Final Judgement
As photographers, we talk a lot about the photographic process from original planning, through the making of an image, to post processing - and then what? A post on Instagram, an update to our website galleries - or a final, physical print? It may, of course, be all of these and more, but a recent experience has led me to consider whether I can truly make a final judgement about an image unless I have seen it as a final, physical print.
Winter birch - Vesteralen, Norway
I am a latecomer to printing in the digital world, which seems surprising given my love of spending many hours of my photographic youth buried in the school darkroom. So why my seeming reluctance to continue to produce prints as the culmination of my image-making endeavours in the digital era? The answer probably lies in a combination of the sheer visual power of images seen on digital screens with their superb backlighting and ease of manipulation - and a tendency to idleness on my part. But there is another factor - and that is the upfront cost and apparent complexity of printing in the digital world. A friend of mine recently suggested that the ‘Print’ button in Lightroom should be called the £5 button, given that each piece of A3 paper costs about £3 and the ink another £2!
During the analogue years of my photographic life, our choices for the final viewing of our work were limited. While it was relatively straightforward, if time consuming, to produce black and white prints in a blacked out bathroom, it was significantly more challenging to print in colour. For most of us, this remained the realm of professional - and expensive - print shops. Accordingly, for everyone working with colour transparencies, you either faced the choice of peering at tiny slides on light-boxes using a loupe, or you could load your slides into a cassette, sit back and admire your images on a white wall or projector screen. None of these options was ideal but the compromises were acceptable because there were few alternatives.
As the new millennium dawned, so the digital world swiftly overcame our early concerns. I well remember the first time I took the decision to leave my film cameras at home and to travel solely with my newly acquired Nikon D70. But while the images I made were immediately compelling - who didn’t/doesn’t like getting immediate feedback from the camera’s rear screen? - digital inkjet printing remained in its infancy and many of us were simply underwhelmed by the lack of quality produced by early printers.
However, while the lure of bright screens, the ease of posting to the web, and uncertain print quality led me to abandon the printed image for a time, the ultimate attraction of the physical print has always remained. There is simply nothing quite like holding your work in your hands or seeing an audience respond to your printed work on the walls of a gallery. So recently, I have made a determined effort to resume printing as the final stage in my photographic workflow.
In turn, the reappearance of printed images as the culmination of efforts has led to some surprising discoveries. The image that accompanies this article - a quiet moment amongst some wintry birch trees on a Vesteralen mountainside - has sat in my library for the past four months. It lacks the drama that is inherent in much of my winter work in northern Norway. It does not shout at you or command priority viewing but when I printed this image last week I was suddenly taken by its innate sense of quiet balance, which in turn reminded me of the solitude of being in the mountains and away from pounding seashores and dramatic snowstorms.
The image is now sitting on a shelf opposite my desk as I write. I am starting to think that it may be amongst my favourite images that I made last February. I am not sure that this would be my final judgement unless I had made the print which has enabled me to see its subtleties and reflect once more on the importance of a print as the final step in each photographic journey.
