Why I love print photography

Hey guys, Andy here and I love print photography. This was not always the case; my gradual coming to this position, akin to a turning oil tanker, probably has something to do with my age and also, I suspect, a reaction to how digital the world is today.

I am as guilty as anyone in regards to the amount of time I spend looking at screens be they a computer or, especially, a phone. And I hate it. I hate being glued to doom scrolling looking at inane content that, while amusing and easy viewing, does little to enhance my life. Do I need to watch yet another video of an abused dog being rescued and given a new home; no. Do I watch it anyway; of course I do. In this regard having a print on the wall to look at offers me an alternative to drying my eyes out looking at a screen.?

Why spend so much of my waking time glued to two screens (three if you include the TV) when my home has multiple walls I can fill with prints (or other art work); which is exactly what I have started to do. I have started to find work I love, of both my own work and also from photographers I?admire?and?respect, to surround myself with good work. This leads to investing time curating and sequencing my print photography which I enjoy; what images work together, what do not, do I want the sequence to have meaning and to offer a visual journey or should I enjoy an element of random placement? Taking the adage you are what you eat, then, as a photographer, I am what I see and I do not want to simply be fed the inane offerings of social media.

Surrounding myself with print photography?means I do not have to look at work a small screen. To look at details I am not forced to digitally enlarge a section of a JPG only to find the quality and resolution is so low that the finer elements are blurred or pixelated. And here is a point often ignored; photographs were taken to be printed as a final product while JPGs are, by comparison, convenient. A JPG is an image compression standard compressing detail into a sharable file size, helpful for storage and suitable for emails, social media and other online use. They promote faster online load times which boosts SEO; they are not meant to be looked at in detail as it is not there. Every time a JPG is saved, the file irreversibly degrades which is the inevitable outcome of a compressed file being compressed again. If you’re interested, the test results where a photographer compound saved an image 99 times can be found here. It is worth noting the photographer believed an image could only be saved six times before it became professionally unusable.

As a photographer I accept an overwhelming majority of my work, both currently and probably for perpetuity, will reside on my server. However I do not want all of my work to dwell there; as a print my work is more readily accessible and physically exists in my life. It is for this reason that I laid out and printed my Afghanistan images in a photo book; to have the images in a physical product. Additionally, compared to digital, a print is tangible; different printing techniques and paper types offer something incomparable to their digital counterparts. This can be anything from a metallic base to a luminosity, depth and warmth of colour to a texture and a fibrous feel.

I have lost prints due to poor storage and water damage; mea culpa. However I have lost far more digital images than actual ones; I have cleared memory cards without uploading the contents first and, despite best efforts, I have lost folders of work due to digital corruption. Also bear in mind how digital advancement has changed recently; from CDs to DVDs to USBs… I was sent a DVD of images recently; I had to find someone to help as I don’t have a DVD drive anymore. Looking at my server now I can not help but wonder how long it is until I have to upgrade it or when the technology will be replaced with something new and, supposedly, better.

I want my photos to be printed because if they’re printed, it means they are worthy to be printed. As for the print photography on my own walls at home; I have an emotional attachment to them as they have meaning to me and illicit a response, a memory, a reaction when I see them which simply would not occur if they were hiding away on a server.