The Online Photographer

Printing Papers

I'm sorry, but I've been down a few rabbit holes over the last few days, which is awkward when the rabbit hole doesn't involve photography. Speakers and houses. I was all set to write a post about my pet peeves about house design (all 27 of them) when I thought, nah, I can't do that to my poor readers. They come here to read about photography.

Fortunately, the cavalry arrived over the hilltops, bugles blazing, in the form of a large, fat mailing tube in my mailbox. You remember my plan to offer a print of the "Mennonite Boys" picture? Well, the proofs arrived from Bob Rosinsky in Colorado. Bob is a photographer, a TOP reader, a custom printer, and a guy who has seen an inordinate number of UFOs.

And something happened that has never happened before: the prints inside were so good that there was nothing I need changed and nothing I would have done differently had I been doing it myself. That's never happened. Normally, what you do when someone else prints your pictures is that you send them a file, they send you a proof, and then you get to work: you tell them the changes you want, they apply them and send another proof, and then rinse and repeat until done. It can be anything from a small thing or two to a long, drawn-out process of many iterations. It can take weeks. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just the process, just what it takes. It's normal.

The Maytag repairman
One of the best printmakers I ever had was a guy at a camera store, of all things. The store had an older employee who sat "in the back" at a big computer. He had one of the HP Z-series printers, 36" wide if memory serves or maybe 24", and you would sit there and look over his shoulder in real time while he did the Photoshop preparations, discussing options together, and then he ran the first proof off and you looked at that and went from there. It was great. The store didn't even charge a lot. I thought I'd use him going forward, but about the fourth time I went in to have a print made, the old guy was gone, replaced by a kid who had obviously just been trained. Apparently the old guy just found himself sitting around back there with no customers too much of the time, and he got tired of it. Oh well.

I get the feeling Bob really slaved over these. Plus, he's been seeing my pictures here since 2007, and he has absorbed a sense of how I like my pictures to look. He gave me samples of four different papers: Moab Lasal Exhibition Lustre 300, Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta, Moab Lasal Photo Matte, and Epson Hot Press Natural.

We had already decided to offer a small print on 11x14" paper based on the recent print size poll, but it's the large image floated on 17x22" Epson Hot Press Natural that's the real stunner. It's just gorgeous. Bob did a fantastic job—it's not easy to get dark contrast to print right, much less when you have large blobs of bright light that have to have the transitions look right. He corrected the verticals perfectly. He printed the big one to look right in room light—in other words, on a wall. If you flood it with strong light, the darks will look a little weak; but in more subdued normal room light, it comes alive and sings. So we'll offer a small one, but I have to offer the large one as well. It couldn't have turned out better. I'm very proud of it. (And relieved that the print worked—it didn't have to, with that file. There's no disappointment quite like a file you love on the screen that doesn't print.)

With the help of a friend (I don't usually name people until I'm sure I'm going to use their services, in the way I didn't name Bob until now—these folks are professionals, and I want to preserve their anonymity in case we decide not to work together), we're planning a new sale page, and it looks like we're going to be able to have a permanent store. So maybe the small low-cost print will be the offering in the print sale, and the large print will be available on an ongoing basis in the new store. We'll see how all that works out.

Curiously, Bob and I agree that we like the Hahnemühle print the least with this image, which is only worth remarking on because we both expected to like it the best! Some papers just look better with specific images, that's all. You can think all you want and assume all you want, but you've got to see it with your eyes before you can make up your mind.

I have a bit more news on this front, but I'll put it in another post.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Our Print Sales Need to Evolve Too

I spoke yesterday of how my writing and comment-moderation workflow here on TOP might need to change. Well, our print sales might need to evolve as well.

I've heard anecdotally from a variety of sources that print sales are slowing across the board, as the tradition of fine printmaking continues to evaporate from the culture of photography. Our print sales have certainly declined. I'm not sure I can ascribe that to anything in the broader culture, however. TOP's audience has constricted to about one-third the size of the audience at peak (2013), although the readers that remain seem much more engaged, devoted, and active—also, they're more dedicated or devoted to photography or however you want to phrase it, more experienced and knowledgeable. TOP doesn't attract hordes of casual visitors looking for shopping advice any more, that's for sure.

Anyway, it might be time for a transition here too. Our old model (taking orders in advance for a limited time and fulfilling them after they were already sold) worked quite wonderfully. But it's a high-volume model. Our best print sale sold ~735 prints, and our most lucrative made $128,000 in profit. Another artist first agreed to make 50 prints, but that 50 sold so rapidly that he agreed to make 100 more. Those vanished as well. Yet another print-sale artist told us that the check we sent her was the largest amount of money she'd earned at one time in her life.

But those days are long gone. Now we struggle to sell 100, and often don't reach 50. And the profits are more modest.

Great good fortune
It's still nothing to sneeze at; not at all. When's the last time you sold 35 prints of a single picture? It's very unusual. The number of photographers who sell 35 prints of one picture in a gallery show are a tiny minority. Most people who have gallery shows would be over the moon to sell 35 total. So I'm grateful we can do that. Looked at objectively, it's still very fortunate that we do so well. Quite wonderful.

It might be time to change the sales model, is all. For one thing, the printer still needs to be paid. The first print is where a lot of the labor is. If we sell 125 prints, the first print is a small proportion of the whole. If the printer is providing 15 prints, it's a larger part of the work. It becomes harder for us to cover that cost. One printer won't work with us unless we can guarantee 100 sales.

