I’ve been in love with paper for a while now. It started back in 1992 when I was introduced to fiber based gelatin silver paper. Specifically, my first love was Zone VI Brilliant. It was a graded paper, with the contrast baked into the emulsion—and making the commitment to a G3 paper was a decision filled with trepidation-“what if it was too much contrast” $60 later, I had a box of 11x14 sized paper, but more importantly the paper represented possibility of new ways to express my ideas through photography.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was hooked. My search for the next paper led me to Agfa Portriga, once again in G3, and then into experimenting with different developers like Selectol and Selectol Soft, as well as Dektol, and many others. Warm paper, cold paper, glossy paper, and matte paper—I had a stack of paper boxes 3 feet high, all awaiting the amber glow of the safelight. The images above were printed 30 years ago on some of those same papers, and even if my photographic style has evolved significantly, from a pure quality of paper standpoint these images are as fresh as when they came out of the final wash.

Fast forward to the era of digital print making, circa late 1990’s and early 2000’s—and the worry was that the papers of the previous decade would never be matched by inkjet papers. And to be completely truthful, those early papers were sad in comparison to the heavy weight, sensual papers of the darkroom. They felt more like sad facsimiles of the authentic originals. The ink faded. The edges curled and the resolution of those early printers, while impressive from one perspective, really didn’t live up to the potential detail of even a well shot 35mm BW negative printed at 8x10.

It was still magical. Don’t get me wrong. The ability to print in color, or BW, easily, and while not committing yourself to hours in the darkroom were just a little bit addictive in the best of ways. I knew it would get better. And with each release of a new printer, new inkset, new paper, I eagerly tested it. Every generation was better, and along with better digital cameras, better scanners, and better hardware for printing, I saw a convergence occurring and realized that in so many ways digital printing was actually going to be the real deal for the vast majority of people making photographic prints. The darkroom still holds my heart, and I still have a love of testing papers and feel that the most recent slate of printers currently shipping coupled with the best of papers from Canson, Epson, and others produce images that exceed what could be made in the darkroom. Don’t get me wrong—the masters like Adams and Weston produced stunningly beautiful images and they were masters of the medium with few who were their equal.

Today though, we find ourselves able to produce images that are close to their level with only a few years of practice instead of decades. It still takes skill, and practice, and an eye attuned to the challenges of working through digital processes, but it is far easier to get good prints, and only slightly more difficult to get great prints. And great printing is what I’m still about-maximizing quality through the entire process of capture, post production, and output. But I digress.

The newest crop of paper available to us, like the superb Red River Palo Duro Smooth, and the Platine papers from Both Epson and Canson are unparalleled. In the end I believe we are in the renaissance of the fine print, not the end, as some profess. If you haven’t had your images printed before, and are interested in exploring what that looks like, send me a message and let’s see what kind of magic we can make together.

And just in case you need some additional motivation to pull the trigger, just mention this blog post when you make your first order and you’ll get a free 8x10 from my personal archive.

For the Love of Paper

Preparing Files to Print