The Online Photographer

Thanks! (Was: Last Chance!)

Our latest Print Offer closed at noon CST today.

A big thanks to everyone who participated. Don't forget that your prints are both guaranteed and insured, meaning you can return them for any reason if you don't like them, and any prints lost or damaged in shipment will be promptly replaced. 

The prints will begin shipping on Tuesday (Monday's a holiday in the U.S.) and all prints will be shipped by the end of September.

With any luck, I should have some news about our upcoming print sale plans soon, too.

Thanks again!

Mike

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Summer Print Offer: Ctein's Big Digital Print Sale

Ctein, Apollo-Soyuz in Floodlights, Cape Canaveral, 1975

UPDATE, Sept. 2, 2011: Sale has ended.

Conclusion first: Our sales run for five days only, in this case starting now and ending on Friday at noon. Here's the direct link to the sale page [Link removed—sale ended 12 noon CST Friday, September 2, 2011]. Also as usual, the prices for these 17x22" Ultrachrome prints are low, barely more than you'd pay for a fine poster. The first print is only $140. (That's 1/2 the normal price Ctein charges.) The second print is $125, the third $110, and the fourth only $95. That goes for multiples of the same print, different prints, or any combination of the two.

More about our mad method later.

By popular demand: Like many of our sales, this one was essentially suggested by readers. Ctein, whose regular weekly column appears here on TOP on Wednesdays, wrote about one of the most difficult photographs he had ever made,"Apollo-Soyuz in Floodlights, Cape Canaveral, 1975" (above), in a column called No One Cares How Hard You Worked. Many readers asked for the opportunity to buy a print of this image. Good call, too: the print is stunning, with an impact only suggested by the on-screen JPEG.

Swamp with Lilypads Near Loch Sionascag, Scotland, 1995

More pictures: Ctein's previous sales have been among our most popular, but this one is the first one in which he hasn't offered prints made with the esoteric dye transfer method in which he is expert. Accordingly, I asked him if he could provide some additional pictures from his dye transfer portfolio crafted as inkjets. Of the three we chose, he picked one and I picked two.

Turns out the "translation" from dyes to inkjets led to some very interesting technical and aesthetic issues, which Ctein and I will be discussing a bit more here on TOP in the days before the sale ends.

Cinder Cone North Trail, Lassen Volcanic Park, California, 1985

Big 17 x 22" prints: The other opportunity that seemed obvious was to make these prints bigger (the dyes we had offered previously were on the small side, as large dye transfers are expensive to make). These prints are all on 17x22-inch paper with a minimum one-inch white border. They are Epson 3880 Ultrachrome prints on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk paper. Ctein, of course, is making all the prints, and they're signed and titled on the front in ink and signed and dated on the back in graphite.

To order: If you'd like to order one or more of these prints, first, go to the sale page [Link removed—sale ended 12 noon CST Friday, September 2, 2011], and send Ctein an email following his instructions. Prices including any taxes or shipping charges are given on the PayPal buttons; you'll use those buttons to determine your price even if you're not paying by PayPal (we'd actually prefer payment by check, but either way is fine). Please note that a payment without an email will not work to reserve you a print; as he explains on the sale page, the email is the essential record he needs in order to reserve a print for you.

Shipping: Shipping charges and applicable taxes are included in the prices. All print will be shipped within 31 days, and are guaranteed/insured by us; if you don't like a print or if your prints are damaged in transit (or never arrive), don't worry: you're covered. We'll refund your purchase price if you don't want to keep the print, or send you a replacement print if yours was damaged or lost.

There's no number limit on this sale. All orders made before Friday at noon will be honored. The first orders will start shipping a week from tomorrow at the latest.

The anti-art-gallery: TOP print sales are democratic, meant to provide high-quality original work for prices that are far less than you could get them for otherwise. The way we do this is simply to collect the orders and the money in advance and then fulfill the orders afterward. This allows the photographer to "mass produce" the production of the prints knowing that each one is already sold. So even though the price is much less to you than you'd pay for a single print purchased individually through a conventional gallery, the photographer still makes a nice profit on the proceedings (TOP takes 20% for hosting the sale; the rest, the other 80%, goes to the photographer. Compare this to the 50-50 or, worse, 40-60 split commonplace with bricks-and-mortar galleries).

For real: But what that means (which you also might know from our previous sales) is that when we say we're closing the sale, we really have to. On Friday at noon, we'll have a final number, and Ctein will order materials and begin work on fulfilment. As you know if you've ever made and shipped large number of prints yourself, that work is arduous and immersive, and needs to be planned. So if you're coming here for the first time from an astronomy, space enthusiast, or science fiction site or forum, please don't assume that we'll make an exception for you if you miss the Friday deadline—we can't, and don't.

At least there's no number limit for this sale, as I mentioned earlier. All orders received by Friday will be fulfilled.

