'Beautiful Bokeh' Print Offer

[JPEG of] photo by John Lehet

During 2017 TOP will be offering four single prints, one per season, all from experienced master printmakers, all reasonably priced. I'm happy to announce our Winter season print sale, the first of 2017. [UPDATE: Sale ended 1/9/17 at noon.]

For John Lehet it's not about the JPEG; it's about the print. A perfectionist photographic printmaker, he studied under John Sexton and transitioned from large- and medium-format darkroom printing to digital printmaking many years ago now. He's a very serious, engaged printmaker with a large body of work and many exhibitions to his credit.

The picture is "Morning Glory Bud In Rain, 2016." It is large for a small print, 13.5 by 20 inches on 17x22-inch paper. The print will be signed on the the front at the lower right; no signature on request.

The cost is only $160, shipping inclusive for domestic U.S. orders and $35 extra for non-U.S. orders. Vermonters will need to pay sales tax. It was pretty nice of John to "go low" on the price for us; helps make a purchase pain-free. This is really not much more than you might pay for a poster of the same size.

Same picture, two different papers

A new wrinkle for TOP: you can choose the same picture on your choice of two different papers, Canson Edition Etching Rag or Canson Baryta Photographique. The differences are subtle yet significant: Etching, a textured matte paper with less tooth than watercolor paper, emphasizes the smooth areas of the photograph, with the paper texture coming forward subtly in the soft washes of bokeh color. At first we were only going to offer the print on this paper. However, John decided to also offer a version on Baryta Photographique, a paper that faithfully echoes the feel of fiber-based black-and-white darkroom prints of old but without the curl. On Baryta Photographique some of the detailed areas of the print render a little more assertively, shifting the emphasis a little more toward the texture of the wet leaf above the bud. Both papers show the pop of detail against the smooth bokeh equally well, and produce clear and real color.

John has recently been obsessed (if that's not too strong a word) with exploring bokeh with his high-end full-frame mirrorless camera, using a variety of older lenses famous among deep connoisseurs. We'll have more information about the equipment used, as well as a fascinating post about meditation and its relationship to photography, as the week progresses.

As always with our sales, we take orders for five days and then close the ordering period so the photographer can get to work on fulfillment. We do not take any more orders once the ordering period has closed. No exceptions (but not to worry—if you miss the sale, you can still order the print from John at any time at the regular price of $475). The "Beautiful Bokeh" sale ends next Monday at noon, Eastern U.S. Time.

I hope you will love this! It really is exceptionally pretty. (Very safe to give as a gift, I might add.) And thanks much for looking.

Mike
(Thanks to J.L.)

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Michael Kellough: "Re 'Both papers show the pop of detail against the smooth bokeh equally well, and produce clear and real color.'

"Echoing Dave, in his comment, all we can tell from the photo of both prints side by side is that the color saturation is different in each print. The texture you discuss in describing the difference is not visible in the photo so how about some other clue to distinguish the two papers?"

Mike replies: Actually you can't quite tell that, because you can't see prints in JPEGs of prints. Especially iPhone snap JPEGs that have been reduced to 800 pixels in width and mushed and squished by the blog software. Just sayin'.

My clear favorite between the two papers is the Etching. It's John's preference too. This picture is gorgeous on it. John created an array of tests on a number of papers of various softness and a variety of textures, looking for the perfect match for the image. He tried some papers that were even more matte and had more texture than the Etching paper, but liked them less. He arrived at Canson Etching as having the ideal balance.

We're also offering the Baryta because we know some people have a strong affection for those types of papers (I love them too), and feel "allergic" to papers that are more matte. My experience over many years is that a small minority of people just really don't care for matte papers. The Baryta paper has more gloss and looks more conventional. The picture looks beautiful on that paper too, and, honestly, the differences are pretty slight (and will probably be more so once they're under glass). But if you lack any strong allegiance to traditional Baryta "air dried F surface" type papers, and you're in doubt as to which to get, I'd say go for the Etching. It's amazing.

And finally, if you receive the print on the Etching paper and don't care for it, you can return it to John and he'll send you the more standard Baryta print. (Or your money back, your choice.)

Does this help at all?

Comments

[Dave Van de Mark]

Just lovely!

[Dave New]

Which paper is which in the above shot? Unless it is a trick of lighting, the one on the left appears to have deeper/richer blacks.

[Paulo Bizarro]

I am curious to see which lens was used, as I find the bokeh wonderful. There is smoothness, diffusion, but still some structure that makes the background recognizable. All this adds a nice sense of depth.

[Peter S]

Hi Mike,

In the past I've noticed you had a 'sticky' link (above the newest posts) to the ongoing sale, and I don't see that now nor, I think, the last time a print sale happened here. It seems like that would still be quite helpful for people who don't always scroll down to see all the articles they missed?

(No need to publish this comment, I just wanted to make sure you were thinking about the sticky if you had just forgotten to do it.)

[Anthony Shaughnessy]

My sales stock is either framed (behind glass) or wrapped in cellophane and in that state I can't see any difference between my gloss and matte prints. When looking closely at a "raw" print you can see the difference if you look carefully but once framed I don't think most people can tell.
Anthony