Why Print?

Here are my thoughts; tell me yours.

A portfolio by Dr. Lew Rothman made at one of our portfolio workshops.

If you're already a subscriber to Paper Arts, this must seem like a strange question. You're obviously here because you already print, maybe you want to learn to print or want tips and new techniques, or you want be part of a community passionate about printing... the list goes on. So why do I ask: Why Print?

We get lots of folks who come to my public presentations, camera club talks, this newsletter, who are uncertain about whether to invest the time and money in fine art printing. That's why I'll raise and attempt to answer the question, at least from my perspective. Please feel free to disagree with my reasoning or add your reasons to print in the Comments section below.

Better Photography

There is no question in my mind that printing your work will improve your photography, and this comes from several decades of printing experience.

If you will be printing your work, you will need to slow down in the field. It happens gradually. You will learn that even minor mistakes, while they may look okay on your camera monitor as you are shooting, will look god-awful in a large print. That will help you to slow down and check the edges of your scene, to notice OOF areas, to wait for that car to pass out of the scene. It gets you to attend to details.

As a printer of your own works, it will also give you new perspectives. You will come to understand how the scene will render on paper. I know that when I shoot nowadays I even think of how the scene before me will render on a specific paper. Those are truly exciting moments, when I can't wait to get back to the studio and print.

Permanence

We all know anything posted on the internet will "live forever". Of course, nobody will ever see it again unless it's embarrassing. Are archival properties in and of itself the point? I propose it's more important that people see your work, appreciate it, and reinterpret it over and over again while it lasts.

Prints have permanence. With today's archival papers and inks, rigorous testing shows that prints will last 100+ years. Where will your digital images be in 20 years? More importantly who will see them? I doubt anyone. They will be buried under the weight of five hundred billion images posted every day since.

In a tangible, physical way, printing elevates your art. Posting on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter may get thousands of meaningless clicks today, but tends to devalue serious work.

Grab the Viewer

It has been repeatedly proven that prints grab the viewer in ways that digital just cannot. The average time spent viewing a digital image is 2.3 seconds! And that is on a pocket-sized smart phone that you have to squint at to see. When people view your prints hanging on a wall they will spend far more time, especially if it's a scene that captures an emotion for them.

Home, Office, Workplace Art

You can elevate your personal and public spaces with prints. Yes, I know you can play slide shows on those little "digital frames" or even giant 4K TVs. That's cheesy and not really "art". That may have been "Wow look at that!" novelty two decades ago but now nobody pays attention, much as we are blind to the ever rotating ad banners on the web.

Display Options

Prints are available in so many display options you would be hard pressed not to find one that meets your vision. Traditional, open-faced, MDF, aluminum, wood, glass, steel, face-mounted Plexiglas, Gatorboard... with new modalities coming out every year.

Best Gifts Ever

Pints make great gifts. You are giving an intimate selection of your creative art to someone you care about. An 8.5 x 11" paper with a 6 x 9" image and an inexpensive, commercial mat makes a memorable gift.

Enhanced Art

Now this is a personal belief of mine, so take it with lots of salt. I find smart phone displays devalue images. In some cases, by being confined to an über-tight screen, it even dehumanizes the subject, especially ones that involve social justice, war, loving intimacy, and more. Think of those same scenes in a large format print, with wall space around it and room to stand back, move in close, contemplate its story.

Do-It-Yourself?

You don't need to do the printing yourself. You can send it to a lab, but please follow a consistent workflow, stick to one lab you know and like, send them an SRGB profile (preferable in most instances) and study the print when it comes back so you can correct issues in the future.

Editorial Skills

Now we come to the most important element of why you should print, in my opinion. I saved it for last because I'd like you to think about this as a take-away.

After decades teaching photography I've found that the most difficult skill for all of us is self-editing. We teach an annual weekend workshop on Portfolio Development, in which the actual portfolio that our clients take home is gorgeous, yes, but actually a by-product of the self-editing that our clients learn through this challenging process.

Printing your work is a critical step in this process. When you print you learn some of the painful steps of self-editing. Which image is most worthy of printing? While capturing the image did I ignore details that needed attention? How can I improve the image through post-processing (of course if you are doing editorial photography you may not be allowed much latitude)? How does the large print compare with what I see on my monitor? What is the story I'm telling with my imagery? Who can critique my selections in a constructive, growth producing manner?

These are all important considerations, every one of them deriving from the desire to see one's work on paper.

Now You

These are the answers I come up with now to the question: Why Print? Please share with our community your reasons for putting your images on paper.