Crepuscular Rays, Clear Lake, California, 1992

Art collectors without limousines: One of the most rewarding things about our sales is how many people say that our prints are the first original artwork they've ever bought. Art collectors aren't just people who keep their limousines idling in the street outside a Christie's evening auction, where the bid increments are more than most blue-collar workers will earn over the course of a lifetime. No, our sales ain't haughty, snooty, or exclusive/exclusionary. But we like that about 'em.

"Crepuscular Rays" is one of my four or five personal favorites from Ctein's dye transfer portfolio. I first used it to illustrate a column way back in my Luminous-Landscape days, and it almost became a cover of Photo Techniques magazine once upon a time. We'll have more to say about its odyssey to digital inkjet form on, I think, Thursday.

Questions? If you have any questions about any of this, please ask in the comments, and one of us will answer.

One last time, here's the link to the Print Offer page [Link removed—sale ended 12 noon CST Friday, September 2, 2011]. Please do us a favor and tell your friends about the sale! And, as ever, thanks to one and all.

Mike

ADDENDUM: A few people have reported problems sending email directly to Ctein at ctein@pobox.com, via the mail link on the order page. If your order email bounces or is reported as nondeliverable, please resend it using this email address: ctein@att.net

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August Print Offer

Hard to believe, but it's been a long time since we did a print offer—and 18 months since Ctein's last sale.

So, coming up in less than two weeks, Ctein will be having a dog-days-of-August "Big Print" inkjet sale here on TOP—three classic landscapes and the Apollo / Saturn 1 launchpad shot that you've already seen. Ironically, given that the title of that post was "No One Cares How Hard You Worked," Ctein had to work really hard to make a stunner of a print of that image. Know any Space Program buffs? Be sure to alert them.

Big prints
I chose three of the four selections. At 17 x 22", all four prints are much larger than the dye transfer prints Ctein has offered here in the past; all four are inkjet prints made from scans of medium-format negatives; and all four are exemplars of just how good inkjet prints can be, circa 2011 A.D. Oh, and all four will be very affordably priced in absolute dollar terms, more so than several of our recent sales.

Tune in on Wednesday August 24th for the sale announcement and to see the images. I've also asked Ctein to write a bit about the differences between inkjet and dye transfer printing—he's printed for several clients, including the rock'n'roll photographer Jim Marshall, in both media, so he has a lot of experience with the visual and technical differences.

Five days and a fraction of the price
As usual, the sale will last for five days only. If you're unfamiliar with our sales, we keep the cost way down by taking orders in advance during a specified period of time. Then we close the orders, and the photographer gets to work. The photographer can production-line the printing knowing that each one is already sold. We earn much less per print that way than a traditional gallery sale would bring in, but we make it up in volume, and we can sell the prints for a fraction of gallery prices.

Everybody ends up happy. And that's a good thing.

Mike

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A Print Offer with a Twist

With some trepidation (I'm a curious case...I'm quite self-centered, but not egotistical at all—so much so that the empty space where my ego should be can be a problem for me at times), I've decided to have a "minor" print sale of a picture by a photographer who definitely isn't collectible...(long pause)...me.

It will be for a signed print of "Color Picture" made by Digital Silver Imaging (DSI) in Boston. So it's a digital picture printed on traditional black-and-white silver gelatin fiber-base paper.

I have to admit this is not something I would probably normally do. If you've been reading TOP for a while, it's probably pretty clear to you that I don't use this site to glorify or publicize my own work, or try to make myself seem like an important photographer when I'm not. But then again...I figure if I can sell 18 prints, I can cover the cost of Lulu's operation (she's still recuperating, if you're curious—bored and mournful from being kept cooped up all the time), and if I can sell 36 of them, I can cover that and the cost of the next operation too, the one she's going to need on her right hind leg at some point in the future. As a bonus, another six prints after that will cover the cost of the ventilation system for the darkroom. (Maybe I shouldn't mention that, lest it be a disincentive for those who are hostile to darkrooms. Oh, well.)

For those of you who followed the arguments a few weeks ago about limited editions (here and here), I've devised another little twist to this sale, to follow the layers already discussed. I'll tell you about that when the sale is announced.

By the way, despite the long period of silence recently when it comes to Print Offers, I've been very busy with it behind the scenes. I cast about twenty lines in the water, got six (maybe seven) bites, and hooked (hmm, this metaphor is working less well the further it goes along, isn't it?) two beauties, at least tentatively. The trouble is, neither party was free to do it this Spring. We will have some great ones coming up, though.

Mike

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Future Print Sale Plans

Our next print sale is going to be something completely different from the last one. I just don't know exactly what it will be yet. One thing I do know is that I don't want to get into any kind of "rut" with our offerings.

If there's any commonality to our offerings so far, the theme has been fine printmaking, coupled with several "by popular demand" pictures that initially got a lot of response here on TOP. I've also mainly found print sale photographers from among my friends, or people I know or have worked with in the past.

