"Silver Gelatin Prints"

[brian steinberger]

In case you haven't seen this:

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/gelatin/silvergelatin.asp

WHAT?!? I've never seen these stamps in any paper I've bought from Ilford. Very cool!

[DWThomas]

I usually say "Gelatin Silver Print" or "Toned Gelatin Silver Print" when I enter work in shows. (I put gelatin first as I suspect there's more of that than there is silver.) Those long lines about "traditional ... blah blah blah" would be fine in an artist's statement, but in most of the shows I enter the entry form line for medium is about an inch long!

Occasionally I am asked by visitors to the shows what that means, in which case I explain "I use a darkroom."

[Vaughn]

"No pixels were harmed, folded, nor manipulated in the making of this print."

And I will have to remember (and use if and when approbiate) Dave's, "I use a darkroom."

[Roger Cole]

Y'all may he right that the alternatives are too long. It's one way to distinguish them anyway and those who care will know what it means.

No so sure "chemicals" is a no-no. Depends on your audience. I consider myself liberal and environmentally aware and my wife more so on both. She just asked if it was ok and I explained what was, what wasn't and why and that was that. But as I have commented on pilot boards where others keep running into folks that think an airplane plummets vertically if the engine fails, while I have NEVER met anyone who thought that, I don't seem to talk to as many dim bulbs as mist people do.

[tkamiya]

"My print contains precious metals" so it's worth more....

[JBrunner]

Traditionally, prints are described as what they are made of, and then how they are printed, and finally what they are printed on. Like "silver gelatin contact print on Varycon", however, that is much more appropriate for a gallery or museum than a local market. Almost nobody will know what the heck you are talking about. Fewer will care. The first and foremost lesson of marketing is not to market to yourself. Market to your customer. People out shopping for whatever will buy because they like the print. If they find satifaction in the method, so much the better, but the prints that sell are the ones people relate to, or find interesting, or beautiful. Art is in the breast, not the brain.

[Vaughn]

...But as I have commented on pilot boards where others keep running into folks that think an airplane plummets vertically if the engine fails, while I have NEVER met anyone who thought that, I don't seem to talk to as many dim bulbs as mist people do.

I suppose if the engine failure was due to the wings the engines were on falling off, then the plummet might be vertical...

There was a heart-wrenching story about the young man who went off to WWI and never returned. He supposively chained his bike to a tree, and over the years the bike is now 10 feet up in the tree with the trunk growing around it. There is an approbiate photo with the story. It is difficult to convince people that in order for that bike to be 10 feet up in the air, it had to have put up that high originally. If someone hammers in a "No Hunting" sign 8 feet up a tree and the tree grows a foot a year in height, in 30 years that sign will still be 8 feet up the trunk...not 38 feet.

But anyway, since I do three different processes, platinum, carbon and silver gelatin (to differentiate between processes that use silver, but no gelatin emulsion), it is nice having short descriptive names for the processes. A carbon print, as opposed to a monochromatic single-transfer gelatin-carbon print.

[Roger Cole]

Makes sense (the photo and the processes.) And you're right, "traditional darkroom" doesn't necessarily mean the same as silver gelatin. In fact some could say that silver gelatin is a newcomer and you're the one being traditional. Then the wet plate folks could say...

[lxdude]

Art is in the breast, not the brain.

If that's true then a girl I went to school with was a masterpiece!!

[SteveR]

I give up. I'll just make sure my pics are 50 cents less than the competition.

Yup, that's the answer

I recently went through the process of trailing new papers after realising my FB stock was low, and no longer produced. I made identical prints on half a dozen different papers and kept them in a folder that travels with me, just so I could pull them out and ask the opinion of other photographers/artists/clients I ran into. The people 'in the know' unanimously chose one of two of my favorite fibre papers. The majority of those 'not in the know' (non-arty folks, 'low-end' clients and a couple bigger-bucks clients) absolutely gushed over a semi-matte RC, most saying "Now THAT looks professional, just like what you used to get back from Kodak or Rabbit photo"

...I can't tell you how many times I slapped my forehead during this whole process, but I did learn: if it's a pretty picture, it will sell. If its a pretty picture on nice paper, it will be admired, but mostly by people who can barely afford to eat, let alone purchase art.