So what I'm thinking of is switching to some kind of small-volume model. As you can see from the last post but one, 148 readers put themselves into the category of people who would consider buying a print of "Mennonite Boys Watching Dirt-Track Racing." But how many people actually will buy one? Fifteen per cent? Ten? So call it 15 to 22 sales. And that sounds about right.

So maybe I should have the printer make 15 copies (or 15 and three artist's proofs), and I'll pay him out of my pocket, and then we'll offer the 15 until they sell out. The price would have to be higher doing it that way, but still nothing too onerous. (And sometimes people want to pay more, but that's another post.)

I'd like to try that with reader prints, too. Your prints, I mean. I have in mind three prints by readers. I could ask each person to provide, say, ten copies of his or her print, and then offer them without a deadline. They'd just sell until they sold out. Wouldn't it be nice to make a sale out of the Baker's Dozens, for instance?

I'll have to think about that. Anyway, that's all that this post is trying to say: that I'm thinking about this. The volume model is on the cusp of not making enough volume, so maybe it's just time to change.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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David Turnley Print Sale Ending

Nelson Mandela's first dinner after being released from
prison. Photo by David Turnley.

Just a reminder that David Turnley's year-end print sale is ending two days from now, on Wednesday.

If you'd like to listen to some of David's well-earned war stories, literal and otherwise, see this lecture in the University of Michigan's Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series. Excellent.

See the pictures here.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2022 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Monochrome Camera Print Offer!

[Sale ended 11/25/2022 at one minute to midnight]

I'm very pleased to offer for sale a small selection of fine prints made from a monochrome digital camera. The camera is a Sigma fp converted to monochrome by having the CFA (color filter array) stripped from the camera, a service that can be performed on any camera that has a Sony sensor by Daniel Morrison at Monochrome Imaging Services in Vancouver, Washington (among others). It is a 24-megapixel full-frame camera. The conversion increases both sensitivity and sharpness such that the prints look more like they were made with a 36-MP camera.

The prints are gorgeous. I'm so pleased with the way they turned out that I've decided to commit to working this way into the future. I've loved black-and-white since I first discovered, as a boy, that the local pharmacy would make black-and-white prints to special order. I drove their technician crazy! Not long afterward, I set up my first B&W darkroom in the bathroom under the basement stairs in my parents' house in Bethesda. My love of B&W continued through a career as a custom B&W printmaker for galleries and museums, and as a darkroom expert writing for such magazines as Darkroom Photography (US) and Black & White Photography (UK) among others. When I first started the "Collector Print Program" at Photo Techniques magazine several decades ago, the idea was to offer beautiful pictures that were also outstanding examples of various specialized, exotic, or unusual photographic techniques, so readers could see for themselves what good examples of those techniques look like. These monochrome-sensor prints follow fully in that tradition.

After the Rain, Keuka Lake, from Hammondsport
["Lake" on the ordering page]

Vultures Eating the Remains of a Deer
["Vultures"]

Car Coming
["Car"]

These prints were made under my supervision in Daly City, California, by Ctein (it's his only name—he's mononymous—and it's pronounced "kuh-TINE). Ctein is a longtime custom printer who transitioned to inkjet printing from dye transfer; he wrote the standard textbook on photo restoration, and we hope he will write one on inkjet printing. He certainly could. They were printed with Epson UltraChrome HD pigment inks on Epson Exhibition Fiber paper. The prints are BIG—for me—printed on 17x22" paper with approximately 1" borders.

The cost is $265 per print, and SHIPPING IS FREE TO ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Your satisfaction is guaranteed—if, after seeing it, you choose not to keep it for any reason or for no reason, simply return it for a full refund. We will accommodate your wishes.

For those who order two prints in any combination, there is a choice of one of two free 8.5x11-inch bonus prints...

Corn at the Harvest
["Corn"]

Wet Asphalt
["Asphalt"]

...and anyone who orders three large prints in any combination will receive both free bonus prints.

The sale is not limited in number; it is LIMITED IN TIME. We take orders only through Friday, all the way to midnight. If you have any questions, please contact Ctein or myself or leave your question in the Comments.

Please click through from the sales page to the large JPEGs that Ctein has put up. They will give you a better idea of what the prints look like. There is a big difference between seeing these little JPEGs and the magnificent full-sized prints. Hopefully, these will help convince you, as they have convinced my grateful self, that monochrome, a.k.a. black and white, is still alive and well, easier than it used to be, and as beautiful as it ever was.

Mike
(Top photo by Dan Whicker)

Featured Comments from:

Nikhil Ramkarran: "Ordered, with great pleasure."

robert e: "They may be just JPEGs, but I can see why you're jazzed, Mike! Boy, the more I see of 'Vultures' the more I like it—there's so much visual variety and many points of interest, but all within a harmonious whole. Congratulations on all these prints and on finally obtaining your dream tool. Good luck with the sale!"

Mike replies: Thank you.

Stan B.: "That's one handsome set of prints!"

Mike replies: Thank you!

Darlene: "I ordered 'Vultures' because I like the image. I call it Circle of Life (or something like that). It is a beautiful image, and I cannot wait to see the print. Happy early holidays to you, Mike."

Mike replies: And to you as well.

Rodolfo Canet Castelló: "Well, I've just ordered my first fine art print! There's a first for everything. I liked 'Lake' the very moment I saw it, and I believe having a master-printed copy will be extremely useful to educate my eye for my own printing. During these years The Online Photographer has been very important to let me escape from the oversharpened, oversaturated amateur photography of today and this should take my education to the next level. Thanks Mike and Ctein!"