There's a very good reason for both the "printmaking" and the "friends" trends. The #1 thing I need to know is, is the artist going to be dependable? People who've been in business for some time making and selling prints are already well versed in what it takes to produce and distribute large numbers of prints. And when I know people, I know what kind of people they are—I have a good idea going in that they can come through. So far, we've been really lucky with that—knock on wood.  As I mentioned yesterday, Charlie Cramer made and shipped more than 400 prints in 26 days. Nobody will ever surpass Ctein's epic labors for his first sale, making 760 dye transfer prints in less than two months. Truly Herculean. Carl Weese is a close runner up—if there is any printmaking method that doesn't lend itself to mass production, it's platinum/palladium. But every photographer we've featured has come through with flying colors. But so far all of our print sale artists have been very professional. Knock on wood, again.

With the success of our recent sales, I've been reaching out a little more, looking for interesting possibilities. Believe it or not, it's not a trivial problem to find just the right kind of photographer. To begin with, many famous or well-established photographers are already locked into contracts or obligations with galleries or other traditional outlets. I contacted one well-known sports photographer who replied simply, "Not a possibility for me." He's bound up in exclusive contracts with his galleries, and that's that.

Some people don't own the rights to their own pictures (some photojournalists, especially, have sold the rights to their archives to picture agencies). Other don't have the right to make studio sales (a "studio sale" is a personal sale between the photographer and a private party that doesn't go through the photographer's gallery or other representation). Others just don't have the time—it takes a lot of work to make and mail a lot of prints, and they're too busy. 

Another problem is that money is...relative. Our most successful offers have earned into six figures for the photographers. That's a lot of money to me, and it might be to you, but there are people out there to whom it's not enough to bother about. To photographers who currently sell their prints for $5,000 or $10,000 or even more, a print sale on TOP would simply dilute the value of their work too much—it would be "slumming" to an unacceptable degree. A sale on TOP would offer them neither profit nor prestige. There are not a whole lot of people like that, but they exist. I spoke to one photographer (a fashion guy) whose day rate (that's the fee required to hire him, not counting his expenses for the shoot) is over $20,000. I literally can't make a sale worth his time.

With others, the problem is the opposite—it's that TOP can't add any value to the proposition. Unless a photographer has already established a value level for their prints, we can't offer their prints for less! There's one photographer in particular who I would definitely do a print sale with, but for one snag—he already sells his work for less that I possibly could. He charges $30 for a print at his website. I can't beat that.

Finally, there's the matter of interest. It's not just a matter of finding pretty or competent pictures. Everyone has some of those. There's got to be something about the picture, the artist, or the print-as-object that's interesting or unique or different—something that makes the offer into a real opportunity for people. That's the key, for me.

Mike

P.S. This is going to sound a little obnoxious, for which I apologize in advance, but, if you'd like to suggest a picture or a photographer for a future print sale, please leave your suggestion in the Comments. And, for form's sake, do not suggest yourself. Please don't email me privately with suggestions; especially, please do not send me private emails asking if you can be the next print sale photographer! 

Unless of course you're Elliott Erwitt or Mary Ellen Mark or Steve McCurry. :-)

If there are suggestions in the Comments, I'll look at as many as I possibly can.

Note: Dave Beckerman, on his blog, wrote a plea for his friends and followers to come here and leave comments proposing him as a candidate for a TOP sale. Dozens of them did so. I didn't publish most of those comments, since it's technically someone proposing himself, albeit indirectly...which I asked others to please not do.

We'll try to do something fun with Dave in the future.

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Featured Comment by Arthur: "Killjoy. Until I read your postscript, I was going to graciously offer up myself as your next print photographer; so long as you dropped those silly requirements for things like 'fine print making,' 'dependable,' and 'professional,' etc. Hmph!"

Cramer Prints Have Shipped

I'm happy to pass along that as of last Wednesday, Charlie Cramer completed the mailing of all the prints from the last print sale. If you haven't gotten yours yet, it's still too early to worry—please allow up to another week for your package to arrive. It should get to you soon, if you haven't already received it.

We'll be able to replace any packages that might have gotten lost. If you haven't received your package by this time next week, please contact me using the email contact link in the right-hand sidebar, and I'll look into it.

...But please, not yet! All I'll be able to tell you if you contact me now is, "give it a little more time."

It took Charlie a grand total of 26 days to make and ship more than 400 prints, which, as you may or may not know, is not a trivial task. And he prepared and taught two workshops during that time! Behind the scenes of these sales, professionalism is paramount. Charlie may be artist who works mainly for himself, but he's a pro.

Mike

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And the Dust Settles...

Charlie Cramer has kindly consented to let me share the details of the Print Offer just past. Here are the totals: There were 335 orders; 247 were for a single "Aspen," one was for two, and one was for three. There were 21 orders for a single "Canyon" and 65 orders for both prints, making a total of 317 "Aspen" and 86 "Canyon" and a grand total of 403 prints ordered.

Incidentally, "Aspen" was Charlie's pick, and "Canyon" was mine, proving that he knows his audience and his fans better than I do! (I'll probably frame "Canyon" for myself, however.)

Almost exactly 1/4th of the orders were from international buyers, which is right in line with our norm. This sale was popular with readers in Canada and Australia, a little less popular than usual with readers in Great Britian (although there were a healthy number of orders from there). There were buyers from many different countries, including Spain, Japan, India, the Philippines, and a number from Scandinavia (Finland too, although I don't know whether that's considered part of Scandinavia or not).

