Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1910 (Heft 30))

QUALITY IN PRINTS

The field of recognized media of personal expression in art has been
enlarged in recent years with the advent of pictorial photography. As
had been the case with etchers, when they had to fight for recog-
nition of their craft among the fine arts, and by the name of painter-etchers
had to distinguish themselves from those of their confreres who used the
medium simply as a process of reproduction, before they were allowed to
exhibit their work side by side with the painters, so did the photographers
of the new school have to contend with the prejudice which attached to a
tool heretofore imperfectly understood and the possibilities of which had only
been dimly apprehended.
But the fight is won and it is not our purpose to discuss the merits of the
case. The pictorial possibilities of photography having been recognized,
patrons appeared, anxious to secure some of the best examples of the art.
Here a new surprise awaited those who examined prints critically before pur-
chasing—the rarity of good prints. Many were the prints which showed
artistic feeling and knowledge, where linear composition, grouping, spotting
and chiroscuro were faultless, and yet the prints did not fully satisfy. They
did not produce the sensuous pleasure due to that subtle and evasive combina-
tion of merits named “quality.” Two prints from the same negative may
produce an entirely different impression on us. One may please us, the other
leave us indifferent, and the only explanation we can give is that one has
“quality,” while the other lacks it.
Quality in prints is rare because it is due to two elements, one born of
knowledge, the other of chance. No man who does not possess an absolute
command over the technique of the process will produce a print capable of
giving us the delicate pleasure created by a fine thought perfectly expressed.
No man, no matter how great a master of his craft he may be, is ever certain
of exactly duplicating a print, no more than Whistler could have printed two
pulls from the same plate where minor differences did not exist, and where out
of an edition of twenty-five prints, or whatever number the plate would yield,
one print could not be pronounced superior to all the others. It is no more
true of photographs than it is of etchings that one print is as good as another.
You have only to look through the portfolios of any of the leading photograph-
ers to become convinced of the fact. You will be surprised to see how wide
the differences may be.
The making of the negative is of course the first step, and you must first
get in your negative what you want it to yield in your print. But the negative
is only a means to an end and, to be frank, the easiest part of the process.
Good negatives are abundant, good prints are scarce. The final result is
dependent on a multiplicity of factors, such as the texture of the paper, the
nature of the coating, its age, the composition and temperature of the develop-
ing bath, length of exposure, quality of the printing light, the condition of the
atmosphere, local manipulations,—many of these factors being beyond the
control of the photographer.

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