Mike replies: It's a good reason to keep a collection of prints or even clips. When I was a custom exhibition printer, specializing in B&W, I kept a large folder of examples of excellent B&W close at hand—some were original prints by others, some were my prints, and some were tearsheets from magazines. The purpose was to "calibrate my eye" before a printing session. I used it infrequently, but I could usually sense when I needed to do so. Five or ten minutes of looking through those examples and I would feel grounded and be ready to start tackling the negatives I had to print that day. (I probably also used that time to formulate a mental plan as to how I wanted to approach that day's negatives.)

Gear and Materials for the Monochrome-Sensor Print Sale

That last post took a looong time to write. See what I do for you?

Further announcements about the upcoming print sale, about which I am very stoked:

F It will start at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (Ctein-time) on this coming Monday, November 21st.

F There are three prints, made on 17x22-inch Epson Exhibition Fiber paper with at least a 1-inch border.

F There are also two bonus prints, of this image and this image, made on 8.5x11-inch paper. Anyone who buys two large prints can choose one bonus print, and anyone who buys three prints will receive both. The bonus prints aren't available separately.

F The prints are made on an Epson P800 using Epson UltraChrome HD pigment inks.

F We've noticed that a lot of our customers are repeat buyers, so Ctein would like regulars to know that this time, he will respond to order emails within 48 hours rather than 24, although it might be much sooner than that, and the prints will ship in 45 days rather than 30, although, again, it may be much sooner. The reason for the latter is that we had a few unavoidable delays caused by COVID-related issues during the last sale, and Ctein would like to build in an abundance of caution this time.

F There's one exception: if you need your prints as Christmas gifts, you need only mention that in your order email, and he will make sure you get them on time.

F The sale runs for four days, ending on Friday just before midnight Pacific Time. That's it!

I take tomorrow off, not because I don't like you but because housework. So I'll be back on Sunday. Please put Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. in London) on your calendar. If you're in Sydney you can be excused for waiting a few hours, because for you the sale starts at 5 a.m. Tuesday! I guess you can sleep in if you have to.  :-)

Kind regards,

Mike

 

 

Monochrome Print Sale Coming Up!

I'm pleased (very) to relate that the upcoming Monochrome Sensor Print Sale is now hard-scheduled. It will commence on November 21st and last for four days only.

If you're unfamiliar with our sales, what we do is to prepare the picture(s) for printing so we know for sure what we have, then open a brief window for pre-orders. After the window closes and all the orders are in, we can make the prints in one or two runs, saving greatly on the time, hassle, and hence the cost of the old-fashioned "gallery model" of sales. It's a win-win: customers get a fine custom print more inexpensively than a bricks-'n'-mortar gallery could sell it for, but the photographer and printer both get paid well too. We've sold thousands of prints over the years following this model, with a great many happy customers. I know because people send me pictures of the prints framed and hung on their walls! One particular joy is all the people, and couples, who have bought original art for the very first time in one of our sales. There have been many of them, too, over the years.

The downside is that you have to order during the order window to get a print at this extraordinarily low price. Once it closes, that's it—lost your chance.

More information to come on Friday. All the information, plus instructions on how to order, will be repeated in the main announcement on Monday the 21st of this month. That's the day you'll be able to see the final selection of pictures. The sale will then close at 11:59 p.m., Pacific Standard Time, on "Black Friday."

Please come back on Monday to see the images and read more about them. The full-range B&W prints are gorgeous. To say I'm extremely pleased with them, and with the potential of the converted monochrome sensor, is honestly an understatement.

Mike

Open Mike: The Proof Prints Arrived, and...

"Car Coming" at 15x20 inches, first proof from Ctein

The proof prints for the monochrome print offer arrived yesterday evening, and...

It was a momentous life event for me, no fooling. I took a short look at the big prints and I knew it. "This is the way I'm going to work for the rest of my life."

I had been apprehensive about seeing the prints, because I've been enjoying shooting with the monochrome Sigma camera* so much that I had some trepidation about how the prints might look. If they revealed flaws or shortcomings in the equipment—to my very personal definition, mind you—it wouldn't necessarily have been the end of everything, but it would have thrown cold water over my happiness about the shooting I've been doing since late August. And my feelings about the Sigma fp(m) and its workflow.

Thankfully the opposite happened. The prints are beautiful. I like them better than I thought I would. They're very much like 16x20-inch prints from 4x5-inch negatives—not exactly the same, because the two media are very different, but, remarkably, not very far off, either. I love 'em!

Ctein and I have a little tweaking left to do before they're perfectamundo, but they're very close, close enough for me to know what I need to know. And he gets there, because that is what he does. (Before we're through, I'll explain the process of working with a custom digital print maker.)

A big moment in my life, then, yesterday evening, when I opened the package from California. I'm 65, so the way I figure it, I get to live between zero and 40 more years (the oldest human in the U.S. just turned 115, but 95% of super-centenarians are women; for men, by and large, the jig is up by the age of 105. No, I don't guess I'll live that long—it's the outer edge of the range of possibility). More realistically, my life expectancy is 18.1 years, according to the Social Security Administration, who have some data on the subject. Give or take five years, say, for good or bad luck. Well, for whatever portion of that time I remain vigorous and sentient enough to be photographically active, I've found the way I want to be working.

And I'll tell you what: I'm going to be grateful for it every single day. No kidding. Ansel Adams said, in The Negative, 1981, "I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them." I remember reading those very sentences when they were newly published back in '81. (The Negative was inspirational for me, as it was for so many others.) Now I live in the future. Now I live in that future. I get to carry around a handheld "4x5" that yields gorgeous, gloriously detailed, exceptionally sharp, tonally lovely prints, and I don't have to develop the film(!). That part tickles me—if you only knew how much film I have developed by hand in my life, and how much time I spent doing it.... And I get to put my virtual large-format camera on a tripod only when I feel like it. Science fiction, plus a little daydreaming thrown in, from 1981.

