Pixiq

While reading an interview with legendary photographer Kurt Markus on APhotoEditor.com recently I was struck by one of his comments. In the interview with Rob Haggart he said, “It takes guts to make a print. You know you have to convince yourself that this is you, that you’ve made this and that you’re putting your name on it, and you also have to believe that maybe somebody else either can appreciate the work you’ve done or can appreciate the fact that this is you. There’s nothing else to hide behind....I’ll boldly say this. Those people [who never print their images] are never going to make it.” A bit further into the interview, along this line of questioning he also said, “If you make pictures, and pictures is your work, you might last for a few years [without printing your work], maybe even 10, but why would you want to be a photographer and not take it all the way, all the way to a print? I do not get it.”

Now, I have to admit that my first thought was this is a very “old school” way of thinking but before I dismissed his sentiments I mulled over them for a day or two. I have printed a lot of my work; for my print portfolio, fine art prints for clients and the like and I know that printing isn’t an easy process. It has been my experience that when you print an image you look at it more critically than you do on a computer monitor. I have seen things in my prints that I didn’t see on the monitor. I just recently printed one of my images 12 x 18 inches for an athlete and close friend. The image was an old film scan and once I printed the image and was looking at it I noticed a lot of strange spots on the print. Sure enough, I had not gone in an removed the dust sports from the original film scan. I had been staring at the image for 30 minutes or more prepping it to be printed and only noticed the spots after printing the image. In hindsight, perhaps Mr. Markus has a point.

Digital images these days are a set of ones and zeros. The image doesn’t really exist in the physical world until you print it out. And in the process of printing it out the image is perfected to a higher degree. There is definitely something to be learned by printing an image, especially one captured digitally. In this day an age, where images are printed more often on high end ink jet printers than in a darkroom, the process has changed but the end result is the same. I have my color management here in the office dialed in to a degree few other folks have attained and still when I print an image, especially a fine art print or a print for my portfolio, I will make a series of prints and tweak the image ever so slightly to improve the final output. Kurt Markus has been doing this for a long time professionally and very successfully so “old school” or not, wisdom like his cannot be dismissed. If you call yourself a photographer I’d recommend following his advice.

If you'd like to read the entire interview on Aphotoeditor.com click here.

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