Photo Project: Buying Prints from Your Favorite Photographers
“It’s not a photo until its a print“
One of the unique aspects of digital photography is that we’re now able to enjoy photographic work with out viewing it in printed form.  More so now than ever before supporting a photographer is shown almost exclusively online through photo forums, blogs, and other online communities. While viewing photographs online is easy and relatively inexpensive it is a hollow experience by comparison to holding an actual print from a photographer you respect and admire.
The goal of this project is to introduce fine art photography, photography books, print exchanges, and other photography related products to photography fans of all walks of life. It is also to spur photography fans to think in terms of financially supporting talented photographers so they can continue to do what they love.
What This Project Entails:
- Find 1 to 3 photographs from photographers that you respect and admire.
- Purchase a photograph or photographs from these photographers. Spend within your means. Ideally try to purchase 1 to 3 photographs.
- Write about the experience (buying, viewing, etc) on your web site, blog, Flickr page, etc.
- Participants should then send me a link to their write up (see details below)
- I’ll consolidate a list of links to the write ups of everyone that took part in early November on my blog and distribute it.
What You Can Do To Make This Project A Success
- Contact photographers that you may or may not know.
- Point them to this post and provide them background to your print request.
- Even if you have little to spare inquire about a discount or an alternate product to purchase such as notecards, calendars, proof print, etc. I realize that times are challenging economically at the moment. Any support is better than no support. The goal is to obtain a physical copy of photographs you like.
- Alternatively if you’re a photographer it is not uncommon to conduct print exchanges, where photographers exchange equivalent prints. Not every photographer may do this so don’t be offended if you approach someone who is not interested in such an exchange.
- If you’re a photographer consider providing a discount to project participants. I personally will discount my print prices 25% to those participating.
- Spread the word about this project.
The Deadline
Before the conclusion of this project on November 2nd, 2008 write a blog post highlighting the photographs you’ve acquired and share thoughts of your experience in becoming a fine art print owner. Send me a link to your blog post and I’ll post the results the week of November 3rd.
How to send in your link to your blog post:
- - Access my Contact page
Note: Omit “http://” on any links. - - In the subject line type “Favorite Photographer Prints”
- - In the message put the name of your site, web address, link to your “Favorite Photographer Print” blog entry.
PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR BLOG LINK AS A COMMENT TO THIS ENTRY.
Get To It!
I’m extremely excited at the prospect of how this project will open the eyes to first time fine art print owners. I already have a couple print requests in with photographers, a print exchange request and I’ll be purchasing a book titled Cubano by Baldomero Fernandez who is donating all proceeds from purchases to hurricane relief efforts in Cuba.
Technorati Tags: Photography, Fine Art, Prints, Photo Project
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i’m kind of curious, when photographers sell prints, do they tend to sell printouts from an inkjet printer, or are they normally actual photographic prints from something like a fuji frontier?. . . or is the end result basically the same thing so that people don’t really care what the process was?. . .
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The vast majority of prints sold today are pigment prints made on inkjet printers, though some photographers try to obscure this fact by using terms like “giclee’” or just “carbon/pigment print” or other more prestigious-sounding descriptions.
The end result is never the same. Every medium has its own unique look, and which one is “better” is really up to personal taste. In the hands of a skilled operator, inkjet and traditional prints can look very very close.
For color work, pigment prints are generally more archival (sometimes a lot more) than traditional ones. For B&W prints that may not necessarily be true.
Ultimately though, the printing technology should be secondary to the emotional appeal of the image so if you find something you like – go for it. A high quality print on any medium should offer a great medium to appreciate the image.
Guy
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Interesting idea Jim, I hope it is popular!
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guy> thanks. . . it was something i always kind of half-assed wondered about ever since a few years ago when a photographer friend of mine bought a print and was bummed that it was an inkjet printout. . . i personally didn’t really see the problem ‘cuz you could only really tell up close – a distance at which you normally wouldn’t check out the print. . .
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great idea Jim….I know personally I’m always shocked at what my stuff looks like when printed. I turn in a file and then hope it looks OK…and always (so far) am more impressed by the print than the image…not that my stuff is all that great…but it goes from so-so to SO-SO! y’know..
but one thing is everyone has different calibrated monitors…and it’s hard for everyone to see the photographers finished idea…until he or she prints it…
great idea Jim.
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Some photographers still even use color film and print using Ilfochrome papers and chemistry… and so their own wet darkroom printing. Every paper and chem/ink combo will create a different look to an image. You need to know what you want your image to look like and then print accordingly. Film of course, can be scanned, and then printed using any digital printer of choice.
Smaller copies of a large Master many times are of a lesser archival quality and thus less expensive, all the way down to cards and magnets. You can also use a DNG file and make a negative out of a digital image. So it is all a matter of being an artist and making your final Print match your visualized image.
I have purchased so many Fine Art prints that I have to rotate them on my walls…Great Idea Jim…
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