So yesterday was a red-letter day in my life. No joke, I'm being totally sincere. Stay tuned to TOP for the details about this print sale.

Mike

*For those who haven't been following along, last August, Jason M. loaned me his Sigma fp rig converted to B&W-only by Monochrome Imaging Services in Vancouver, and I subsequently bought my own. I've been getting to know it ever since. I also received a Leica Monochrom on loan from Chris H., and yes, we will be doing a comparo...I've been reluctant to, only because I can't afford a Monochrom and, if the Monochrom is better, I kinda don't want to know it! But we will investigate sooner or later, don't worry, for those of you who are more interested in the Leica solution.

Featured Comments:

Jim Roberts: "Very happy for you Mike. As one who has enjoyed your writing for many years, here’s to the next forty!"

Greg: "A while back I had two 16x20 prints exhibited side by side: one made from a 4x5 negative on fiber based paper, and the other made with my Nikon D850 and printed with an Epson 7800 printer on high quality paper. Not one person was 100% sure which was which including a handful of photographers."

Jim: "I completely understand your excitement and satisfaction of seeing your prints, Mike. For years, I made black-and-white photographs using a Calumet C-1 8x10" and a 300mm Schneider Krueznach lens on Plus-X 4147. My version of OCOL, but for many years. Anyway, I had only seen them as contact prints. In 2004 I moved to Alexandria, Virginia and decided to have a negative scanned and a large print made. I had a 30x40" print made; when I first saw it, I got a lump in my throat as big as a goose egg! It was so astounding I could hardly wait to share with everyone I knew! I hope you will continue to share your excitement and enthusiasm over this new chapter."

Picking Pictures for a Sigma fp-M Print Sale

Well this should be great fun for a Sunday!

Ctein and I have agreed in principle on having a print sale of the Sigma fp-M test shots, so you can see for yourself what prints from a full-frame sensor converted to monochrome look like.

Car Coming

They will be rather large—what Ctein considers full size for his own work, on premium 17x22" paper with generous borders. There will be three, plus a premium. One of the prints will be "Car Coming," which you can see here. Another will be an 8x10 of "Wet Asphalt," which will be a free premium for anyone who orders the set of three.

But what should the other two be? Here's the folder.

I have a few more to upload, which I'll do this week, but nothing special enough to think it would be a pick.

Some history
I started this idea way back in the '90s at Photo Techniques magazine, as the "Collector Print" series. The idea was to give people excellent examples of various techniques, so people could see for themselves what the techniques looked like. One of the earliest sales at PT was of prints made from the first affordable digital camera, the Canon D30 (no, not the 30D!), a 3-MP(!) digital SLR that cost "only" $3,000. It was the Canon of the Millennium, announced in very early 2000, and people were very excited about the possibilities it offered going on 23 years ago now. Those prints were by a Canadian fellow named Michael Reichmann, who later became famous as "MR" of The Luminous-Landscape, one of the most important enthusiast websites of digital's early years. I'm sure many of you remember him with fondness, as do I.

Over the years we offered a great variety of prints: examples of true darkroom unsharp masking (it took a whole day just to make the mask); Cibachromes; real dye transfers; Peter Turnley prints made by Voja Mitrovic, the master printer who at one time made all of Henri Cartier-Bresson's and Josef Koudelka's and Sebastiao Salgado's prints; contact prints from large- and ultra-large-format negatives on true contact printing paper; real platinum-palladium prints; a super-large print made with the medium-format digital Leica S; the "father and son" diptychs by Paul and John Paul Caponigro, the former a master of older traditional techniques and the latter one of the very earliest artists to commit to digital means and methods, long before most others did; and many more. Even, most lately, prints from iPhone pictures, of all things. Apart from being technical examples, many of the prints we offered in the past were beautiful and unique in their own right.

As we always try to do if we can, we'll ship to anywhere in the world and all the shipping will be the same (reasonable) price. So as not to exclude anyone on account of logistics.

There's a lot of preparation that goes into a print offer, and we're just getting started. I just asked him yesterday and heard back from him this morning. But you'll be kept apprised as we make progress.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Annie Leibovitz. At long last, the unlimited trade edition of the humongous, limited Sumo edition by Taschen. Mind you, this is still a huge book—15.4 inches high, 556 pages, and almost 13 pounds. And the price! (But that's nothing—the Sumo weighed 57 pounds and cost $7,500.) This is the closest ordinary folks (with ordinary shelves) will get to the ultimate Annie.

The book link above is a portal to any purchase at Amazon. You're very kind use our links, as they help support the site.

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

David Drake: "Hi Mike I initially quite liked the image 'Corn at Harvest' for its simplicity of subject and tonal range, but it doesn’t really have lasting appeal. I think I would go for 'Vultures Eating' (though it’s unfortunate that a vulture is flying out of the frame—though it does add some tension to the image perhaps?), as the drama and tonal range of the scene is fantastic! Or the 'Rain Across the Valley,' as the lighting is beautiful especially on the foreground corn."

Geoff Wittig: "Thanks, Mike! I have been slowly accumulating a small but lovely collection of photographic prints spanning the range of available printing technologies, including platinum/Palladium and dye transfer, almost all courtesy of TOP and for very reasonable prices. We have you to thank for this opportunity. I'm a landscape guy, but I'd have to cast my vote for 'Interior.' The palpable sense of space and light is wonderful."