If I may, I'd like to thank Charlie for this, too. He's been great to work with.

We'll let everyone know when all the prints have shipped, which should be a few weeks from now, and that will be the next and last notice about this sale. Thanks again to everyone who participated. These really are unusually beautiful examples of the printmaker's art, as those who purchased them are discovering. If you haven't received yours yet, you have a treat in store for you.

Mike

UPDATE: I don't know how I managed to write this post leaving crucial information out, but we are shooting for a six-week timeframe for completing the deliveries. That puts the last mailing right at the beginning of April, and if you're in a different country you'll need to allow for whatever transit time is typical for you from the U.S.

As I said above, I'll announce when the last print has been shipped. If it also wasn't clear from the above, this sale was much more popular than expected, which means there is a great deal of work to do to get all the orders fulfilled. Rest assured, we're working on it—please be patient!

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Print Sale Update

I wanted to bring people up to speed on what's happening with the Charlie Cramer print sale that ended last Friday.

Before the sale started, Charlie and I figured it was a safe guess we'd sell at least 100, so Charlie laid in supplies for that many orders, and he got a good drop on the printing before the sale was even announced—I think he had more than 50 done before the very first order was placed. So he was able to ship the first orders almost immediately, and the next 50 shortly thereafter. So some people have actually already received their prints.

As it happened, the sale was more popular than either of us guessed. I still have not got the accounting all done—working on it—but the total number of prints sold will end up well north of 350. So right now we're in a bit of a lull while Charlie orders reinforcements—more shipping boxes, cardboard, print envelopes, interleaving sheets, and of course, his new favorite paper, Canson Platine. The first 100 are all shipped, and Charlie will resume shipments as the new supplies arrive over the next two weeks.

We're promising delivery in six weeks from the end of the sale, which means that, if you ordered from anywhere in the world, you ought to have your print by April 2nd. If you haven't got it by then, don't worry—please just be in touch. We'll be sure to keep a few extras in reserve to send out as replacements if need be. (In past sales we've lost anywhere from none to four packages, if memory serves, although two of those four eventually did turn up.) So you will absolutely get your print(s) even if some mail or shipping service somewhere slips up.

And if you haven't gotten an acknowledgement of your order, don't worry about that either—we are learning how to do this, and things went very smoothly this time, but one thing I forgot to set up was the automatic acknowledgment of receipt of payment. Sorry about that. (I needed to leave room to improve for next time, I guess.)

So please be patient. Charlie's a fast worker, and very conscientious, but fine prints in this volume are a lot of work to produce and package, believe me.

Oh, and when I get the final numbers, I'll report them here.

If anyone has any questions you can leave a comment. (If you happen to have received your order already, we wouldn't mind hearing what you think.) And thanks again to everyone!

Mike

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Sale's Over

On behalf of Charlie and myself, a big thanks to everybody who made this sale such a success!

I hope to have some news about our next (Spring) sale soon. I think it's going to be big news, but I can't say anything just yet....

Mike

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Charles Cramer Print Offer

Aspen in Fog, Boulder Mountain, Utah

Charles Cramer—a very modest and very down-to-earth guy, yet supremely skilled and incredibly hardworking—has many connections to Ansel Adams, including the fact that he teaches printing and photography at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite National Park. Yet I think of him more as a natural heir of Eliot Porter, whose catholic, loving and wise regard of the natural world often eschewed the monumental in favor of monumentalizing more detailed, horizonless views, such as river reflections and patches of forest floor.

I'm very pleased to present Charlie Cramer as TOP's print sale artist for this winter. The two prints we're offering are Aspen in Fog, Boulder Mountain, Utah (2003), and Canyon Reflections, Coyote Gulch, Utah (2006). Both images are incredibly beautiful, state-of-the-art inkjet prints. I've had this one on my wall for a week, and sometimes I just sit here staring at it:

Canyon Reflections, Coyote Gulch, Utah

The purpose of our print sales is to bring you a variety of high quality work at much lower prices than you could get it for otherwise—in this case, less than half what these prints ordinarily cost. We do this by taking orders for only a short time, and then setting the photographer madly to work fulfilling whatever orders we receive. It's a win-win situation: the artist earns more in a lump than many photographers make from ongoing print sales in a year, but the low prices enable people to buy original art who maybe otherwise wouldn't.

It's also a significant part of how TOP earns its keep, which for fans of the site might count as another win. (Most of the proceeds go to the artist, however.)

Interestingly, Aspen in Fog was shot on 4x5 film, and Canyon Reflections is from a digital Phase One P45 39-megapixel original. Both of these prints are made on Canson Platine Fibre Rag paper on an Epson 11880 using Epson UltraChrome K3 inks. Canson Platine is 100% cotton, with no optical brighteners. The white is almost perfectly neutral, yet very bright. It gives an excellent Dmax and the surface is lovely, with minimal gloss differential. And it's thick—310 gsm, 16 mils. And has a big color gamut. As Charlie says, "What's not to like?"

