Why Print?
We are so over-saturated with images, so it’s a question: can I hold you – can I get you to look at an image for longer than a second?
Catherine Opie
We capture the world around us in a fraction of a second. Time is frozen as a photographic image, to reveal much about us, our fellow human beings and our surroundings. Viewing photographs reveals these nuances and moments that lead to discovering more about our environment and about ourselves as photographers. Such discoveries take time to become apparent, often over more than one viewing. But printing individual images, or a series for display, or sharing with others is in danger of becoming a dying art. The recent decision of the Royal Photographic Society to only accept digital submissions for Licentiate from April 2024 cements current reluctance amongst photographers to print their work. In my view, the decision of the Royal Photographic Society is a retrograde step, sending as it does to the wider photographic community that printing is no longer an important step in presenting and enjoying photographic images.
Any reliance on digital output inevitably shortens the time that a given image is viewed, whatever the venue, whatever the occasion. The viewer is less likely to examine the narrative of any particular photograph, nor subject it to repeated viewing.
How do you replicate the feel, the texture, the subtlety of a photograph on a computer screen: worse, on a phone or tablet? And how many of us stop for more than a few seconds to look at a photograph when the advance button beckons us to move on to the next image? The Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (PAGB) distinctions are assessed by a panel of assessors who only look at single digital images for 5 or 6 seconds at most. This despite the applicant slaving many hours over that single photograph.
Size matters! How we read a visual image is also dependent upon its size. Complex images on a small screen lose detail and look confusing. Any impact through careful composition and layering is diminished, if not lost entirely. But when printing, how many photographers think about the size of their prints? It is a useful exercise to print images at several sizes. Minimalist prints look good, whatever their size. To reduce waste, less is more: print fewer images but concentrate on the details, is my advice. An A3 print needs considerably more care to produce than its A4 cousin, in terms of both sharpness and contrast.
There is also the question of surface texture, and the role this plays on how a photograph is perceived by the viewer. Monochrome blacks are said to print deeper on glossy paper, but I would challenge this. Modern matt surfaces are more than capable of accepting deep blacks if care is taken with the preparation of the files. Landscape photographs often benefit from printing on a heavy weight matt paper where more ink is deposited on the paper surface. A whole new dimension of printing can open up with the use of specialist papers, such as those made from bamboo and mulberry. There is nothing that beats handling a print, feeling its tactile qualities in your hand, looking at it in different lights, and the sheer pleasure of seeing it mounted and framed.
The growing trend away from printing can only suffocate creativity and the effective communication of all that photography has to offer. Virtually every image on my website has at some time been printed. But I too find myself on the slippery slope of increasing the gap in interpretation between the screen and printed output. It is for this reason I produce photobooks for displaying my work, a trend among a growing number of photographers that surely must be applauded.