Inspirational photo print quotes are great for two reasons;
First, they ignite us when we want to give up providing us motivation to continue withour craft.
Second, you know they’re words of wisdom because people don’t quote other people who aren’t particularly good at something! They remind us not to our rely on digital forms of data storage. Because technology changes so fast.
This article is about a collection of a few photo printing quotes, in no particular order…enjoy! Comment with your favourite
1. “A print is the photographer’s statement about the light, the mood, the space, the spirit and being of the image, and that interpretation may change with time, with technology, and with the photographer’s own interpretation of the image. A print is the completion of a photograph; without it the image is suspended in time, without interpretation.”
Eric Meola
2. “I don’t think that the printed photograph is ever going to go away….I think it will likely become a minor aspect of the medium….I’m desperately practicing a minor art, and hope that it lives as long as I do.”
Richard Benson
3. “A picture is worth a thousand words; A fine art print so much more.”
Steve Denby
4. “With virtuoso technique, large prints can look almost as good as small ones.”
Attributed to John Szarkowski talking about Ansel Adams
5. “I photograph like a documentarian but print like a painter.”
Todd Hido
6. “When you make prints you deepen your relationship with your images.”
John Paul Caponigro
7. “My aim is not to exhibit craft, but rather to submerge it, and make it rightfully the handmaiden of beauty, power and emotional content.”
Andrew Wyeth
8. Matte digital prints are gorgeous, don’t you agree? But the glossy digital prints, I just can’t stand that paper.
Sally Mann
9. Don’t let your printer know you are in a hurry, They smell fear.
unknown
10. “Fine art prints created by the artist, or the artist’s collaborator, are important because they best represent the artist’s vision. Images displayed on digital devices are subject to the non-uniform nature of different displays and they may appear radically different then the artist intended.”
Mac Holbert
11. “The thing that is ironic is that the new digital technologies, to my mind, are way and away the finest printing processes that have ever existed – they are better than anything that has existed in the past. I find myself very, very excited to use this new technology that is going to destroy photography to make the best versions of it I’ve ever seen.”
Richard Benson
12. “We should always remember that the practice of printing – of using an object to control the form of a repeated picture – has had a role in human culture from its earliest days.”
Richard Benson
13. “When you look at a photograph that is printed, you are free of distraction allowing you to really engage and experience all that it has to offer. The experience triggers an emotional response very different from simply seeing an image for a fleeting moment on a screen. The print is finished product that engages the viewer. People want to move closer and even touch a print. Viewing a print encourages the viewer to travel into the frame imagining the experience of being in that place.”
Seth Resnick
14. “They say my prints are bad, darling they should see my negatives”
Lisette Model
15. “My ideal is to achieve the ability to produce numberless prints from each negative, prints all significantly alive, yet indistinguishably alike, and to be able to circulate them at a price not higher than that of a popular magazine, or even a daily paper. To gain that ability there has been no choice but to follow the road I have chosen.”
Alfred Stieglitz
16. “The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.”
Ansel Adams
17. “Regarding rumors that the digital age is soon to render photographic prints as being no longer necessary or relevant (due to increasing numbers of photographic images being viewed on electronic monitors) speculators overlook the tremendous importance and historic relevance of the physical artifact as being a uniquely necessary and applicable aspect of photographic art. The electronic image could no more replace a fine photographic print, than a synthesizer could replace a violin!”
Huntington Witherill
18. “In music I still prefer the minor key, and in printing I like the light coming from the dark. I like pictures that surmount the darkness, and many of my photographs are that way. It is the way I see photographically. For practical reasons, I think it looks better in print too.”
W. Eugene Smith
19. “When you make a print, you are making an art object. You can’t hang a scan on the wall.”
George Tice
20. “To convey in the print the feeling you experienced when you exposed your film – to walk out of the darkroom and say: ‘This is it, the equivalent of what I saw and felt!’. That’s what it’s all about.”
John Sexton
21. “The print is an idea made visible. For my process, a photograph isn’t a photograph until it’s a print. I love the physical presence of a print, from beginning to end. For me it’s a tactile, sensual experience. I want it to be an object of beauty, whether the subject moves you or not.”
Tillman Crane
21. “A photograph doesn’t feel real until it is a tangible physical object I can hold in my hand.”