Update on the Previous Sale

Just an update: we're closing the books Ctein's Infrared Print Offer a few days from now, so if there's anything you need to communicate with him about, please do it now!

[email protected]

Thanks again to everyone who participated. We've received many nice compliments about the prints.

Mike

Final Reminder (Update: Sale is Over Now)

UPDATE: The sale is over now so I have some numbers for you. Eighty-eight prints were sold in a total of 69 orders; no order was for more than two prints. The most popular print by far was "Twisted Juniper," accounting for 57 of the total. The breakdown of the rest was "Faraday Dome" (below), 16; "Tamarack Fire," 8; "Buddha," 3; and "Anthers" (the flower), 3. One is currently unknown, because Ctein got one payment without a corresponding email.

Only one print was sold to Australia, and I want to apologize again to our Australian friends. As I understand it, the postal service there is under some stress due to COVID-19 and only accepting certain classes of mail for delivery. The shipping cost ended up being almost half as much as the cost of the print. That made it too difficult for us to offer free shipping, and we asked for an extra $50 when shipping just one print. Regardless of the reason, I feel like you Aussies effectively got left out, which is unfortunate.

Our next sale will be quite different, and I'm interested to see if it works and how people like it. If you bought an infrared print, we'll keep you up to date about what's happening. And thanks very much!   —Mike

Ctein, Faraday Dome, Arecibo, Puerto Rico, 2017

Our sale ended today at 2 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time. That's 11 a.m. in Vancouver, Cananda; 7 p.m. in London, UK; and X:§Ð on Saturn*.

Thanks to all! I'll have some metrics later and of course will keep you up to date on shipments and other news.

Mike

*Ctein is the co-author, with John Camp a.k.a. John Sandford, of Saturn Run. He's probably going to get after me for trying to be funny, because I'm not fluent in Saturnish like he is.

Book o' the Week:

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952–1962. "When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing."

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Not THAT Ross Cameron: "Congratulations. I hope that was a successful sale. I nearly pulled the trigger on purchasing 'Juniper Tree' and 'Buddha,' for shipping to Australia. Unfortunately I have a bathroom renovation that I now have to pay the invoice for, so higher priorities. From my perspective, no need to apologise for something that is out of your control. I’m already accustomed to the sting of the additional costs of shipping, and the exchange rate conversion we cop too. It’s been a while since the halcyon days of AUD and USD parity (well, halcyon when we were buying from overseas, not so good when selling).

"And many thanks for the articles on how Ctein does his B&W IR photography. I’d like to give it a go one day. I have a Nikon D750 with vague plans of converting, once (if) the price of the D780 comes down far enough for me to justify that purchase."

INFRARED SALE!

Ctein, Twisted Sierra Juniper at Emerald Bay

Like drama? Enjoy vivid clarity and a sensational impression of sharpness? Is plain old black-and-white not otherworldly enough for you—not enough magic? Or do you just want to impress the heck out of your visitors, friends, and family?

Have I got a print for you.

These are stunning digital infrared prints that exemplify the absolute best that this medium can achieve. I chose the pictures—Ctein* has been very prolific in infrared over the past few years—and I took more time doing it than I ever have before, to try to pick the optimum mix of different subjects so there would be something for everyone's taste. [UPDATE: sale has ended.] 

These signed prints are made on an Epson SureColor P800 printer using Ultrachrome HD inks on premium 17x22" Epson Exhibition Fiber with a generous white border. The cost is only $195 per print, with discounts for those who buy more than one, and shipping is FREE no matter where you live (with one exception, see footnote**).

In keeping with our longstanding tradition, the purpose of this sale is to provide outstandingly well-crafted examples of photographic technique at significant discounts. We want more people to collect and enjoy good photography.

The sale starts now and ends on Wednesday at 11 a.m. US Pacific Time. We take orders ONLY within that time! Once the orders are closed, latecomers are out of luck. Pandemic irruptions permitting, all prints will be shipped within 30 days.

Another big reason for our print sales is so you can compare the effects and impression of a real print in contrast to a mere online JPEG—previous collectors of TOP prints can attest to what we mean. But in accordance with that goal, if you're not completely happy with your print after you see it for yourself, simply return it for a full refund. All you'll be out is the return shipping. (Prints damaged or lost in shipment will also be replaced at no cost to you.)

Ctein will write at length about his infrared techniques here on TOP on Monday.

Whether you are a connoisseur of fine photography or longtime practitioner of infrared techniques, or just want to see one great example of what they look like for yourself, this is for you.

Here's the link again, where you can see all five prints. [UPDATE: link removed; sale has ended.] 

Mike
Inset: Ctein, Anthers, Como Park Conservatory

*Pronounced kuh-TINE, rhymes with spine and line and dine, and it's legally his only name.

**Because of COVID restrictions on shipments, we are going to have to pay a whopping $88 to ship a package to Australia. So unfortunately we have to charge an extra $50 for those of you in Oz who order just one print. If you order more than one, we'll cover the shipping cost.

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Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

John Krumm: "Wow, usually I see infrared photos and think, ok, bright leaves, but these look great. I might have to get the tree."

robert e: "Holy smokes! I'm not a fan of IR, but these may change my mind. They are certainly among the finest IR photographs I've ever seen, even through a browser. Congratulations to Ctein, and to any owners of the prints!"

darlene: "I have owned a print of Buddha, Japanese Tea Garden, SF CA for a few years now. It was beautifully framed and resides on a wall in my digitizing work station and library. Absolutely beautiful! Good luck with the sale."