The image size of Aspen in Fog is approximately 11 x 14.2 inches on a 13x17-inch sheet, and Canyon Reflections is a little wider at 14.8 inches on the same size sheet. The prints are unmounted and are signed by Charlie on the back.

Ordering details
Each print is only $175, and we'll be accepting orders for five days, until roughly sundown on Friday, at which point the sale links will be removed. The regular price for Charlie's prints of this size is $400.

These are unlimited editions. There's no limit on the number that can be sold, with the caveat that we reserve the right to end the sale early if demand is too high (making and shipping lots of prints is hard work, and a single photographer working alone can get overwhelmed).

-

[Sale ended 6 p.m. Friday, February 18th]

-

Note that PayPal does take credit cards from non-account-holders—the step-by-step procedure makes it look like you have to sign up for an account to pay with a credit card, but you don't. Just keep pressing through the procedure without signing up, and you'll get there.

Paying by check
You can send a personal check, money order, or cashier's check if you prefer, as long as the check is in U.S. dollars and drawn on a U.S. bank; but you must reserve your prints before the sale ends by sending an email to me (Mike) with:

• Your name
• Ship-to address
• Which print(s) you want and how many
• The amount of the check you will be mailing

I'll reply with a confirmation and the mailing address.We do not need to actually receive the check by Friday, but please don't delay in mailing it.

I really hope you like these beautiful prints. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. And thank you!

Mike

You might want to email a link to this post to anyone you know who might be interested in these prints! Thanks.

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Charlie's Prints

Yesterday the frozen FedEx man made his way to the front door bearing a dog-eared and taped Kodak paper box. Inside were the proof prints of the upcoming Print Offer pictures from Charlie Cramer. (The sale kicks off a week from this Sunday, if you've forgotten.)

They are gorgeous. Delicious. Beautiful. Gorgeliciousiful.

I showed one to my son, and his first response was "I like that! That really pops." Then I showed it to his girlfriend, and she said, "Ooh, I like that!" And you know, I think they nailed the matter: the print quality of Charlie's prints is "I like that."

They're gorgeously colorful overall, but the remarkable thing to me is what I might call "microcolor"—the small, subtle shifts and variations of colors within very small areas.

I could go on about detail and colors and the beautiful paper surface, but I think the short take is that these prints are going to be crowdpleasers. Not only you but also the non-photographers you know who see them are going to like them.

Maybe I don't get out enough, but seeing these really got me amped up. I only have room for one at a time on my print-viewing board, so I've been switching them back and forth. I don't think there are going to be any complaints on the print quality front. State-of-the-art digital printmaking, circa 2011.

Just thought you might like an update.

Mike

P.S. We'll publish on Monday morning an article that Charlie wrote for us about his techniques and methods.

P.P.S. We don't reveal the actual sale images until the sale starts.

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Winter Print Offer Will Start Sunday, February 13th

Our Charles Cramer Print Sale—TOP's Winter sale for 2010-11—is planned to commence at noon on Sunday, February the 13th.

If you're not familiar with our four seasonal print offers, what we do is take orders for a very limited time—just five days. The photographers can then produce prints in volume knowing they're already sold. This allows them to sell prints for far less than gallery prices, yet make more money on the sale as a whole. Win-win, as the saying goes.

In the case of our winter sale, the two pictures on offer will be well under half the usual price. Another big difference compared to gallery sales is that the photographer keeps 80% of the proceeds—about twice the percentage artists get from galleries. And the remaining 20% is the largest share of what keeps TOP churning merrily along in fine economic fettle.

Nary an aesthetic hiccup
We also try when we can to see that there's an aspect of technical interest to some of our sales.

In Charlie's case, it's "large format." Charlie went from shooting 4x5" film (above left) to shooting with the largest digital format (called "medium format backs" because they fit on medium-format film camera bodies, but really the digital large format) (right), and it essentially didn't interrupt his output at all. Working digitally is more convenient for him and allows him to do some things he couldn't with film, achieving a technical image quality almost as good as that of film—but the change introduced nary an aesthetic hiccup in the continuity of his work. Charlie has written about his transition elsewhere, but he'll talk about it here on TOP too, before the sale starts.

At any rate, one of the pictures we'll offer in our sale was taken with a 4x5 on film, and the other with a Phase One back. Proving nothing, but I'm rather fond of the parallelism to Charlie's body of work as a whole.

These sales are a lot of fun for me personally—they're probably the most fun thing I do. It's been great to work with Charlie, who is a true gentleman, and I hope you like at least one of the pictures we chose. Please come back the week of the 13th.

Mike

Photo credits: Keith Walklet (top), Bill Atkinson.

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Winter Print Offer

Charles Cramer, Calf Creek Fall, Escalante, Utah (n.b.: this
isn't one of the sale pictures)

As regular readers know, we do four print sales a year, along with the seasons. I'm happy to report that plans for our next one—for Winter 2010-11—are coming along nicely. We're going to be offering two prints by an old-friend-I've-never-met, landscape photographer Charles Cramer.

