In the last post I discussed the concept of great printing with poor ideas or no ideas at all (Printing Theory 1). As soon as that post went out, a friend shot me back an email saying that her problem isn't printing of bad photographs but in deciding what is worth printing. She further added that very often she ends up not printing anything. 

Of course, this really got me going.

Let me tell you why. Sorry if this comes across as teaching but it is what I am. By not following through you are denying yourself the full loop of experience you set out to create in the first place. If you've been reading my posts for awhile now this will be familiar but work in equates to work out, or effort in equals results out. One of the given tenents to being an artist is that we are on a trajectory to make the best work we can but then make better work in the future. If you believe that and are an artist photographer I believe you need to see the image produced as a print. Because that is the end game of what we do, the final form of our image, the full realization of its potential as a work of art, beautifully crafted and carefully realized. These days much of our seeing of our work and our editing is on screen. But for me this is a pass through vehicle, a way to see the image but not in its final format. I cannot know the image completely until it is down on a piece of paper as a print. My motto is, "when in doubt, print it".

Then what happens? Well, you have your image as a print, hopefully as well crafted as you can possibly make it. This then becomes something that can be stacked together with other prints to form a portfolio. I believe I've said here before that I don't hold much to single pictures. I like to sequence my work and, for me, the challenge is to put my images together somehow with others to form a larger story or execute a concept.  You also have created something that has a finality to it. Of course, you can make another print, alter its shape or size, tonality contrast, saturation, sharpness in an infinite number of ways, but that print you've just made is the end result of your effort and you have brought your concept to some sort of  fruition. I like that. The ending being the print, the finality of the print says it stops here. The very nature of being frozen helps conclude it and present it in all its glory, hopefully. But the print you've just made allows you to go onto the next and then the next. Your files sitting there on your hard drive, in the library of Aperture, Lightroom or Adobe Bridge? Not so much. 

So, my advice, for what it's worth, is to print your pictures. This is really a "follow through" lecture. I know, it is wasteful of resources so why make prints of pictures that aren't at their best? Because you need to be invested in making them be their best. To close them out, to take the chance that you'll discover something, or that someone you show the prints to will see something in them that you did not, or that they will grow on you after several weeks pinned to your cork board, or stuck to the fridge or leaning on your mantel. Finally, the print you've just made lets you leave the image behind so you can go on to the next one. Sound systematic? Well, that 's because it is. It would seem to make sense to develop a way of working that produces tangible results, wouldn't it?

In addition, printing is a big time craft. Printing well is a real skill, it doesn't matter if it is wet and darkroom-based or made with inks and a printer. Learning to print, really well, will make you proud, impress your photo friends to no end, and allow you to have a sense of accomplishment. Try this on: with good printing, the work you make now will hold its own when compared to the work you make five years or ten years from now. Want to play in the big leagues? Learn how to print well. Nothing eliminates you faster than presenting your work with less than first rate print quality.

Another scenario: the portfolio reviewer sitting at the table looking at work at one of the premier reviews: Houston, Paris, Portland, Oregon, etc, is seeing work from all over the world at 20 minute intervals for three straight days. She is looking at portfolios from people aspiring to have exhibitions or have their work published. This is the big leagues of art photography these days, love it or hate it. If she is qualified, do you think she will pay attention or remember work that isn't printed at the highest of possible quality? Point made.

See if you can follow this logic: the photographer has hiked for hours to the destination, has set up the camera on a tripod, has carefully adjusted it to frame the image the way he/she wants, has waited for the light to be right, for the clouds to be in the best position, the water in the foreground to be still, metered the subject carefully, cocked the shutter on the view camera, pulled the slide on the film holder and, finally, clicked the shutter to take the picture.

When back home the photographer develops the sheets of film shot on the trip carefully, "pushing" or "pulling the processing to expand or diminish contrast, makes contacts of all the frames shot, and begins to make prints, working diligently to vary contrast and exposure to produce as many tones in the black and white print as possible. At the end of a long darkroom day he/she has a print or two that is luminous, contains a full range of tonalities from black on up to white, has a  luscious silvery look to it in the reflection in the water and is very sharp. The photographer ends this day with a real sense of accomplishment and can't wait to show it to his/her gallery, colleagues, significant other, students, etc.

The image on this very beautiful print is banal, derivitive, mundane, boring, and totally without significance. 

To continue: this photographer is educated, sophisticated, knowledgeable and has had shows and been published. He/she is also superior, condescending, narcisistic, overbearing and conceited.

Simply stated: high craft, refined and skillful printing of unredeemingly banal subjects do not a good photograph make. Ansel Adams? He did all the above steps througout his whole career and made exquisite prints of subjects that have great drama and impact. They didn't call him the "Wagner of photography" for nothing.

Wynn Bullock? Another exquisite craftsman who imbued real mystery and intrigue into his work:

Attributing great significance to a banal subject by using large format and superior craftsmanship has its place (see Lewis Baltz's " New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, CA, for instance), but in most contexts simply results in a good print of a bad image. 