Moose: "I have a Ctein IR print in this size. Stunning print quality. A prized possession."

Jeff1000: "Ctein really does some nice work. Best of luck with the print sale."

Print Sale Starts Later Today

Our print sale of digital infrared black-and-white prints by Ctein starts later today, at 2 p.m. EST. I hope you'll please come back later this afternoon to see the choices.

The sale will last for five days. What we do with our print sales is to take orders for a short, defined amount of time, and then close the ordering window. The photographer then knows how many prints he or she needs to make and can produce them all at once. This means the prints are very reasonably priced, yet the photographers can still make a tidy amount of money.

This differs from the traditional gallery model of print sales. In classic gallery sales, a photographer first has to be accepted for representation. Ironically, these days, galleries often choose people who already have a proven track record for marketability. Then, the represented artist might be given a month-long show every two or three years. The photographer often pays all the costs of print production and presentation for the exhibits, and these days sometimes have to do some of the marketing as well. When a customer buys a print, the gallery passes the order along to the photographer, who makes another print on demand to fulfill the sale and delivers it to the gallery, which delivers it to their customer...very inefficient. A gallery charges much more per print, but also keeps much more of the proceeds—up to 70% these days. It's not unusual for photographers to realize a loss on a gallery show! Their proceeds from sales don't cover the time, effort and expense of mounting the exhibit.

To be blunt, I think our way is better.

Please come back later this afternoon and have a look. I think you will like.

More soon!

Mike

Infrared Print Sale Coming Up

[Comments have been added.]

Infrared, infrared, infrared!

As you know, light is not light. Infrared is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) having a wavelength just greater than that of the red end of the visible light spectrum but less than that of microwaves. And therefore normally invisible to the human eye. Infrared radiation has a wavelength from about 800 nanometers to one millimeter (there is no universally accepted range), and is emitted particularly by heated objects. And by living tissue; green foliage is rich in infrared light. Sunlight is more than half infrared. [UPDATE: A slight correction from MikeR: "Infrared sunlight is highly reflected off of green foliage. This is not the same as emissive infrared, a longer wavelength emitted by heat." Thanks, Mike.]

And as you also know, we can make film and sensors that are sensitive to both the visible spectrum and also to the near end of infrared. In fact, some of them do this naturally and ordinarily have to be filtered to not show infrared.

Infrared EMR was discovered by William Herschel, Court Astronomer to George III, celebrated for his sensational discovery of the planet Uranus. And William was the father of John, the great man-behind-the-scenes in photography's pioneer days who discovered fixer and coined the words "photography" and "snapshot," the latter by analogy to a hunting term for a quick, reactive shot made without taking careful aim.

Quite apart from the scientific definitions and historical background, infrared has aesthetic properties, both in color and in black-and-white. Some people love these properties, and certain artists choose to work in this medium.

And wouldn't you love to have one exceptional example in your print collection box? Well, coming up.

Watch this space.

Mike

Book o' the Week

In Search of Elsewhere: Unseen Images by Steve McCurry. [On Special Limited Time Sale today, $25.60 marked down from $70.] The two Steve McCurry books I own—Looking East and The Unguarded Moment—are oversized (but not too oversized) and have some of the very best color photographic reproduction I've seen. I hope this will be the same, although it has a different publisher. Steve McCurry, although his career is not without blemishes, is a superb and accomplished photographer whose work is a joy to own and revisit. Note that he's a "visual storyteller," not a photojournalist.

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Featured Comments from:

David Elden: "Looking forward to seeing this print offer (I've used the old Kodak HIE film in the past and taught courses on how to use it). As an aside re 'green foliage is rich in infrared light'; it might be more accurate to say (healthy) green foliage reflects (not 'is rich in' as if it emits it) IR. This effect probably arises because the chlorophyll (green pigment in green foliage) does not absorb IR so the IR is reflected by the tiny cavities in the leaf structure (similar to the way styrofoam reflects light)."

William Cook: "Wow! Has your opinion of infrared photography changed? Many years ago you wrote that you weren’t a fan (I think your wording was much stronger if memory serves me but I don’t want to embellish!). The reason I remember is that infrared photography was and is most of what I do and, because I’d always valued your opinion and insight, I was even a bit hurt! That remains to this day the only thing you’ve written that I’ve disagreed with, so you might imagine my surprise at this notice!"

Mike replies: The answer would be complicated. Maybe I'll write about it while the sale is going on, or after it. Sorry to have made you feel hurt all those years ago....

Print Sale Update

I've just received the "Mike's Miniatures" prints from Ctein in California—they're little gems. I will sign all of them and return them to him, and then he will ship them to the buyers. By the way, the paper he's using is awesome (British translation: brilliant)—Epson Exhibition Fiber. Beautiful.

So we don't have an estimate of arrival to you quite yet, but I'll keep you apprised.

—Mike

Book o' the Week
American Geography by Matt Black, a great name for a photographer but a terrible internet name, impossible to search. Stan Banos calls American Geography a "handsome, well thought out and put together book." Matt's work is outstanding.

The link is a portal to Amazon. Thank you kindly for helping support The Online Photographer!

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Don't Forget!

Don't forget my "Mike's Miniatures" sale is only a three-day sale. It ends tomorrow at 11 a.m. Pacific Time, or 2:00 Eastern Time. [UPDATE: Sale has ended now.]

That's 7:00 p.m. Thursday in London, UK, and 6:00 a.m. Friday in Sydney.

