[Leica] Rabs is right

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

> When I was in art school, the photo professor used to tell the students 
> that
> if you can't make it good, make it big. LOL
> 
> I personally prefer smaller, more intimate prints.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Chris Crawford

My standard as most photographers was 11x14's for decades. Shows could be
11x14 but got to me mainly 16x20.
Sometimes I'd go through an 8x10 phase. As would my friends it seemed.
Right now my default is an idiosyncratic 5x7. Not a real popular size you
hear of people printing in  but I like it.
Not tiny because for more than a year there I was carrying around a
portfolio of 4x5's in a 4x5 sheet film box. Big enough to see.
You can have them with you in your top shirt pocket.
Becaue what good is a print if you don't have it with you?
A 5x7 you can put it on the wall. Not the ideal size. But go to MOMA or the
MET and they have thousands of images that size on the walls.
Here in NY I have a 16x20 portfolio with 18 16x20 darkroom prints in it an 6
13 x 19's which had been made on my 2200. They look like shrunken heads
compared to the other prints. Not a good deal. The 16x20 box is a little too
big to bring to a Starbucks to show a visiting Lug Nut. I'm not going to
print 17x22's and cut them down to fit that box. I'm just going  to have to
start a 17x22 inch box. Maybe with wheels on the bottom of one side.

I have a  black  one inch thick 11x14 portfolio box filled with a mix of
darkroom and inkjets.
My newest box I got here while in NY (3.3 years) is my 11x17 box.
Which I used to think of as not cut down to 11x14s but these skinny pictures
have a charm of their own. One of which is you can go into a store and buy
the stuff. Its what they are selling.  They are mainly  from the display I
had in Manchester England last year they were behind 22x22 inch sheets of
glass on the wall at Jem's The Real Camera Company And taken mainly with
real cameras.
But a main size is always going to be 8.5 x 11 formally 8x10. I have both 1
and 2 inch thick boxes of those.

I am joining the LUG gallery this week for sure and having just shot the
best roll of non film I ever have in my life right after midnight February 3
I'll have that popping up on my calendar every year. And have that be the
first thing I post to the LUG Gallery.

I have an 11x14 overfilled case with handle and zipper holding tear sheets.
Stuff clipped out of magazines and newspapers. Brochures even.

My printer goes to 17x22 but I've not made one yet. Nor bought the paper.
Its gratifying to think that if I got a tremendous break and a show in
Chelsea or anywhere (Brooklyn) I could just print it right here right now on
that. On my 3800. 

Walk into Adorama or Calumet and the very first thing you have to get
yourself by is the tall stacks of inkjet paper being sold. Much of it
quality stuff.  So sombody out there is printing other than me.

I went to the graduation show at Tisch photography school  down at NYU it
was prints on the walls but they did have a projector  going on auto in a
back room projecting jpegs which people were ignoring for the most part.

The currency in the practice of photography now may be jpegs....
But more and more people are finding out a jpeg can be bad check.
An hedge fund of pixels that don't play out in the end. Galleries are asking
to see results before they ok a show.
The true coin of the realm remains the print. Hard copy.  Money in hand.
Hang on your wall. Stick in a book or box.

The best jpegs I've seen on the LUG is the one of Ted in front of his prints
at his last show a few weeks ago.  And of Gary Todoroff's shots of his
murals a few days ago. He needs one with him standing in front or side of
them though.







[Rabs]
Mark William Rabiner