I come from an age when the only way to see the shots you had taken was to get them printed. Either using your own dark room or sending or taking the undeveloped film to a company or shop that would develop and print your images. Until you got those developed shots back, you didn't really know what your images looked like - and believe me I can remember getting some real clunkers back from the One Week Develop And Print mail order developers. For just basic "snaps" I would send my films off to "Truprint" or "BonusPrint", for the more professional or creative work, I would either use my friend's dark room or take them to a professional film developing outlet in town. The mail order shots always came back heavily saturated. The pro shops, usually did a better job. But always, without fail, there would be photos in the wallet that had a little "Under-Exposed" sticker on them, or the framing was so far out, or some other fault.
I still get some clunkers (I would say that every photographer in the world does) but it doesn't seem such an issue. One, because it isn't costing anything and two, with Lightroom/Photoshop (or other similar programs) you can retrieve a lot of images that once would be consigned to the bin. I'm not going to get into the film versus digital debate in this post, it has been debated to death in virtually every photography community worldwide. What I will say though is I really do like the convenience of digital. And the cheapness of it.
But much as I like the immediacy and convenience of digital, I really do like seeing my images in print. It's how photos are supposed to be viewed in my opinion. I guess it's the same sort of thing as the vinyl/streaming thing. Real vs virtual. These days people take more photos then ever before. Most people have a camera in their pocket. The ubiquitous smart phone. Its simple to use, most people have them and the quality of the images has increased exponentially over the past fifteen years or so. Phones now can be found with "Zeiss" lenses, and with 48-50 megapixel sensors - equivalent to a modern DSLR. But generally, these phone photos stay on the phone, or posted on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc.
Sort of bucking the trend a little, I still like to print images. As well as prints I have created quite a number of photobooks. I have my own prints on my walls. Its not a vanity project (though I can see that people may think it is), but the books provide a good reference point and the prints on the walls are generally images I have sold (and like). Every so often I will replace the wall prints as I sell new ones, grow bored with them or find fault. The books are good to show me where I was at a given time, and to see what improvements I've made over time. I really recommend that everyone with a keen interest in photography should (at least selectively) print their images. The one thing that (some) people tend to forget, is that a printed image will look the same to everyone that sees it, whereas the colours will depend on the screen when viewed digitally
One final note, possibly a little morbid, but printed images will be there for future generations to enjoy. What will happen to all of those photos on people's phones?
Let me know, do you print your images? Or will they remain on your hard drives, your phone, the cloud forever?
About me:
I can mostly be found shooting models, aviation, motorsports and, when I can, wildlife. But I enjoy most aspects of photography. You can find more of my work on the links below.
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https://brianbroganphotography.com/