Oed' und leer das Meer

Oed' und leer das Meer (it's a line from "Tristan und Isolde" used by T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land) is my favorite picture I've ever taken with a phone. An iPhone 4s. I had the most wonderful late-life fling a number of years ago which took me from Wisconsin to New York State—I moved here to be near her, which turned out to be a bad idea. The romance was all-in, too intense to last I suppose. It didn't end well, and my year of heartbreak was intense as well—too much so—although I'm over that now. The woman is Sara, who I used to refer to as "S." here on the website. The picture was taken on a remote beach of the Pacific Ocean north of the Marin Headlands near San Francisco. We had gone to California so I could meet her parents, and she showed me around all the places she loved when she was growing up. On that particular day it was cold, even though it was in June, and the clouds were low and dense. The beach was deserted.

Sara just loved lonely places. I remember sitting with her for an hour on a couch on the top floor of the Johnson Art Museum in Ithaca, where we could see for many miles up the magnificent Cayuga Lake, and once she took me to a grotto underneath a monastery where we sat in silence, meditating in the darkness. She had a secluded little hideaway spot in the Frick Gallery on the Upper East Side of New York City where she used to go and sit, and she took me there too.

Of course you know what a motif is. A lone figure looking out to sea is a motif; Google "woman looking out to sea" and hit "Images" and you'll see dozens of examples, or hundreds if you have the patience. Including both photographs and figurative artworks. I'd put my lowly phone snap up against any of them. Maybe that's because it's mine, I don't know. The print is lovely.

The picture to me seems to encapsulate our relationship; it's wild and romantic but somehow lonely too, and she has her back to me, which turns out to have been fitting. And of course you can't see her. She didn't like being seen. She was private, overly so. She didn't like having her picture taken, and I have very few pictures of her despite all the time we spent together. I was happy that whole year. She betrayed me badly in the end, but I'm over my anger now. I knew her for 22 years, more or less, although our romance lasted only a year. All too literally the woman of my dreams. Curiously, my feelings about her never really changed, and haven't even now.

She moved back to California six months after we broke up, and I haven't seen her since; I doubt I ever will again. The title means "Desolate and empty is the sea." I'm glad I had my phone with me, on that beach.

Mike

'Mike's Miniatures' Print Sale

[UPDATE: Sale ended 2 p.m. Eastern Time 12/23/2021.

Thanks to everyone!]

With appropriate humility I offer a few of my own prints for sale, which I do only very occasionally. There are four of them. Here's where you can see all four. The prices range between $100 and $155, and shipping is free to wherever in the world you are. They will all ship within 30 days. You can take another 30 days to return them for a full refund—you don't need a reason.

I wrote an article for another publication recently about masterpieces on peoples' smartphones, so I obligingly sifted through all my iPhone pictures and came up with some favorites.

They are small, seven inches to nine inches in the long dimension, printed with a white border on an 8x10 sheet. You know how big prints are said to "command" a room? And "project" into the room? These miniatures are the opposite: unassuming, reticent, unimposing. A viewer must make a conscious decision to go toward them to see them properly, and the experience is intimate, one viewer at a time.

Then came the question, can you make an excellent print from a phone file? Ctein says, "absolutely yes." These should help convince you, but in any case you get to see for yourself. "Halloween 2021" might be the exception, but I love it too. It reproduces how my eyes see at dusk. For all of them, Ctein's printing expertise helped, greatly.

These make great souvenirs of TOP. The price is modest, but I get to keep 60%, and that will help me a lot. The prints are signed on the back.

As with all of our sales, we take orders first, then fulfill them. The plan is to take orders for three days, then that's it. The sale ends at 11 a.m. Pacific Time on Thursday.

The technical details and all other details are at the link. If you have any questions, please ask in the comments!

I hope you will think about buying a print. If you do, thank you very much.

Mike
(Thanks to Ctein)

Book o' the Week:
Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny, by Ann Marks, is the most complete picture of the mysterious governess-photographer yet—and the picture is more surprising than we thought.

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A Small Print Sale

This is to announce the announcement...hopefully to raise revenue, I will be having a small three-day sale of my own prints next week. The announcement will be posted on Monday morning.

The pictures are "miniatures."

Please come by on Monday and take a look!

Mike

Book o' the Week:
Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny, by Ann Marks, is the most complete picture of the mysterious governess-photographer yet—and the picture is more surprising than we thought. NOTE: There is a similar book that appears to be an attempt to confuse buyers. Beware!

the link can be a portal to Amazon for your holiday shopping. Thank you kindly for helping support The Online Photographer!

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Ctein's Unexpected Print Sale: $950 Dye Transfers

By Ctein

I was not expecting to be doing a holiday sale. But, while cleaning out a closet this weekend, I discovered five framed dye transfer prints that I didn't even remember I had! Which I decided to offer up for sale, through Christmas Eve, at the extreme discounted price of $950 (plus shipping).

Two [Four] have already sold. The remaining three [one] photographs are is:

Acacia and Streetlamp, Campbell CA ~ 1975 [SOLD]

Red Rainbow, OR ~ 1977

Overcast Cornfield, Lakeland MN ~ 1978 [SOLD]

[If Yr. Hmbl. Ed. may be excused for jumping in here, I can add a fourth—I have a 16 x 20" Ctein dye transfer of this 2003 picture of Niagara Falls for $500. Ctein is sold out of it as a dye. You can email me at [email protected] if you're interested. Note: that's "Johnston" with a T.] [SOLD]

The first is entirely out-of-print, as indicated on my website—there are no other copies in my inventory.

OK, you ask, why these and why so inexpensive? As you might expect, there is a backstory.

