Hi All,
I, Jamie Heiden, am looking for some input. I have been asked often where my "Original" is? In other words, I have customers who are looking to purchase a piece but rather than the piece being one of a numbered limited edition, they would like to purchase the original. I can easily define this concept of "the original" when dealing with watercolors or oil painting or even traditional darkroom printing but when it concerns digital imaging I have difficulty. In darkroom printing the original is produced using the development process and then prints are made another way. So, one could have the original on photographic paper printed in the darkroom and the limited edition prints produced via scanning into the computer and printing with the Giclee process.
Can digital imaging have an original? Could I label an original one that is printed or presented differently -for example, an image that is printed larger and varnished and framed without glass as opposed to printed, matted and framed under glass (like all of my limited edition series would be)?
This may be a question better asked in person because it can get a bit confusing... but if any of you have any input now, I would appreciate it.
Thanks, Jamie
Jamie-- I don't have anything to offer re this vexing question, but feel that it would make an excellent topic for discussion at our next meeting. Thanks for visiting this blog, especially during the droughts, for commenting and for posting. Byron
ReplyDeleteJamie,
ReplyDeleteThe concept of an original has always been problematic for photography. Even in traditional film photography, every print has to be considered an "original." Of course, each of these originals is closer to being unique, in that they are produced one at a time with slight variations, because a human is not a machine. Digital prints can in my mind not be considered originals because they are clones. A clone, not being unique, can hardly be an original. It is closer to a recording of a live performance. The original exists in the past, and only identical copies are left to share with an audience.
This has always suggested to me that digital photography really deserves its own genre, being more like lithography than traditional photography. A digital print, in my estimation, cannot be an original lacking some claim to uniqueness. Thus the value of every print must be identical: there are none that are special because they are the "first strike" and therefore better quality, or because they were the photographers first and unique attempt to interpret a negative in the darkroom.
I know this opinion causes a lot of hostility among digital "photographers" who wish to be associated with the likes of Ansel Adams, John Sexton, and other great darkroom artists, merely because the "gun" they capture their images with looks and operates similarly, but in my mind, the print is the ultimate artistic expression of photographic art, and a print produced at the touch of a button, should in no way approach in value one pulled by hand from the tray.
I second Byron's suggestion that we talk about this more, not because I think there is an answer that is correct, but because it will make us think more about what we do in the context of an artistic endeavor vis a vis a hobby.
Ron Reimer
hmmm... I was looking for your input specifically Ron - thanks! It will be an interesting conversation to have, I think.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if, in your opinion, there is such a thing as a digital photographer or only digital "photographers"?
Said with a smile to set the table for a wonderfully interactive conversation next week.
jamie heiden, photographer :)