prints

Is printing your images still necessary?

in

I don’t remember who said it, or the exact quote, but it went something like this: an image isn’t an image until it becomes a print, or that the print is the final step for an image.

This used to be the case a few decades ago, when the only way to create and see an image was in the darkroom in the form of a print.

But is it still true today? With all the ways that today’s technology offers to share our art?

I don’t believe this is longer the case. I don’t think the print is the (only) final step of an image today.

Don’t get me wrong, printing your images is awesome and something that every photographer should do (I myself print some of them) -but we don’t have to print an image for it to be considered art.

Most of my images aren’t going to be printed, ever. They’ll live as digital art here on my website, on Instagram or on YouTube. I don’t think less of them: they are still my work, my art, and they fulfill their purpose as such.

I feel very lucky to live in this day and age when I can use film cameras from decades ago and print my images in the darkroom, and use a completely digital workflow from beginning to end.

The Mobile Darkroom: printing without negatives and enlarger

in

I was sick for all of last week. This gave me a lot of time to think, and I came up with a little project: building a darkroom as basic as possible so I could bring it with me everywhere.

This is still an on-going project, and in this video I share my thought process and the first results. I expect to have a much more refined and polished process by next week, along with the first final, serious prints.

Creating stuff that will outlast ourselves

in

A while ago, I had a "terrible" realization: everything I had done in life as a software developer was already gone or will be gone in the next few years. Apps have been taken down, websites have been closed.

The exception might be a few lines of code, here and there. They will survive as long as someone else keeps them alive.

The fate of all the side projects I've worked on over the years (hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work) is already sealed, though: they are all gone.

Even as a photographer, if I stop paying the bills this website would be shut down, and all online platforms will eventually go away and / or delete my images.

Your life's work gone, just like that.

The day I realized about this was the day I sold my first physical copy of "Went West", my first book. At that moment, my website and online platforms stopped being the only places where my work lived. There are 40+ copies of that book all around the world, and since then, I've also shipped several prints of some of my images.

I know they too will vanish, eventually. Some might have already been thrown away, or put away. Most will follow at some point.

My hope is for just a few that will survive and outlast me, if someone finds them to bring some joy. A legacy of sorts.

While I appreciate the immediacy of the web and the convenience of online platforms, I'm aiming to create more physical work this year and to put it in hands of more people.