Almost 40 years ago, way back in 1983 (a.k.a. The Dark Ages) Kodak chose me to be their featured Photographer of the Year. They mounted a modest exhibit of my dye transfer work at trade shows. This was pretty cool. Even cooler—they paid me for the photographs to be included in the exhibit and then sent me back the dry-mounted-and-framed prints!

So, how come these didn't end up in my normal inventory? Because they hadn't been framed to what I considered archival standards (Kodak also trimmed the borders a little tight for my taste—about half an inch of white paper around the image area). I didn't feel comfortable selling them to anyone, not knowing how well they would hold up, so they got shoved in the back of the closet. I think over the first few years years, I gave a couple away as gifts. Then I forgot about them.

Here's what one of them looks like.

They're all framed in the same manner: A thin white-painted aluminum sectional frame with acrylic glazing, titled, signed and dated on the front margin. The prints themselves are dry-mounted (very professionally—it was Kodak, after all) to non-museum mat board and there is no spacer mat between the print and the acrylic. As I said, not what I would call archival framing.

Except...here we are 40 years later and the prints looked exactly as good as when they were made, no discoloration or fading, no glaze spots from contact with the acrylic. They are fine! Maybe, just maybe, the folks at Kodak knew what they were doing?

Anyway, so...wotdahell, I'm offering them up for sale, through Christmas Eve. No promises about how they'll hold up for the next 40 years, but...not dead yet! And—of course—if you're dissatisfied with what you get, my 100%-guaranteed return policy still applies.

A small caveat—on some of these you may want to replace the acrylic with fresh plastic. Some of the acrylics are scratched, enough to be annoying to me. They might not be annoying to you. In any case, acrylic sheets of the right size are inexpensive and replacing them is a cake-walk. All you need is a screwdriver: These are sectional frames, and the print is held in the spring clips. Pop the clips, unscrew the frame, lift out the mounted print, replace the acrylic, put the print back, put the frame back together, put the spring clips back in. Really, it's super-easy-peasy.

Other than the glazing, they look great.

This is obviously a first-come, first-served deal. If you're interested, get in your request fast.

To repeat, these are $950 apiece (plus shipping). I'll tell you what—if you want to create an instant Ctein collection for yourself for less than the price of one of my dye transfer prints, framed, today...

Buy all three and you can have them for $2,400 total. (That's assuming you get in before anyone grabs any one of these, so if that's your druthers jump fast.)

Email me: [email protected].

Ctein

Book o' the Week:
Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny, by Ann Marks, is the most complete picture of the mysterious governess-photographer yet—and the picture is more surprising than we thought.

the link can be a portal to Amazon for your holiday shopping. Thank you kindly for helping support The Online Photographer!

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Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Talking to Ctein

Oh, here's the one thing I meant to include in "Bits and Pieces" on Friday and forgot. (A glitch of my brain is that I always remember lists with one thing missing. It's some kind of neurological misfire—when I was teaching, I learned never to go around the room saying all the kids' names, because invariably just one name would escape me when I needed it—even if I knew that kid and her name perfectly well in any other situation. And I almost always forget one thing at the supermarket, no matter how many items I'm trying to remember. But I digress.)

Anyway, Ctein and I have been talking about this year's print sale. We have four possibilities, and need to settle on one. (A consideration about the print sales: before we can decide, we need to see the prints. The idea can be great, but we're not selling ideas, we're selling prints.) But, whatever it will end up being, a print sale is coming up. Just thought you might like to know.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph by Jason Fulford. Although I would never actually let anyone tell me not to photograph, this is a fun book for getting "the lay of the land" as what subjects and treatments are common. There are some nice insights, and it's a pleasant read, although I think it will be more fun if you already know a lot about photography and can relate to the subjects he discusses.

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Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Featured Comments from:

MikeR: "Re forgetting an item on lists: Always? No exceptions? Never, ever?

"I often do that, but I just say that I forgot, and shrug. No neurological drama."

Mike replies: If it's not a brain glitch, then why only just one thing the great majority of the time? And why are they so often things that I know well and should be able to remember easily? There are a great many mysteries about the brain, which I know from being a big fan of—name will come to me—I'll get it—give me a moment—starts with S—Sacks—Oliver Sacks.  :-)

ASW: "Hi Mike. I have my own glitch which sometimes frustrates but is always funny (to observe). If I put on a T-shirt without checking for the tag, I always put it on backwards. This has happened for as long as I can remember, so we're talking about multiple decades of t-shirts at this point. Sometimes I even fake myself out. I'll pick up a T-shirt, remember that I'm sure to put it on backwards and therefore swap it around (without checking), and then put it on backwards. I can only assume that it is some kind of voodoo curse."

Mike replies: That's a great one! You and I don't quite rise to the level of Oliver's great book on the subject—a favorite of mine—but I think we're in that neighborhood.

Book Sale Upcoming

I'm going to be working on Featured Comments this morning on the last several posts, going back to Sunday. But I wanted to give you a heads up that I've just entered into discussions to have another of our fantastic book sales, just like in days of old—pristine new copies of two beautifully printed books that complement each other and are hard to get now. With one, the price of used copies on the secondary market has risen above the price when it was new, whereas our price will be less than it cost when it was new. I don't know yet how many copies there are, so no word on that yet. Could be a lot, could be just a few. It'll be first come first served in any event.

Keep an eye out, and clear a couple of inches of space on your shelf. I love these sales, so I'm fired up!

—Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Book of interest this week:

Picture This: How Pictures Work, By Molly Bang
(clicking on the link above takes you to Amazon from TOP)

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