Hi all,
As I’ve been busy with prepping for an exhibition and working on a major remake of my website, it’s been quite a while since I posted or engaged in anything here.
But now I’ve got a bit of an urgent question for you (that I should’ve thought about a long time ago):
How does one date one’s prints?
As I haven’t printed anything other than “for fun” before, the prints I’m now about to frame and offer for public consumption, many of them have seen a very long journey with months and even years between the capture, final edit and then the finalized print file, so today when I was about to frame them, I just realized that I don’t know what date or year is the relevant one to mark them with!
I have made and sold Fine Art prints in the past but they were all of CG origin (3D modeled and rendered) so the date was naturally when the final render was made but with photography I found that it isn’t as clear cut.
Another urgent decision (and perhaps for another discussion) that I need to make is whether to take the route of limited or open editions or perhaps some sort of mix, if that would influence the dating strategy…
Hm, interesting questions. And congrats on your exhibition, btw.
In terms of date I think there are two obvious choices - the date printed and taken. I have never done this so please, if I’m missing something, I apologize. But as a consumer of prints I think the date has most to do with the production of the print than when it was taken. Either way would probably be acceptable though. Maybe others can offer more insight.
I think the limited v. open would have more to do with demand and your previous successes in selling prints. More success = limited, Less success = open. This way the demand basically fuels the supply. Just my two cents. Wishing you a profitable and rewarding show.
Thank you, @Kris_Smith! It feels like I’ve been trying to fight of this exhibition thing for years, dreading the costs and the extra work in a life already full to the brim with responsibilities. But I guess it was due.
Also, thanks for trying to bring clarity to my thoughts. Having had a few hours to let it simmer yesterday, I felt like the year (or date) when I felt that a photo had reached it’s final look would be it, as I feel like anything that happened after that (months or maybe even years later) was only to optimise and compensate for the transfer from the digital to the physical realm. One might after all have to adjust for different papers and sharpen differently for different sizes.
One particular example is a photo shot in September of 2017, edited 99% of the way within 6 months. It was then finalized and upscaled (with Gigapixel Ai) for print and an exhibition in 2020 that was killed off by Covid and then left untouched until this year, when printing was again on the table. I then redid the upscaling due to the latest version of Gigapixel offering a much, much better result.
When was that photo made?
You mentioned the perspective of the print consumer which is a very valid on that I hadn’t fully considered before, but I’m still haunted by “conflicting moments of clarity”.
I have no experience at all when it comes to printing or showing my images at an exhibition. In fact, I will rather soon participate in my first exhibition, a “refrigerator exhibition”. (I will send in a small number of images that will be placed on another participants refrigerator during some weeks. That is the exhibition! At the same time, I will receive another participants images to place on my own refrigerator. When the exhibition time is over, we will meet during a zoom meeting to discuss the images and the experience).
That said, I think that a viewer/buyer is interested in both the year when the photograph was taken (when you actually pressed the shutter of your camera) and the year when the image was printed/framed. The latter year is the year when the actual piece of art was finalized by you by determining its materiality (final print sharpening, choice of paper, size of the print, framing and so on).
By the way, when and where is your exhibition? If I happen to be nearby, I will visit.
“Refrigerator exhibition” sounds like it could be really fun! I like it! And thank you for your insightful thoughts. They are really appreciated!
Now I’m thinking that I might put the capture date and the print date on the back and the year when the image/edit was finalized on the front, alongside my signature (to the right), with the name of the image, centered and the edition number (if limited) on the left…
Switching to Swedish.
Ser att du också är från Skåne/Malmö men även om jag är uppvuxen där så har jag bott i Bengtsfors i Dalsland sen -96. Men har du vägarna förbi Mellerud och deras “konsthall” (i biblioteket) mellan den 24/5-14/6 så är du hemskt välkommen in på en titt! Jag har utställningen tillsammans med min pappa som är målerikonstnär.
