[Leica] Rabs is right

[kcarney1 at cox.net (Ken Carney)]

On 3/4/2010 4:17 PM, Mark Rabiner wrote:
>> 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
>
>
>
>
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>
>    
I like the 5x7 print format a lot.  I also have a lot of 4x5" mounted in 
16x20" mattes.  In the darkroom, I also printed a lot of 11x14 and 
16x20.  16x20 was nice for the 4x5" negs I mainly used at that time.  
Most of my later printing was platinum/palladium and 8x10 image size (on 
larger paper), because the neg was 8x10 and it is a contact printing 
thing.  Now that I am using "35mm" (digital) I like the 11x17 and 
13x19.  On 11x17 I can make a 9.5 x 14.5"  print that still has a nice 
border, and on 13x19 an 11x16.5 print or even 12x18.  I am pretty well 
tied up until the end of April, but maybe by then the Epson 3880 will be 
available.  No rush, I do not make my living from photography, for which 
my family is eternally grateful.

Ken Carney
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma