#768. Should you print your photographs at home?

According to Wikipedia, DIY culture, with its grassroots societal overtones, spans a range of activities that includes Kit Cars (science fiction in a country overrun by administration such as France), naked cycling events, guerilla gardening, anarcho-punk and cult of the dead cow. But not home printing. I wonder why.

It hardly seems fair, too. After all, the perfect novice embarking on a printing journey soon encounters the same sort of anarchic impulses as The Psalters, Exit-Stanec and Poison girls. Here’s a world where it’s OK to sell you 50 dollars a product that costs 23 cents to make (ink). Not even the obscenely high markups of bottled water and designer jeans come even close to this. Revolt, I say. Here’s a world which, much like nude riding, can be political, recreational, artistic or any combination thereof. And I pledge to print a few photographs butt naked to support freedom. Here’s a world which, much like Cult of the Dead Cow, can provide all that’s needed for a powerful activist movement. Here’s a world which, much like guerilla gardening, can help make derelict areas look more attractive and promote a new way of thinking about property. Here’s a world which, much like kit cars, can provide hundred of hours of escapism (that’s a good thing) and redirect our GAS towards more grounded and creative preoccupations.

Anyway, rather than dwell on why the wiki overlords do not consider home printing a pursuit worthy of recognition in the DIY culture archives, maybe a better question should be “why in the world would any sane person want to print their own photographs ?“. I’m writing this as a deliberate counterpoint to Chris Stump’s very thought-provoking :

Who, honestly, who appreciates photography enough to have it around doesn’t produce and prefer their own? What photographer would buy another photographer’s original work unless one particular image was especially motivating or, if you’re well off, as an investment?

(believe me, that couple of sentences kept me awake for a long time …)

The correct answer to Chris’ question is probably “anyone who’s not yet printed their work”

The obvious reaction to mine is “to have prints of your work”. And that is very wrong. In fact, I’m tempted to think the last  and worst reason to print at home is to have prints of your work. Printing is hard, frustrating, meandering, toxic and super expensive. If you want prints of your work, there are plenty of pro labs that will do a remarkable job of it for the cost of a couple of pints. Just do it.

Don’t believe me ?

I own 3 types of prints :

• Prints I can afford of artists I like (TheOnlinePhotographer is a great source for those).
• Chemical darkroom prints of my film eras.
• Digital prints of my digital era, printed by Picto, in Paris. Excellent, cheap and fun. Everything that my inkjet prints, made over the years, have not been (they are now all in the bin).

Still don’t believe me ? Check out this video review of the Epson P600 by Tony Northrup. He begins by explaining he threw away all his former inkjet gear long ago and swore never to return, just as I did. Early injket printing was an exercise in frustration comparable only to French administrative procedures. And, to me, he seems slightly flummoxed around the P600 (remember this is one of the most highly regarded experts in our industry). Printing doesn’t seem hard to people who have been doing it for the past 30 years. Just like walking. But look at all the one-year-olds holding on to their hair while precariously balancing on one leg before collapsing on the other. That’s how you feel when you begin digital printing from scratch (which is perfectly normal, since digital simplified everything, right?).

In no particular order of preference, here are a few of the stumbling blocks you’ll encounter along your way, and which have surfaced during my first days of bingesting YouTube expertise :

• If you are not careful, bankruptcy. Buying a printer seems benign because manufacturers offer so many discounts and sell below costs to lure the innocent into their nets. But buying inks is crippling if you are not careful and deliberate in your learning.
• Clogging. Reports vary but it seems that the higher end you buy the more you need to use your printer. According to expert Jose Rodriguez, top-notch printers have to be used at least every 2 hours (that’s hours, not days, not weeks, not months). Lower down the range, you’ll get away with progressively greater intervals (some printer models are more tolerant than others. My first 10 prints on my first Epson A3+ cost me far more than the printer itself …). When you leave your printer off, nozzles will clog up (and cause a cleaning proportional to the down time) before your 1rst photograph gets printed. Not only is that quite long and frustrating, it can use up to 15% of your cartridge on some printers. If your print still isn’t great after that cleaning, you’ll have to chuck it away and start over. Do that a few times and you could end up spending far more than by sending your files to a high quality pro lab.
• Exponential experimentation. There are tons of papers out there. Many inks as well. Try all the combinations and you may well creep into old age before you’ve made up your mind on your fave combo.
• Environmental disaster. Let’s face it, this ain’t a clean hobby. Toxic inks in plastic cartridges that you have to bin every few prints? Not good. Pro labs have much more streamlined processes and intelligent waste disposal.
• Spouse acceptance. If the prospect of a stove-sized noisy plastic box doesn’t scare your spouse, marry him/her immediately. Then ease into the discussion of that architect’s filing cabinet (for the prints) during the honeymoon, in between margaritas.