Stephen Johnson
22. “A beautiful print is a thing in itself, not just a halfway house on the way to the page.”
Irving Penn
24. “Mostly, I worked so quickly, I didn’t see the details of a photograph until it was printed.”
Harold Feinstein
25. “I was a very, very careful printer when I used 8-by-10 film. I probably spent more time on printing than anything else. The more the prints were appreciated, the more time I spent on them.”
Ruth Bernhard
26. “I think that it is a sensual pleasure – image making. It’s not just the finished print which is sensual in terms of the tactile qualities of the materials that I use. I’m seduced by the light, all the time.”
Elizabeth Opalenik
27. “I like to think one of art’s greatest techniques is creative stumbling, where missteps lead to creative encounters. Digital printing is an adequate place to falter — the wet darkroom is a veritable minefield of happy stumbling opportunities.”
Dan Burkholder
28. “For me the printing process is part of the magic of photography. It’s that magic that can be exciting, disappointing, rewarding and frustrating all in the same few moments in the darkroom.”
John Sexton
29. “To convey in the print the feeling you experienced when you exposed your film – to walk out of the darkroom and say: ‘This is it, the equivalent of what I saw and felt!’. That’s what it’s all about.”
John Sexton
30. “The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.”
Ansel Adams
31. “In my mind’s eye, I visualize how a particular… sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.”
Ansel Adams
32. “Some of my photographs have always been a mystery to me in terms of how I arrived at them. Even with the technical ability to produce fine prints, I am hard put to know how it happens, yet unless technique and materials are seriously investigated and experienced, I see that moving statements are seldom made.”
Paul Caponigro
33. “All that I have achieved are these dreams locked in silver.”
Paul Caponigro
34. “It’s the last 5% in quality that separates the good prints from the great prints.”
John Paul Caponigro
35. “We used to have to make prints in order to view certain images, particularly black and white ones. Now you don’t. But for many of us, prints are still very much desired – I think they always will be. Physical prints do many things that no other method of presentation does. With a print you experience an image in combination with specific materials, which enhance expression. You experience a print at specific scales, which has an impact on how an image is viewed and in many cases modifies the message the image conveys. Prints offer non-powered portability; they can be retrieved and distributed at a moments notice to anyone without the need for other supporting devices or additional communication. Prints can be displayed in ways that make an image’s presence more durable, affecting and even shaping the environments they inhabit; with sustained viewing this can add additional depth to looking. Prints are collectible. While the time-honored tradition of printmaking is currently evolving rapidly (so rapidly that it would be fair to say it is experiencing a profound paradigm shift) it is very much with us today, and will be for the foreseeable future.”
John Paul Caponigro
36. “The fine print is much more than a mere reproduction of an image. It is the culmination of the inspiration and vision of the photographer. It is the clearest, most direct and powerful form of the image and has the ability to move beyond words, ideas and concepts to touch and move the viewer in the most direct and immediate way. In its highest form, the fine print can be a transparent vehicle, boldly communicating with whispers and suggestions of worlds previously unseen and unknown. No other form of the image can convey as powerfully the subtleties, the presence and the luminosity which exists in the fine print.”
Christopher Burkett
37. “Something happens between a novel and its reader which is similar to the process of developing photographs, the way they did it before the digital age. The photograph, as it was printed in the darkroom, became visible bit by bit. As you read your way through a novel, the same chemical process takes place.”
Patrick Modiano
38. “I consider it essential that the photographer should do his own printing and enlarging. The final effect of the finished print depends so much on these operations.”
Bill Brandt
39. “I set myself up in opposition to the thing that I’m going to photograph and I try and find a place to stand so that when the image is made a visual resonance is engaged between me and the subject. I can then take that image and amplify it in any number of different directions as I take it into the print making process. And then, when the print is seen by someone else, whether I’m there or not, hopefully what I’ve put into that piece will initiate another situation of resonance between the print and the viewer. That’s what’s really important to me.”
Craig Stevens
40. You cant stop people printing what they want to print
Alan Sugar
Conclusion
So there you have it, look through these photographers thoughts on photo printing, remember Digital data is a ticking time bomb. Technology changes so quickly. Get your Photos printed.
For more printing article, Check this article out!
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