Printing and Esthetic Choices

So, you've taken some fantastic shots—now what? The best images in the world are of little value if you can't share them with others. Which means you need to print them out.

This article is about printing, but not so much about the physical or technical aspects of the printing process. Instead, I want to explore a esthetic issue: how do we decide what we want in printed photograph (and I am using the term "printed" here to describe any physical reproduction of the image, whether on paper, canvas, or electronic/Web form.)

When I was a college undergrad, majoring in Theatre Arts, we talked a lot about the choice of style for productions: did we want to present a hyper-realistic scene for the audience, or a more abstract or stylized scene, or drift into an impressionistic style? That continuum of styles - from a purely realistic approach to a view based almost entirely on the subjectivity of the scenic designer - presented an exciting set of choices as we worked with a director to develop the overall look of a production.

A similar set of choices confronts you as a printer: do you want to aim for a print that precisely mimics the scene as you stood in front of it with your camera, or are their other artistic factors that you want to add to that print?

I think there are three competing aspects that printers need to juggle and mix as we decide how we will turn a captured image into a viewable print:
• What was there
• What you saw
• What you felt

I use "what was there" in the sense of technical, absolute, factual representation: what lighting was present, what objects were in the frame, where was the camera positioned for the shot. In short, just the elements located within the edges of the image.

I use "what you saw" to denote the specific part or parts of the whole image that were of importance to you at the time you took that particular shot. We all are familiar with the mind's ability to selectively see - to focus its attention on a specific element within a larger field, to the exclusion of many other elements which are actually present. You did just that as you stood in the scene and selected your shots: you had a key element in mind that you wanted to capture and present.

I use "what you felt" to describe the emotions that the image invoked at the moment you were standing at the scene. These are the motivations for talking the particular shot. Something moved you to pick the shot from all other others you could have taken; what was that emotional context?

These are not mutually exclusive choices - I suggest they are just three important variables that you will need to weigh in the course of making the print.

All three of these choices were present at the moment of capturing the image (whether you were consciously aware of them or not), and all three are available to you as you sit down to move the pixels from your memory card to a viewable medium. Your job as the printer is to decide how to balance the three into a creative and expressive printed image.

Let me offer an illustration. The first image (on the left) is a shot of Spider Rock in Canyon deChelly in Arizona. I printed this image with minimal post-processing: I adjusted the exposure, trued up levels, and added a touch of sharpening. It is altered from what was in the camera, but it is as close to a "What was there" print as I can make.

The second image is the same shot, but I balanced the printing process more to the "What I saw" aspect: I adjusted the tonal balance and sharpening to draw the viewer's focus to the towering Rock and away from the background, and pushed color saturation to reflect my memory of the impact of the lighting that day.

Finally, the third image is the same shot, but moved into the "What I felt" aspect. Standing above the Rock, leaning over the guardrail of the viewing area or standing on one of the rock outcroppings above the canyon, I always get a touch of vertigo. The power of Spider Rock is considerable, and I am always aware of its effect on me. In this printing, I have added some directional blurring to emphasize the movement that I feel when I let myself be drawn into the power of the Rock.

So, the same original captured photo, and three different printed variations. Which one is right? Which one is the truth? Which one is best? Those are questions which I cannot answer, because the esthetic issues at play here are not ones with definitive answers. I can tell you when a print is over- or under-exposed, but I can't tell you that a "high key" print of a particular shot is "right" or "wrong" compared to a conventionally exposed print of the same shot. That is perhaps the very nature of art: the variety of esthetic choices which can peacefully coexist, distinguished not by their technical merits but by the way they help us to understand and react to the image being presented.

So what are we to do when we work as photograph-printers as well as photograph-takers? I think the most productive approach is to always be aware of the choices we make among the three aspects. It is easy to always work in one mode, where we can become comfortably competent in our printing. But growth is about stretching and risking - and growth in our artistic skills requires the same stretches and risks.

My advice: try very deliberately to print one of your next set of shots in an aspect you would not normally emphasize. If, like me, you are by nature a representational artist, look for a chance to push one of those wonderful images you came home with into the other two aspects. Stretch those artistic muscles and risk a result unlike your ordinary work. You may find the result is one you like; you may reject that particular exercise, but see a new approach that fits some other of your shots and opens a window on more creative expression. But try!