Does a picture really exist if it hasn’t been printed ?

[kelvinjouhar]

I apologise for the title but I couldn’t think how else to put it….. By way of introduction , I have ben taking photos for almost 60 years and when I was at home we had a darkroom in the 1970’s…. Photography has always been a big thing in our family, with both my brother and my uncle making their living out of it. My father was a keen amateur and introduced me to the Cibachrome process for colour printing… My grandfather was a highly respected amateur in the 1940-1960 period, and in his lifetime he took about 45,000 images and made almost 1000 exhibition prints - which I inherited from my father, and `I have spent many years cataloging the archive.

For the last 20 years I have been taking digital pictures and I am quite ruthless with culling sub-standard pictures so the total number of acceptable images I have is only about 15,000 in my Lightroom catalogue…. I say “only” because I have read posts on here where people have hundreds of thousands of images !! To get to my point - I have recently bought a dedicated printer (Epson P900) and I have started to print a few images at a reasonable size - 16 x 20 inches…. I am finding that images that I thought looked great on the monitor (transmitted light) - I don’t think they will be so good if I print them (reflected light)

So my philosophical view has developed (no pun intended) that an image does not really exist until it has been printed. this, of course, is obvious when shooting film, but maybe less obvious when shooting digital…. Maybe I am completely wrong, and I would be interested in any other views on this…. If you are a digital only photographer, do you print (or have printed for you) any images ? If you are one of the people who has hundreds of thousand of images - what are your plans for them ? - do you share my view that these images are not real unless you print them. Do you think the experience of viewing transmitted light and reflected light are different ?

 

[Rob_Cullen]

It "exists" but it may not be preserved unless committed to paper.
I make a point of creating books with my selected favorite images (perhaps annually).
When I am gone my digital library may be available to family or be lost to oblivion, but books will live on (maybe even longer than photographic prints?)

 

[clee01l]

Clever title!
Going back 60 years, I have ~2000 Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides. Very few of these were made into prints. It is difficult to say that these images don’t exist. They have been enjoyed in countless slideshows except for the last 20 years. Sadly the slides have deteriorated and now that I am digitizing them I can see these will soon cease to exist. And recovery will be limited. Those that were printed have also faded and no longer exist in printed form. My parents left me a legacy of B&W prints. Some over 130 years old. No negatives were kept and digitizing also is of limited quality.

From that I can only conclude that for permanence neither slides or prints exist either. As long as I have a digital image. I can make a website presentation or a print.

One of the things I have done is hang a 77” Smart TV in my living room. When we have company, rotate over 400 digital images. Seasonally, may show a Christmas or Summer or birthday theme show. I don’t have wall space for the images that I cherish. I have my wall space filled with other prints of a small portion of my photo work plus actual paintings.

So I’ll ask the question: do photos exist if they are not digital?


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[kelvinjouhar]

That’s a good point about lack of wall space Cletus…. As I mentioned , I inherited around 1000 high quality exhibition prints, maybe 200 of which had stickers on the back from photographic societies all over the world,… I have framed quite a number of them and they are on the walls of my house and other family members , but the rest are stored in boxes… I intend to print my best images, but maybe the prints will just be stored for people to view, if they so wish…. Somehow it feels more permanent and accessible than a digital image….

 

[clee01l]

Somehow it feels more permanent and accessible than a digital image….

Permanent is not forever. 70 years for acid free paper 25-40 for color slides IF properly stored.

Digital is forever IF you can properly store the data and recover with out losing it to “bit rot”.


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[Jimmsp]

If you are one of the people who has hundreds of thousand of images - what are your plans for them ? - do you share my view that these images are not real unless you print them. Do you think the experience of viewing transmitted light and reflected light are different ?

Are my digital images real - I believe so. Some have been printed, most have not.
I have shot film, probably printing all of them. I shot slide film a lot - developed into slides and shown to audiences big and small. Are these real, absolutely.
Are they experienced differently than prints - probably so. Prints are generally seen by an individual , slides generally by multiple people at the same time. A print can be "studied" easier than slides, which pass by in only a few seconds (generally).
I would add that a movie shot on film is real, as long as someone has looked at it.

My plans for my many images ? I have concluded that I have generally shot for myself. I will pass along digital copies of my "best photos", but don't expect they will ever be looked at. No one but me really cares about the best hummingbird I have shot. But I am writing a book which I will print which will have a number of my photos in it. I call it my Family book. The photos I will include will be part of the family story, and will consist mostly of people and important parts of our lives, including some travel. This will be printed and passed along to children and grandchildren, and hopefully some great grandchildren. It will probably survive much longer than any digital media I pass along.

 

[Swingman]

I have been taking photograph for almost 50 years and the first 30 years were slides and films, but all are in colour. All my digital photos after culling are stored electronically but very few prints. I am also planning to invest in copying equipments to convert old ones to digital. Most of my analogue photos are in the attic and dredging if they have survived in good condition. One of the reason for delaying the transformation is that would the current digital media survive.
When I was starting the uni, we only had mini and main frame computers using punch tape as input. Then we were introduced to PC and spark workstations. And Wang machines using 8” floppy. The bulk of the private storage started with floppy disk with increasing capacity starting with 51/4” Then came 3.5”. Today most things stored in these mediums are unretrivable due to limitations on available equipment . Don’t know how long CD’s going to be in general use?
The question is how long the current technology going to last? Are we smart enough to move to everything to new media as soon as they arrive? In real world, does anyone know what percentage of the each successive digital transformation been transferred to new?
To preserve the photos for ever is an ongoing commitments, expenses and time.

when I was taking slides I thought it’s lot better than film and preserved well. After seeing the current progress in the digital revolution, I am not sure where we all end up or never ending. By the way, I have lost lots of information stored in digital media over the last 20 years. Always too busy and didn’t act on timely manner

Coming back to the original question Do photos exist?. My answer is if you and future guardians are smart enough to maintain the existence, it will.

 

[Philippe Coudé du Foresto]

Interesting question. For me the image exists as long as I am able to see it, whatever media is used to see it (screen, paper projection,...).
Unfortunatly, as already said, no media will exists forever. The main advantage of the digital is that you can easily move it from one media to a new one without any degradation. allowing them to survive in the technology evolution. It's not the case with prints which will loose quality as time goes by, and copying it will lead to a small degradation of the image compared to the original.
On the other hand, a prints, even degraded, will still be readable (with some information lost, but the image will be visible) whereas even a minor degradation on the digital will make it unreadable and the image totally lost.