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CALIFORNIA FINE ART LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY |
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At the Silver International Conference and Competition held March 3-5,
2006, at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, the main
question on everyone's mind was how the beloved gelatin silver print would
survive the digital age. A few weeks later, this same question came up
repeatedly in conversations at the annual Society for Photographic Education
conference held in Chicago. More recently, my concern was renewed when I
received yet another brochure from Epson touting how their new inks work in
combination with their printers to produce "real black and white prints,
without any compromise."
With each advancement in digital black-and-white printing, darkroom
photographers ask, why bother? We already have an excellent process with
highly reliable products and suppliers. It is relatively easy to learn to make
good black-and-white prints. Yet, many artists have devoted decades to
mastering the process. The gelatin silver print combines the essence of craft
with the ambition of art, and, in our time of dreary automation and mediated
experiences, the satisfaction, even joy, of darkroom work is undeniable.
But there are big profits to be made from digital technology. Chemical
darkrooms do not cost as much to set up or maintain as digital studios, and a
half-life is built into the hardware and software. Consider this: how many of
us have the same computer and printer as we did five years ago? It is a figure
unlike the number of us who have the same camera and enlarger. Compare the
Nikon FM2 I bought in 1985 for $600 to the Nikon Coolpix I bought in 2003 for
$999. One is a reliable workhorse and the other is a fancy paperweight. Yet
each year new products designed to improve our digital images are marketed as
"the way to go." Crowds flock to buy a printer with the newest technology and
the latest inkjet papers, and to upgrade their software, plug-ins, and print
drivers. All this is an attempt to mimic the traditional gelatin silver print
we have been making for decades--and the result is still found lacking. One
positive aspect of this drive for the latest gadget is that the
technology-obsessed dilettantes show up a lot less in photography classes. My
students are overwhelmingly interested in making pictures instead of just
learning technique, and my classes are as full as ever.
Just as photography freed painting to do more than record a likeness or scene,
digital imagery is freeing film photography from the mundane tasks of
commercial and news photography that instant imagery serves so well. Painting
did not die in 1839; it is now more important than it has been for a long
time. Photography is entering a similar phase where the handcrafted object,
and the properties that make a gelatin silver print unique, are taking on a
new significance. This credo was made famous by the late Robert Heinecken who
said, "The photograph is not a picture of something but is an object about
something." (1)
Judging from auction prices and gallery exhibitions, the fine art market seems
more interested than ever in the gelatin silver print. Obvious reasons for
this include its handcrafted nature, depth of image, quality of tones,
overwhelming beauty, lengthy tradition, and the fact that it utilizes a
precious metal. Yet museums are also open to whatever is happening at a given
time. Tim Wride, Interim Head of the Photography Department at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art (LACMA), commented:
We in the museums are in a privileged position in that we go where the
artists lead us. They are the ones who dictate what we collect, and at
LACMA, we've been collecting digital photography for some time. With
the technological advancements in stability and longevity, it has made
our job easier. Gelatin silver prints and inkjet prints are different
objects and what's really interesting is why an artist chooses which
material and how that medium effects the artwork. (2)
Likewise, Billy O'Connor of Wessel + O'Connor Gallery in New York said that
black-and-white photographs are what he wants to exhibit, and, having been in
the business for twenty years, he knows what his collectors like. "Having said
that," O'Connor notes:
We have had quite a bit of interest in some color digital work
recently as well. With the recent $3 million at auction for ...
