To Print or Not to Print: The Importance of Preservation
Some of my prints hanging on the wall. Printed at Walmart.|Credit: Reynaldo Cruz Diaz
For over a century, photography was about printing. For the photograph to be seen and fully appreciated, it had to be printed. The negative offered no way of appreciating the beauty of an image, and the results would be boxes or albums of artphotographs, documentary pictures, or personal memories.
The emergence of the first widely commercial digital camera, the Dycam Model 1 (aka Logitech Fotoman), in 1990 marked the beginning of a massive decline in the habit of printing. In 2000, the first telephone cameras appeared, signaling the start of a new way to take and “preserve” photographs.
As of 2015, it was estimated that 0.2 to 0.3 percent of the photographs captured got printed. This is a very sad thing.
Social Media, Hard Drives and More
With the rise to power of social media, came the creation of digital albums where people will “post” the photos taken during a trip. An album of “My Trip to the Bahamas” will be made and the best photos taken—generally with a cell phone—will end up in it.
Her working hands: A woman rolling a cigar in Holguin, Cuba. Large print from UPrinting.|Credit: Reynaldo Cruz Diaz
But how much of what “lives” on Facebook can we “preserve”? Your account can get hacked, which could lead to you losing control of your photos or even having the hacker delete some of your content. You can get banned for violating terms and conditions, which are more intolerant and fuller of technicalities every day, and you will lose control of your photos.
The photos you upload on Instagram are impossible to download even for you as the owner. So, if you lose the digital file and want to print it, you will have a very difficult time. Meanwhile, social media will generally cripple the image quality, and even if you download from Facebook, you will not get the same file as the original.
Hard drives, on the other hand, are also a liability if you lose them or if they get ruined. I myself was a victim of theft in Cuba, in May 2015, when somebody opened the back pocket of my backpack during a Romerías de Mayo closing parade and stole all of my flash drives. There were over 100GB worth of photographs in there, including many good ones that I had taken a few weeks before, during the Humberto Solás Cinema Festival of Gibara. Photos lost, for good: some of them had gotten printed by the two newspapers of the city, but the rest would wither in oblivion. Would have I printed some of those? I am inclined to believe that I would have, as I have printed and sold numerous photographs over the years.
Is the Art of Printing Dying?
It is obvious that the advantage of digital photography lies precisely in the fact that it is possible to take a lot more pictures than with an analogue camera. The difference in price between a DSLR camera and a film SLR camera gets completely erased and goes the other way when it comes to printing. While you would have to pay over 2,000 dollars for a SOLID full-frame DSLR and a fast zoom lens, and a couple of hundreds for a very good film camera, you will end up spending a lot of money on film, developing and printing, as printing becomes basically the only way to see the results of film. This adds value to digital photography, as one memory card can store hundreds or thousands of photographs and can be used and reused many times.
A large print from Walmart on the wall of my classroom catches the eye of each one of my students.|Credit: Reynaldo Cruz Diaz
That has led many of us to shoot like maniacs, and to print very little of what we shoot. Some of us would even shoot photographs that would not even be looked at. And some are of course printing less, but not so much less. When we look at the volume of photos any film photographer would take in the past vs. print, and we compare that to what digital photographers print today, we see a huge difference. Yet, we see a massive difference also when comparing the number of photos taken now vs. the number of photos taken since the start of the age of analogue cameras.
Nevertheless, saying that the art of printing photos is dying is a bit of an exaggeration. I myself—considered a millennial, since I was born in the 1980s—love printing and selling pictures or giving away prints for special people I know. I also print my photos just for the pleasure of seeing them in my home or the classroom where I teach. But speaking of school, I have seen with pleasure many students, who are now considered Gen Z, printing tens of photos to stick on their locker doors or inside of them. This sight has warmed my heart in many instances, giving me hope for the future of print photography. At the same time, thousands of portable printers are sold every month, giving people the opportunity to have accessible small prints.
As a photographer myself, I have come to understand the importance of print when I have seen how great one of my photos looks when printed in large format. I had printed before, but mainly on a small scale, while I was still in Cuba and making a relatively large print was basically financial suicide.Yet, here in the US, selling prints will at some point become a way for me to make some passive income in the future. Also, a print is a type of unique present that I would give to special friends, and I even print some images for my own use, either at home or at work.
Printing photographs as an art is not dying. People are simply taking way many more photos than they used to, and the prices for printing have led those percentages to go lower. Yet, printing is alive and well.
Final thoughts
I believe that the art of printing photos will survive for years to come. Even though social media has become an easy-to-use and “preserve” tool, the preservation of images is better in the physical form. No matter how “awesome” a photograph may look on Facebook or on the screen of your computer, tablet or phone, it is never going to look as good as it will if the photo gets printed. I have learned to look at my work differently when I see a print of my own, and compare it to what I see on the computer. The print will always win.
One thing to bear in mind, though, is that you should always check where you print, who you print with, and what files you sent to be printed. All those factors will play a role in the results of your printed work. You need to make sure that the type of paper and ink they use is the adequate one for your photography, and you should also make sure that the files you send them have the right resolution for the size of the image you intend to print. One mistake could be costly, both in your pocket and in your reputation.
I have used Mpix, UPrinting and Vista Print for large prints. Those companies are not cheap, but the resulting product has been amazing. Walmart, CVS and Walgreens prints have not been a big deal, but they have shown decent results if you use the right files.
Yet, if you want to avoid some of the nuisances regarding the quality of printing equipment and supplies or the quality and color of your files, it is more recommendable that you either go to a local specialized printing company or get your own printing equipment and do it yourself. Both choices are expensive, but if you intend to make money with print, they are both a risk worth taking.