I'm a longtime fan. I first knew Charlie as an accomplished dye transfer printer, one of whose pictures I used on the cover of an issue of the magazine I edited at the time (Photo Techniques, October/November 1997). The cover, which featured the shot shown above, was absolutely gorgeous—one of my favorites of the 36 covers I was responsible for. Later, in 2000, we published a portfolio of Charlie's work.

Charlie—who, like Ansel Adams was, is a very accomplished classical pianist (and I mean concert-level, as his CD attests)—is a master digital printer; he teaches printing workshops at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite National Park (booked up for this year, unfortunately). He himself shoots with a Phase One medium-format digital back. We're going to be offering two of his most beautiful and popular pictures for less than half of what you could get them for otherwise.

I'll be writing more about Charlie and his work soon, and I'll let you know the start date of the sale as far in advance as possible (that part hasn't been settled yet). In the meantime, here's Charlie's website. Have a look to whet your appetite.

Mike

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Ansel Adams App for iPad Just Released

By John Sexton

For those of you who own an Apple iPad, I have some exciting news...a brand new Ansel Adams app has just been released at the Apple iTunes app store.

I don't have an iPad myself (perhaps I should add one to my Christmas list!), but I was able to gift this app to a close friend and spend a little bit of time enjoying it on his iPad.

The app was published by Little, Brown and Company in collaboration with The Ansel Adams Trust. Andrea Stillman, whom I worked with at Ansel's in the late '70s and early '80s, selected the photographs, and contributed a lot of the information included in the app. Andrea has edited many books of Ansel's work and, in my opinion, is the leading expert on his work.

Ansel's images look great on the iPad display. There is a forty image slide show that includes well-known along with some lesser-known images. Each image has a brief essay by Andrea that is available by clicking on the image, or you can listen to Andrea read the text. I didn't have time to listen to all of the commentaries, but my wife Anne and I are looking forward to doing so in the near future. Naturally, you can view the images in silence, or listen to them with synchronized music...or anything you have in your iTunes library.

There is another section called "Letters and Images" that has letters between Ansel and Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Weston, Garry Trudeau, President Carter, his wife Virginia, and others.

There are some really fun postcards that Ansel sent to his close friends Nancy and Beaumont Newhall while on the road photographing. You can even send a vintage looking e-postcard with an AA image, along with your own note, from within the app...very cool!

There is a chronology of Ansel's life and career, a complete bibliography, and even web links that Ansel fans will find of interest.

The app runs only on the Apple iPad. It will not run on the iPhone. If it did, the images would be too small to be fully appreciated.

You can find the Ansel Adams app at Apple's iTunes store. The price is $13.99. It will make a great holiday gift for anyone you know who is fan of Ansel's work and owns an iPad, and of course would make an excellent gift for yourself!

Anne and I had a great time exploring this new app. It was enjoyable, and we learned a few things we didn't know about Ansel. Now I have to figure out some other reasons to justify why I need an iPad!

John

Republished from John's new December newsletter, with his permission of course. Funny how things sometimes seem to synchronize—yesterday I bought a print of Ansel Adams by Ted Orland, who started his career as an assistant for Ansel, and this morning I heard from John—who started his career as an assistant for Ansel.

That's been a long time ago now, of course, and John has enjoyed a distinguished career of his own. Although I would venture to say that no one has exemplified more than John the best of the Ansel Adams tradition both as an artist and a teacher.

Note also that John is having his own print offer right now—four fine prints, including the one below, available for an advantageous price (30% off) and, just as importantly, for immediate delivery: John is promising that every order placed by this Saturday, the 4th, will be mailed by December 10th so it will get to you before the holidays.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I failed to point out that his most recent book, Recollections: Three Decades of Photographs, is still available.  —Mike

John Sexton, Interior, the Grotto, near Aspen, Colorado

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Featured Comment by Jim in Denver: "I wish there was a John Sexton app...I have always enjoyed his work more than Ansel's."

Featured Comment by Moose: "I have several books of Adams's black and white images and have seen quite a few original prints in various venues, from very large prints of the famous ones to a series of commercial shots of a college and its students quite early in his career.

"The most interesting Adams work I’ve run across in years is Ansel Adams in Color, edited by Andrea Stillman and John P. Schaefer.

"If you've ever wondered what St. Ansel would have done in color, here's the answer. I don't know what the earlier book looked like. Reviewers say this one is better printed. Nor do I know what photographic prints might look like.

"There are 62 color reproductions, covering a fairly wide range of subjects, light and mood. I really love many of them. There's also a small selection of letters at the end that show Adams's changing views of color photography.

"Reading some of his letters, I imagine looking at 8x10 Kodachromes on a light table, then at the prints possible at the time—and being incredibly frustrated. He was a master at creating his vision of the subject on paper from a negative. But he had no control over the color printing process, and the results had none of the magic qualities of the transparencies.

"The reproductions in the book are quite another thing. Created with some sort of laser scanning process from the original transparencies, they strike me as beautiful.