Lest you think I am only pointing my finger at others here, I am certainly guilty of making wonderful prints from bad pictures. In fact, it seems I do it all the time. 

Next up? Stay tuned for Printing Theory 2 where I will write about works by Lee Friedlander, Gary Winogrand and Robert Frank, small format masters of "anti-fine art" printing. Pure genius.

In replying to my post about whether there were things you'd like to hear about from my career as an artist/photographer (Response Time) I got several requests to address my teaching career and how that did or did not work with being an artist. This is a post most likely helpful to those of you that teach or are thinking of teaching as a career.

First off, anyone outside of teaching in academia in the professor ranks that assumes it is an easy ride is wrong, at least in my experience. My teaching bio is this: I started teaching photography at a private day school while I was a second year graduate student in 1971 and taught photography every year through the end of 2012. A few years out of graduate school I taught at New England School of Photography in Boston, then at Harvard University for thirteen years and then at Northeastern University(NU) for thirty. Most of the teaching at Harvard over lapped with the early  years teaching at Northeastern. I was hired at NU to form and head a Photography Program, to expand it in all ways, which I did. I also was hired in a tenure track and was promoted and tenured and eventually achieved the rank of full professor in 2003.

In there, of course, was my new job, a new marriage, a baby girl, a new house we renovated, a very big dog, travel to Europe where my wife's family lived, a divorce and so on. Making art while teaching and starting a family can be very difficult.

Did I succeed? Was I able to somehow balance this intense schedule of building a new program, teaching at two places, starting to make a family and making pictures? While I can't blame the failure of my marriage on my professional and/or artistic requirements I can say that I wasn't able to do it all. I believe my marriage would have failed under any circumstances but if I look back at my productivity as an artist it really improved after 1986 when I was divorced. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

There is a really important part to the components of making art while being an art professor and it is this: we are hired as artists, perhaps young ones starting out as assistant professors, but degreed and credentialed as artists. Coming in as one, I was required to make art as part of my position. Furthermore, facing any promotion or raise, I needed to validate my request with proof of exhibitions, my work being published or other forms of professional activity. This is tremendously affirming, to understand that the university, benign though it may be due to its size and complexity, is supportive of creative activity. Go on a trip and make pictures? Good. Go shooting for a few hours on a Sunday morning during fall semester? Good. While holding office hours for students, work on an artist statement for your next show? Good. Write a grant proposal to travel to the Southwest for a month next summer to photograph? Fine. Don't go in to school on a day free from teaching, blowing off a curriculum development meeting because you are driving to the Berkshires to shoot with a friend? OK. This "going out shooting" equates to a research scientist working in the lab to find a cure for cancer. Well, that's a reach, but you get my meaning. Once tenured, you in fact are free to express yourself and the university is there as a structured system to support it. Amazing. When asked about this by students I remember seeing their eyes glaze over when I would explain this all to them, trying to comprehend the essential incredibleness of this working situation. No wonder people want the full time gig in teaching so badly. I was blessed with the good fortune to have this position.

Downsides? Oh yes, many. Low pay, high stress, cynical and disgruntled colleagues, a "deaf ears" administration, countless and useless meetings and committee assignments, departmental and univeristy-wide politics, whining and lazy students, low respect and, at times, very long working hours, among others. Faculty burn out is real and not just true for senior people.

How did I keep the glass half full instead of cynically half empty? I loved the students, for they kept me young, flexible and centered on them and their work. And I was in an environment where my work was valid, where my being an artist was expected and supported. I always said "I am a better artist when I am teaching and a better teacher when I am shooting."

One more point about balancing these two careers: teaching needs to be essentially selfless. Teaching is not about you but about the students.  I would tell new hires "leave your ego at the door." This counters the fact that making art is egotistical,  self serving, narrow minded and even narcissistic. I always felt that one  balanced the other quite well. Teaching always kept me humble, for the students didn't care who I was, they just wanted to learn all about photography. My contract with them was to do just that with no unnecessary complications associated. Artists do have big egos, but teaching is a help in tamping it down to a manageable size, I  believe. 

Packing up my office a few weeks before I left my teaching position of thirty years. I'd had the same office since 1987.

and being photographed by Gustav, a photo student:

Balance these two somehow compensating careers? Yes, I believe that is possible. I actually think I managed this tight wire act pretty well. During my last few years at NU it was tempting to become cynical, pessimistic and bitter as the administration was not very supportive, our department was going through some really awful upheaval and moral was very low. I am very glad I retired when I did (January 2012) and was relatively unscathed in leaving. And I had my work, which was going wonderfully, with new pictures, new processes and new discoveries right around the corner.

I will write soon about what you all have to look forward to in your own careers at some point: retirement. 

As always, thanks for coming along and reading what I have to say. You know by now, but just in case you are new it is easy to subscribe to this blog and entails no penalties whatsoever. I do not sell your names, or try to sell you anything at all. I  hope you will consider adding your name to the growing list of subscribers.