[Edward] Steichen['s] image [The Pond-Moonlight (1904)], it shows the
allure of the unique black-and-white image--no matter what the
specific medium (it was a platinum print). But being a handmade object
in the digital age adds to its value. (3)
With market forces driving the trend, the end of the silver print is
inevitable, unless users keep it alive. James Reilly, director of the Image
Permanence Institute at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New
York, tells us that it takes a sophisticated and costly process to manufacture
silver paper, and, when the market becomes so small that companies cannot make
the profit they want, they will stop producing silver paper. Kodak has already
decided to stop production of its silver paper line, Agfa is gone, and Ilford
sold their black-and-white division to employees. Fortunately, Eastern Europe
has a long history of fine silver paper manufacturers, and distributors like
Freestyle Photographic Supplies in Los Angeles have guaranteed them a strong
market. If photography teachers continue to see an advantage to teaching
chemical-based photography, we can continue to provide enough profit to ensure
a steady, if diminished supply. Gerald Karmele, senior vice president and
chief operating officer at Freestyle, points out that about ninety-five
percent of the photography market chases technology. When black-and-white was
all there was, the market was huge. As color became the norm in the 1960s, the
market share of black-and-white users inevitably dropped.
Now that digital is the latest thing, the market has segmented once again. The
manufacturers that see their sales drop panic and leave the still relatively
lucrative black-and-white segment ripe for smaller businesses to exploit--and
this is a good thing. Karmele has his finger on the pulse of the
black-and-white market, and his business has grown considerably due to his
dedication to cultivating good materials and keeping supplies on hand.
Educators play an important role in supporting the market, and, while not
every photo student will continue using black-and-white materials, every
photographer who uses black and white probably learned the craft in a
photography class. This suggests that, while the gelatin silver print may
eventually hold only a niche in the photography world, it will be around for a
very long time.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
But if the end is in sight, why fight the inevitable? Ansel Adams's analogy
between music and photography is instructive here: "Each print is like a
performance, each is unique, not something that is formulaically executed,
identical and robotic." (4) "Command-P" lacks the aura and mystery that comes
from working in the dim red glow of the darkroom, the physical act of bathing
a print in chemicals and the sound of water rushing over the surface. I
clearly recall the moment as a photography student when I witnessed my first
print appear in the developer. That experience, coupled with the power of the
gelatin silver print, is what seduced me to photography.
As the digital revolution becomes more progressive, I still see a place for
the silver print along with prints and any other form that may arise in the
future. What I find most impressive, yet simultaneously depressing, about
digital prints are their perfection--a coldness that makes each so perfect as
to seem removed from human experience. This is the same coldness of the
chemical-based prints made in commercial labs and exhibited in galleries. The
homogenizing effect of digital technology, in capture and print, has elevated
many mediocre images but has also helped emphasize the unique characteristics
of silver-based film and paper and, more importantly, the handmade print. An
article in Photo District News in 2004 spoke about the increasing number of
magazine photographers covering the United States presidential election who
were choosing film, precisely because their images looked different than those
made by digital photographers.
The photographic print, when done well, is an experessive medium that conveys
content, just as the image does, and a careful consideration of these choices
is crucial for artmakers. As Wride said, it is the thinking behind the choice
that is really interesting and, also, how that thinking affects the image. (5)
The combined experience and effect of the silver print, powerful and visceral,
is an opportunity younger artists could miss as they are exposed to fewer and
fewer silver prints. Perhaps they will be brought up with the digital print as
their basis for seeing a photograph. Certainly the daguerreotypists were
dismayed at the lower quality of the ambrotype, and they in turn were
dismissive of the much lower quality of the tintype; albumen prints from wet
collodion have a distinctive look compared to gelatin prints and platinum is
entirely different from silver. Time marches on and that with which we are not
familiar will become foreign and eventually lost. We still have choices and
need to decide how to exercise them, but my own experience as an artist and
teacher is clear: I still remember my first silver print appearing in the
developer (fortunately, I do not recall the bad image), and my students tell
me how exciting it is to make "real" photographs. My colleagues report a sharp
decline in enrollment when they drop chemical photography classes. As digital
photography becomes ever more popular, the unique properties of the gelatin
silver print will become more appreciated. Look deeply into a richly printed,
beautiful gelatin silver photograph and it is hard imagine who would want to
let it become obsolete.
THOMAS MCGOVER is the author of Bearing Witness (To AIDS) (1999) and Alpha
Teach Yourself Black and White Photography in 24 Hours (2002). He is an
associate professor of art at California State University, San Bernardino
