Bed of Leaves [work print]
This is a scan of a 5×7″ print I made in the darkroom last week. I’ve been dabbling in darkroom printing for a couple of months and I’m addicted to it! There is nothing like watching your prints magically appear on the paper while agitating the tray.
For film photographers, scanning is not the end product of your photos. Well, even for digital photographers, looking at photos on a computer screen is not the end product.
The best way to appreciate a photograph is through a print.
Humans are generally a species that relies on tactile feedback. Allow them to touch, smell or see something in reality gives a better viewing experience. In this case, nothing beats flipping an album of prints, or a coffee table book, or even better, a framed print on the wall.
And yet in this day and age, people seem to forget about making prints and just store them into the hard disk, film or digital.
Every image that you visualize in your head before shooting should be visualized as a print. That will make you think harder and eventually create better photographs.
After all, nobody is going to keep our hard disks when we leave this world. On the other hand, a beautifully framed 12×16″ print is another matter altogether.
