Inexpensive Carl Weese Prints

As an experiment, our friend Carl Weese is offering for sale very low-cost prints of any of the pictures featured on his blog, Working Pictures. You can read more about the ongoing offer on WP.

Carl has been a photographer, graphic designer and writer for 40 years, and has taught workshops all over the country. He is best known for his ultra-large-format platinum/palladium work (I'm still trying to get him to offer a low-cost platinum print for our readers, à la the Ctein dye transfer print offer last month. Maybe next Spring—I'll keep nagging). He's written many posts for TOP, including the very useful Paper Towel Test, which lets you know how many stops above middle gray your DSLR is capable of recording—a more meaningful metric of dynamic range than simply the overall number of stops you can record, since, often, simply "exposing to the right" results in depressed middle values.

Head over to Working Pictures sometime and take a look around. Even if you're not going to buy one, try this as an exercise in delectation: if you did have to choose just one, which one would it be?

___________________

Mike

Featured Comment by Michael Poster, Camerawork Gallery: "Carl had an exhibit in our gallery in Scranton not long ago. The prints he showed there were Epson inkjet. I can certainly vouch for the beauty of the images and the quality of the prints."

Comments

[Thiago Silva]

Sorta of unrelated question (it relates to the paper towel test):

Assuming the K10D in the example, and the "expose to the right" rationale, to get the "best" exposure from any scene one should spot meter the brightest object in the scene and then increasing exposure by 3 stops (the stated maximum recoverable overexposure)?

[Chris Norris]

Mike, this is probably not suitable for posting 'cause it's really promoting me, but...

Like Carl (and Jens Bekman and anyone else trying to distribute low cost real physical photography objects), I've started a project to distribute some of my work. The result is a photography "zine" of sorts. The quality is... well, the best you can manage at a consumer printing outfit like Kinko's. I distribute them for free in the Madison, Wisconsin area at coffee shops and some retail places. I ship them around the country and world for a small fee.

If you come to Madison much I can give you one or tell you where to find one. Heck, if you send me your address I'll mail you one for free.

I did this because I had a strong need to show my work and the internet just wasn't cutting it for me. I wanted something people can hold. You can see the entire contents (albeit in a small size) at

www.stuckphotography.com

Thanks.

-chris

[Carl Weese]

Thiago, you've got the idea right. In practice, since it's a bit awkward, I would reserve the spot meter and 3 (or 2.7) stops up technique for very contrasty situations that will obviously strain the sensor's ability. Most of the time I keep the camera in aperture priority, use over-ride a lot, and frequently use the camera's digital preview feature that shows a histogram without recording a file.

[Eric]

I just visited Carl's website and he certainly has some very fine work on there. I also agree with his point about small vs. large prints: when I've printed my photos for sale in the past, people enouraged me to go as big as possible. But sometimes smaller prints can be more accessible and relaxing to look at.

[Thiago Silva]

Thanks, Carl. I'll go for a walk on the weekend and put the concept to practice. Let's see how much I can optimize those gray skies!

[Howard Cornelsen]

Mike--
Clearly the paper towel manufacturers have taken Carl's Paper Towel Test seriously, since many are now offering towels in an almost perfect 16:9 aspect ratio, agreeing with that of a number of new cameras.

Example: Viva towel sections measure 28 cm x 15.9 cm.

;-)