ku # 699 ~ it's hard to get by the stink
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 10:48AM 
Flat top boulder ~ in the NE Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenPursuant to yesterday's entry about struggling to break out of the pretty picture mold picture makers, it is well worth directing added attention to the notion of the application of craft in making your vision viable and visible.
That's because one of the other things that I have noticed about those frustrated picture makers is that their pictures have a very noticeable lack of craft. Even on a computer monitor, the pictures have the look of "drugstore" prints - a derisive term that comes from back in the day when most amateur snapshot makers took their film to a neighborhood drugstore for "photo finishing". Photo finishing that was, at best, mediocre - as compared to what could be had from the same film in the hands of a skilled "custom" (read as "expensive") print maker.
An aside - in a somewhat ironic twist, in today's digital picture printing world, if you know what you are doing, digital-domain processing wise, you can take your files to a drugstore and get back prints that are quite literally, with just the push of a button, very very very close in print quality to those obtained from a very expensive professional printing source.
That said, here's the thing about a finely crafted print - if your prints look like horse manure - which is to say that they are not objects of beauty in and of themselves (independent of their referent) - then it follows that very few viewers, if any at all, are going to even make it to the point of getting to your "vision" / what you are trying to say.
That notion is not a radical one. It's been a known fact since round about the dawn of humankind that you can attract more bees with honey than you can with horse manure.
If, as a picture maker, you can not make a finely crafted print - or, more to the point, a finely crafted image file that you can route to a good print making machine and get a good print - then chances are good that you'll never be a good picture maker.
If, as a picture maker, you do not acquire the skills and make the effort to make good prints - as opposed to being satisfied with viewing your pictures on a monitor - then chances are good that you'll never be a good picture maker.
If, as a picture maker, you don't have a clue as to what a finely crafted print looks like, then chances are good that you'll never be a good picture maker.
IMO, a finely crafted print is the foundation upon which good pictures are grounded. In a metaphorical sense, a finely crafted print is like a carnival barker who gets you into the tent where you can discover a wealth of earthly oddities and delights. And heaven help the carnival barker who is piling shit so high that you can't even get near the place for the stink much less even see the door to the tent.
Reader Comments (1)
I contacted you a while back, a long while back to purchase a print for this very reason. To see what a finely crafted print actaully looks like. I was going to study it and compare it to what I have considered a finely crafted print. You indicated that you didn't want me to purchase it, that you would rather do a print exchange. Now I almost wish you did allow me to purchase it, so I could of bugged the crap out of you to receive it.
It would have been nice to receive it a long while back.