"I wonder what he would have thought of these reproductions. I like to imagine he would have approved.

"According to the book, Adams took over 3,500 color images, starting when Kodachrome was invented in the '30s. Kodak contracted with him to use their films as they developed them. He did other commercial work in color, as well as some photography for himself.

"At $23 from Amazon, I think this book is a steal."

Ailsa McWhinnie Breaks Away

 

My friend and former boss Ailsa McWhinnie, Founding Editor Emeritus of the English Black & White Photography magazine, recently found herself in that unfortunately familiar condition, the dreaded shooting slump. So she headed to  France's Belgian frontier for the "Hell of the North"—the classic Paris-Roubaix bicycling race—with her Mamiya, meaning to face up to her reticence about shooting strangers.

Ailsa in action (frame grab from filmwasters.com)

Filmwasters.com included the story of her day in a recent video podcast (Ailsa's star turn starts at 1:20 and goes until 7:55 or so).

If you've ever been in such a slump yourself, you might sympathize.

Both black-and-white photos above by Ailsa McWhinnie.

...And speaking of friends and former bosses, Ed Buziak, the Founding Editor of the U.K.'s Darkroom User magazine (renamed Camera & Darkroom prior to its unfortunate demise) is selling off some treasures from his print collection. Ed's wife Trish, always a fine free spirit, has long been an invalid, and can now move only her hands, arms, and mouth. Ed has cared for her selflessly for many years—I have honestly never heard even the shadow of a complaint from the man—but they get not a penny of help from anywhere, and Ed needs to raise some funds for Trish's continued care.

Ted Orland, The Zone System Shooting Range, a one-of-a-kind print
offered for sale by Ed

He's currently got 25 or 26 prints listed and there will be 15 or 18 more posted in the next 24 hours, including a lovely Ted Orland portrait of photographer Sally Mann and some pictures by the photo writer Tony McLean, as well as some of Ed's own. All the prints are very reasonably, even cheaply, priced. Bought one myself, this morning (Ted Orland's "Even Ansel Adams has to Earn a Living").

Ed and Trish are an ever-optimistic, high-spirited, loving older couple who live their life together to the fullest. Let's see if we can help sell out this lot, in support of a better holiday for both of them!

Here's that link again. Pass it along.

Mike

P.S. Yours truly wrote many articles for both Ailsa and Ed, once upon a time.

UPDATE from Ed: "Mike—just briefly to say 'a very big thanks' to you and everyone who has visited my site and bought prints (15 so far). Also, remarkably, visitors have also been reading my many pages of photo techniques, darkroom dodges and nature notes...with over 15,000 page impressions recorded in the past 15 hours! That's certainly up from my normal 650 or so impressions in a normal 24-hour period. So thanks to everyone again...and I hoped you also enjoyed what I have written. P.S. My wife Trish was awake most of the night—I kept saying quietly to her, 'Another print has been purchased' and she was so excited she finally said before snoozing, 'Will you put the Christmas tree up in the morning.' All the best to you, Ed.

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Cool Unboxing Video! (and Paris Print Update)

I'm pleased to report that all of the orders from our recent "Peter Turnley's Paris" print offer have now shipped. If you placed an order and haven't received it yet, you should receive it within the next few days.

As regular readers know, we're suckers for the occasional "unboxing" picture sequence or video—although maybe we get enthusiastic over different kinds of things than do other "unboxers" on the internet (gear—meh. Books and prints, yeah). Here's another great one, courtesy of TOP reader Pak-Ming Wan:

If you've ordered and paid for your Paris print(s) and for some reason you don't receive your package in the next two weeks, please get in touch with me (my contact details can be found in the right-hand sidebar on any page on the site).

Speaking personally, one thing that moved me in particular with this print sale were the number of people who told me they've never purchased any original art of any kind before this sale. There were quite a few. This site is all about enjoying photography, which has been one of the enrichments of my life, and I'm gratified to have helped introduce a few more people to the pleasure of owning and enjoying original art and of patronizing the work of active, living artists and craftspeople.

Mike
(Warm thanks to Pak)

P.S. If you can't see the video above, the direct link to YouTube is here.

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Sale a Great Success So Far

The Turnley print sale, still ongoing, has been an astounding success so far. We've sold more prints than most full-time photography galleries sell in a year. If not two years. Astonishing.

Just to let people know, I haven't been sending out acknowledgements of orders received, but I have been sending out acknowledgements of completed orders once payment is complete. So if you've mailed a check, you'll hear from me once I receive it.

We're truly bowled over at the response. We've gotten far more orders than expected. It has kept me very busy dealing with the bookkeeping and the many issues that come up, so much so that I almost haven't had time for anything else since Sunday. Not complaining.

We've heard some lovely comments from people, too. The young couple who have never bought original artwork of any kind before; the gentleman from Australia planning a birthday surprise for his wife; the small college buying for its art museum; the newlyweds in Tel Aviv who bought a print as a wedding present to themselves; the reader who's just starting a collection.

A big thanks to everyone. Two days yet to go.