Three mid sixties guys hanging out together for a day. If you're 28 years old that may sound like watching grass grow but if you're older you might find something worthwhile here.

Mark Chester (Mark Chester Photography) and a friend of his visiting from California named Robert came over to Martha's Vineyard for the day last week. Mark lives in Woods Hole, where the ferry leaves from. Robert had never been to the island before so I picked them up at the ferry and drove them around, touring the island, stopping for lunch, visiting with an islander friend, going to a couple of beaches and so on. Mark the photographer comes more from a documentary and journalistic background, not so much art. Robert has expertise in books; as an editor, a bookstore owner and as a literary agent.

Our discussions ranged from topics like the collective slimeball nature of people such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and even Robert MacNamara, people who are or were smart, decisive, charismatic, convincing and about as dead wrong as it is possible to be with really disastrous results. To talking about the nature of photography today, how it is such an incredibly illusive target because it is in transition. To, where are books going? Amazon is now selling more e-books than paper books. Where do you think that trend is headed? And what is the new norm? What about the art gallery that shows photographs? What is that lifespan or future like? Is the gallery's future only in vintage prints? Are prints hanging on a wall that are by contemporary photographers still a viable commodity? Robert countered with: Hanging on everyone's wall is a 70 inch monster of a TV that dominates everyone's living room and that will show things in extremely high resolution. Why isn't that the primary vehicle for showing off our photographs in their best light? Maybe it should be. As digital photographers all of us bitch and complain about how no one pays proper attention to our prints and yet most of us are making the determination about our images from, yes, it's true, a computer screen. Prediction? That contemporary photography moves to a screen-based imaging system.

Not bad for three mid sixties guys, eh? What I found myself enjoying, besides hearing of past experiences from Mark and Robert, was the easiness with which we did so. No one-upmanship necessary, no need to know past positions or how well off we were (or weren't), no pressure to be other than what we simply are. That comes with age and probably is tied into retirement a little too. It was a nice time and I thank those two guys for providing it.

A challenge: the concept of what to write in this space. How do I get an idea or the impetus to put something down here?

Very often the blog is a reflection of things I am thinking about or issues that have  come up. Recognizing that my issues may not be your issues I try to keep also to a steady stream of looking at work, mine yes, but also others, through interviews of artists.

For instance: Where I was when I wrote this a few days ago: Martha's Vineyard. When I got there two weeks ago, I had brought three portfolios with me of pictures I made in July in Iceland while on an artist-in-residence called the Baer Art Center. I did this as I have people in MV who I like to show work to and who seem to like to see new photographs of mine.  I've written before that I believe it is important to show one's work to people whose opinion you value. 

Three portfolios of very different work: a portfolio called Bus Trip of blurry pictures taken while riding a bus north from Rekjavik the second day I was in Iceland, 

a second called Rock,

pictures made while on a boat ride up the coast towards the end of our time there 

and Hofsos, Chapter 1: 

a portfolio of pictures made in the town closest to where we were at Baer. All three are very different, have different things to say, run through the sequence in a different manner and speak to different sensibilities.

I have never wanted to play a single tune in my work. I am too interested in too many things as an artist to keep it confined to just one manner of expression. This has caused some problems, of course. It is difficult to track a moving target, to identify what a person does if they do many things, to define an artist if he/she is always moving on to something else. But there are advantages. Ever feel bored by your own work ? Not me. BTW: this isn't the same as disliking your own work, this is a topic for another time. Ever feel like you're in a rut, repeating the same old same old? Nope. Moving forward, that's my game. There are a few "buts" however. I still am, for the most part, a "straight photographer", finding enough interest in the world I see in my travels to make pictures without a need for severe alterations or have them be divorced from reality. I very seldom shoot in a studio or use artificial light.

I also hope that some consistency runs through my work as a stream, even though my approach may change from body of work to body of work. What exactly is that? Well, a concern for high photographic quality is foremost. To use the best equipment I can in the best possible way to get the best photographs I am capable of. To approach each area of interest with intelligence, insight and thoroughness. To have a good time, of course, even to allow a sense of humor in my work. But also to do the research required to know what others do, to be aware of current trends and to be confident enough to accept them or reject them. In short, to be true to myself as an artist. And for my work to reflect my genuine interest in how things look photographed with a little bit of  "oh my God, I have to have that" thrown in there meaning to capture something and bring it away with me as it is simply too good to leave behind. Many of us are like that, I suppose. Collectors. I have a friend I kayak with. Very often we find ourselves on some empty island somewhere, often off the coast of Maine in the summer. She is crazy for rocks and will load up her boat with them, fill a bag with them and haul them back home, to do what with I can't imagine. I am not so different it turns out as I will photograph on the same island, preferring to bring back my treasures to a computer, to choose to make a print or two to remember the time we had, the light as it changed throughout the day, the incredible beauty.