done none and and so mine is not I was just asking advice that's all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mr Man

. So how do you describe your work so as to inform the viewer that it has been created from a totally analogue process and differentiate it from work that has been produced on a computer and then just printed onto photo .

---

Obviously another digital vs analog slugfest.

In the first place NO fine art or even decent digital print is "just printed onto photo paper."

In digital as in analog. The process starts way back at viewing a scene or subject. The "photograph" is first and foremost processed in your brain. All your prejudices and experiences converge to aid you in making the decision that that subject or scene has potential. Then and only then do you decide to use some sort of recording device to capture and store it.

Nobody on earth can do what you just did.

From there you work with your recording device to make that scene or subject a real physical object that you can share with other people or just horde and look at yourself.

There are numerous platforms and processes that enable you to do that and when you are done, you are the only person on earth that could do what you just did.

To take that unique object and reduce it down to a process is doing a disservice to you and to the various processes available to you. You, your brain, your hands, your experience, your emotions have created something unique and you wish to advertise it as a process?

The tools you have chosen to create something have no bearing on the value of the object unless you decided to degrade it by labeling it that way. Your technique is merely a means to an end. And if you take that work of art/craft and need to label it, then you have not advanced to a place where your work has enough impact to sell itself.

As a matter of personal clarity and discipline I have devised a description formula that applies where a picture of one of my photographs can be seen but the physical reality of the photograph cannot itself be inspected. The commonest occasion for this is when I post an electronic file derived from the scan of a photograph. Here is a recent example from flickr:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8472/8...c4ae1468_z.jpg

Late Fall, Lake Jindabyne

Gelatin-silver photograph on Ultrafine Silver Eagle VC FB photographic paper, image size 21.3cm X 16.4cm, from a Fomapan 400 4x5 negative exposed in a Tachihara 45GF double extension field view camera fitted with a Schneider Super Angulon 75mm f5.6 lens and a #25 red filter.
Titled and signed recto, stamped and annotated verso.

That, I reckon, just about says it all and succinctly too.