So, no, home printing really isn’t a good way of obtaining prints of your work. Which is why I’m so much looking forward to it.

Because, come on, bad ideas are often the most fun. But also because of less puerile considerations :

• Over the social media years, we’ve trained ourselves to consider the screen as the final destination for a photograph. And that’s all kinds of wrong. Screens are rarely calibrated, so my lovely photo might look rubbish on your screen. Screens are bright, prints are not. So we’ve lost the know-how required to make a print sing. Screens are not tactile experiences (not even tablets, argument dismissed) but prints are. Some papers are in fact so gorgeous that holding a beautifully executed print feels like holding a jewel. Feedback from screen views is shallow. The feedback we get for our work is based only on our work and celebrity. On the web it gets spread out over huge numbers of people and shallow interactions. On paper, it reaches far fewer people but impacts them in a much deeper way.
• In my very limited experience, it appears that people who print are far less vulnerable to GAS. Because a good print transcends all considerations of corner sharpness at infinity in the corners, no one gives a hoot about the MTF curves of the lens that helped create the photograph. Printers obsess over tonal gradation, purity of colour, texture and the artistic value of the photograph itself. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if printing was the best possible antidote to GAS and fanboyism.
• Printing is a deeply creative process. There are so many possible print sizes, margin sizes, paper types, textures, finishes, that the pseudo-scientific approach that plagues photography today makes no sense at all. You simply can’t test all possible combinations so you have to think and feel and let your intuition do its work. I speak from chemical darkroom experience but see no reason why that reasoning shouldn’t extend to inkjet printing.
• Printing makes me revisit my photographs, which would otherwise be forgotten in a hard drive. Those displayed on this page are candidates for my first attempts at printing for myself (in over a decade).
• Maybe printing leads to more introspection. I sent an initial set of low resolution photographs to Chris and when he asked for high res versions, I sent him another set. 3 out of 4 in the first batch were made with the X1D Hasselblad had sent me for review, 1 with my Sony A7r2. In the second lot (high res files, see below) all 4 are from the Sony. It was an unconscious process but, now, I really wonder why I made those choices ! It would we be good for me to figure it out before spending major moolah on a medium format camera!

(c) Chris Stump

This is the first post in a new series about printing that will document my progress and lessons learned, so that others wishing to embark on the same path don’t have to make the same mistakes.

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now. One of the most intense photographic moments of my life was at a Nick Brandt exhibition in Paris. Since the gallery was too small to host all the large prints, a “book” of 24″ prints made on thick paper and tied together with some sort of rope was available for viewing of whatever was missing on the walls. Dozens of real prints made with as much attention as the ones in the frames. Thick paper, gorgeous photographs. I’ve never been so close to shoplifting anything in my whole life. That was a pivotal moment, that’s only coming to fruition years later.

For once, I’m starting this intelligently, by using Chris’ prints (above) as benchmarks for my own efforts. He’s sent me close up photographs of each to help me evaluate texture, shadow and highlight details, harshness or smoothness of my PP … lovely experience. And now, the prints are one their way to my home. I will use these prints to set a goal that I know is achievable and will pester Chris whenever my efforts fall short (he doesn’t know, please don’t tell him). Chris might even join me in writing a few articles in this printing series and I’ll interview a few other specialists along the way. And if *you* want to share some experience, *please* do!

Still, to sum up this first instalment, if you’re a print virgin like me, please repeat this a million times before spending a cent on printing gear :

People don’t print at home for prints, they print at home because they enjoy the process of printing.

It’s a process, it’s a path. As far as I can tell, this really is one of those cases for which the only reason to start is to enjoy the trip itself, not for the destination. If you look forward to experimenting with ICC profiles, papers, ink sets, settings, post processing … that’s cool. If not, just send your files to a pro lab or, for a more personal service, to someone who will tailor your prints to your liking, like Chris has done for me (chris@chrisstump.com). (Please note that this is not advertising, I’m not getting anything from mentioning his services. I’m just happy if two people who can be mutually beneficial to one another get in touch via DearSusan).

So, if you’re more expert than me, what have I missed? Care to share some insights in those coming articles? See you then.

Signing you up!

If you liked this article, get updates in your inbox:

Sign Me Up!

We hate spam just as much as you

Signing you up!

Click the Button Below to Sign Up:

Sign Up Via Facebook!

We hate spam just as much as you

Signing you up!

Click the Button Below to Sign Up:

Click Here for One Click Sign Up!

We hate spam just as much as you