Mike

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Fall Print Offer: Peter Turnley's Paris

More people visit Paris each year than any other city in the world. It has long been celebrated for its beauty, culture, history and romance—and it has long been an inspiration to photographers. For our Fall Print Offer, our last one before Christmas, we're pleased and proud to offer for sale three original signed prints of the most famous and popular pictures of Paris by Peter Turnley, who has made Paris his subject as much as any photographer of his generation.

Our friend Peter needs no introduction to regular readers of TOP. A leading photojournalist for nearly 40 years, his lengthy c.v. includes 42 Newsweek covers and a feature profile on "60 Minutes," among many other accomplishments and honors.

For two and a half decades, Peter made Paris his base. Between assignments covering news events in hotspots all over the world, he would come home to Paris to recover and relax. There, he would use a Leica loaded with black-and-white film, wandering the byways of Paris and photographing life as he lived it and Paris as he found it. The result is a large body of work in the tradition of Doisneau, Boubat, Ronis, Cartier-Bresson, Izis, and the other great visual chroniclers of Paris. Some of the best of it was collected in Peter's 2000 Abbeville Press book Parisians, for which Robert Doisneau and Edouard Boubat both wrote forewords.

Although priced at less than one-third of their usual cost, these are in every way fine original collector prints. The archival fiber-based silver-gelatin prints will be handmade in Paris by master printer Voja Mitrovic, who for many years was the primary printer for Henri Cartier-Bresson, Josef Koudelka, and a number of other world-renowned photographers. (Peter wrote about Voja here on TOP a few weeks ago). Voja still prints, but only for a small, select group of his friends among the world's most accomplished photographers. He has agreed to make these prints for you as a special favor to Peter.

The prints will be signed on the front by Peter, and on the back by both Peter and Voja.

These are among the best-loved and most popular of the pictures from Parisians. The first is the book's cover; the third a romantic and high-spirited scene of night life in a typical Paris bistro. The second picture is especially remarkable—in poster form, it is an evergreen bestseller, one of the most popular Paris photographs ever. But few people own an original.

For a limited time only (as per our usual practice, TOP will collect orders for only five days—until Friday, the 17th of September) you can purchase any one of these prints for $395, the second for $375, and the third for only $225. The prints are the standard European print size of 30 x 40 centimeters (~12x16 inches) (image area slightly smaller). The usual price for these prints is $1,200 each for 16x20-inch prints, the standard American collector print size.

[Ordering information removed—Sale ended 7:00 p.m. CT 9/17/10. Many thanks to all those who participated!]

Part of the proceeds of this sale help support TOP. We hope you like this, our fourth and final print sale for 2010. Many thanks to all of you reading this for your support of TOP, and my thanks to Peter and Voja as well.

Mike

ADDENDUM: Several readers have asked why, if the prints are being made in Paris, the shipping cost is higher to Europe. The reason is that the fulfillment is being done from New York City. Unfortunately, it's not possible for us to deliver to European customers from Europe.

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Only Four More Days!

...'Til our fall print sale, the final Print Offer of 2010. I'm getting really psyched about it.

The reason I mention it so many times in advance is just so nobody misses it. Our print sales only go on for a very short time—this one will run for five days—and I always get people contacting me after it's over saying, "Hey, I missed it!" "I don't check in to TOP for a week and this is what happens?" "Can I still order, please?" Well, no—no you can't. We collect orders for the five days the sale is open and then the fulfillment work begins and that's it.

By the way, I'm going to run a "sticky" about the sale at the top of the blog all next week. New content will appear underneath it (everybody knows what a sticky is by now, right?), so don't be fooled into thinking there's nothing new.

Please check back here on Sunday at noon to take a look at our Fall Print Offer, Peter Turnley's Paris. It's going to be great. You'll like it, unless I miss my guess.

Mike

P.S. By the way, if you think at any point that I'm being too craven and commercial about our print sales, all I can say is I hope so, brother, I hope so, and please don't begrudge. Running a site like this is great fun (really, it is), but they chain your foot to a bench and make you tug on this giant oar all day, and then when the plate with the scraps and gruel comes around there just isn't much of it (again, really...although I'm up to 1600 calories a day now on the GAFAD*). The income is all nice, but harrowingly irregular. We need the odd drachma.

And Peter has now contributed several bodies of original work to the site without getting paid a single lepton**. Talk of New Paradigms in photojournalism is all well and good, but something has to pay the bills. This is how we hope it's going to work.

(But more about that in the future.)

*The Great Anti-Fat-Ass Diet, which I've been on for going on seven weeks now.

**1/100th of a drachma.

 

Print Sale Start Date

Just wanted to let you know that TOP's next Print Sale, "Peter Turnley's Paris," will begin on September 12th.

We'll announce the sale (with all the relevant details) at noon on Sunday the 12th, and take orders for five days, until roughly sundown on Friday, September 17th.

In case you don't know how our print sales work, we keep prices as low as possible by taking orders in advance and then fulfilling the orders we've received.

I'll post one more reminder of the start date between now and then so nobody who's waiting for it misses it.

Mike

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