In this day and age of digital is seems that now everyone with a computer, Photoshop and a tablet is an artist. No more worry about waiting for the moment, design, form or composition as it is all about instant gratification, fix it in Photoshop, editions, lying to the buyer and selling lots and lots of pictures with no care in the world about quality or if its archival. As long as these sellers get their money who case if it is art as they got another buyer they outwitted into thinking they bought a piece of art.

All we see are these new buzzwords designed to only confuse and deceive the buyer. Keywords such as; archival ink, gliclee ( fancy name for inkjet prints ) and my favorite, fine art museum rag paper.

What does this mean? Well first the ink they are talking about is not archival like they want you to think and secondly the fine art paper is nothing more than cotton rag paper where the seller has the computer use the newest inkjet printer to latest and greatest supposed archival ink all over it.

I can tell you this; these are not works of art but rather images that are equivalent to posters at best and most are of poor quality when compared to a real traditional hand made photograph in a wet darkroom. Go see for yourself, walk into a gallery and ask to see a real silver gelatin or platinum photograph side by side to a digital ink jet print. I can guarantee you, you will see a major difference and never look at inkjet the same again, but that is for another time.

One of the most deceiving things that these people that sell inkjet prints do not explain to you, the buyer, that this is indeed a new technology and has not been around for 100 years like platinum, silver gelatin, azo, silver bromide, silver chloride, etc.. prints have been around for. We have traditionally made photographs that date back to the civil war and can prove that a traditional hand made photographs will last through time, but there is not one ink jet print that has been around for even 15 years because it is the latest and greatest technology of instant gratification. Do some research for yourselves and see. Ask one of these people selling inkjets if they can tell you if they have any inkjet images that have been around for more than 15 year. The answer will be no, unless of course they are scam artist and just outright lying to you or do not know. The reason is because 15 years ago this technology as it is today did not exists.

Another point to this deception is how they can claim that these images will last 100 years. I want to know how they base there test when not a single inkjet photograph has been around for even 20 years. Well, they base it off one company that does the testing for the corporation that produces the INKS! That is like asking a asking someone in jail is they ever stole before and they tell you no.

In 100 years from when the first inkjet print was made and left on display just like a silver gelatin will tell how archival this inkjet technology is. I can attest by my own experiments using the latest high end printers that these prints that I made faded after 4 years. So if mine faded only after 4 years how can they say they will last 100 years? After these test I ended up selling all of it and went back to traditional art full time.

Ok, moving onto my next point is editions.

This is the exact flaw with photography being considered an art form; especially with the advent of digital as you are now flooded with mediocre images further cheapening the art of photography. With a simple click of the mouse you can print millions of identical copies on a whim that they call editions. I call these pictures nothing more than reproduction especially if they are ink prints.

Even a person embracing the traditional practice of photography, including myself, that makes editions of more than 1 is still creating nothing more than reproduction aka duplicates. If photography is to be thought of as an art form and not just another picture, their needs to be only one photograph made from a negative and then the negative destroyed.

If you want to make editions then by all means scan the original hand printed photograph and from that scan make all the inkjet prints your hearts desire and edition them to death.
With only one original and the editions made from that, there is your real edition.

If you must make more than one from a single negative then call them what they are, open editions, meaning there is no limit and sequentially number each photograph as you sell it.

How does digital fit in making originals? It doesn’t. The reason is that there is no way to ensure that only one will ever be made as there is no negative to begin with. These digital images are created by digital means just like a graphic designer makes ads for publication using a computer and software. Digital is a great way to make reproduction and pretty wall art, but it is not fine art, it is a means to produce volume art to fill wall space.

If you want to buy something for your wall, buy an ink print, but I would not spend more than $15-20 bucks at best. If on the other hand you want to by a piece of art for your collection or have something to hang in your home and share with your friends, whether it be a 1/1 or a multiple, make sure it is an actual traditional photograph such as a silver gelatin, platinum, azo, etc?br>
I would also recommend you ask the artist how they created the photograph and if Photoshop comes into the conversation makes sure you do not fall for the lie that hey, these are also traditional images as they are not.

Hope that sheds some light on photography, editions and digital.