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Opinion on selling reprint

B

benwang

Well-Known Member
I had a long talk with a friend about the tendency of how people try to turn photography into Art paint.

There is a tendency that more people are selling their photo with a "limited edition" re-print. They will destroy the negative and produce 1-5 reprint only. Some of these reprint end up in auction and sell with a crazy price tag.

IMO, I find it unbearable to destroy the good negative. If my photo is good enough, I wish it can be pass to anyone who wish to see it and can have a chance to get the reprint with a reasonable price and appreaciate / inspire by my photo. Destorying the negative and make it for a limited people only re-print is not what I like.

However, I would like to know what other think. Please if you have an opinion, I love to hear.

Ben
 
>I agree. I recently found some negatives I had shot in the seventies. I went right out and got 8 x 12 prints made of two of my long lost beauties. If a picture is worth fifty or a hundred dollars, I don't see how it would matter if 3 or 4 had been sold or 30 or 40 spread around the country. If one were truly producing outstanding works of art, one should only make one print, preferably a dye transfer (which will last for a couple of hundred years) and then destroy the neg. Couldn't do it myself, though.
 
> Benwang,

I completely agree with you that destroying an original negative is unbearable. I think in the next few years this will be less of an issue as more photographers start shooting in digital. (No negative!). But for now, you won't catch me destroying my negatives or anybody elses negatives!

Michael.
 
Michael,
I wonder if it might not become more important rather than less to retain negatives as digital takes hold, since as time goes by there will be fewer negatives around. Somewhere in my loft if I can find them, I have negatives going back nearly 5O years. At least I hope I have. I must go and look when it's not quite so cold up there and see if they are there and if they are OK. These are of interest to me and possibly to my family in the future. But maybe the digital pictures saved to CD which I have begun to do now will also be around in 50 years; although I don't think that CD's have the same sense of preciousness as negatives and I don't know if we (or somebody who is still around then) will be able to read them in 50 years time. I suspect that it will always be possible to print from negatives even if environmentally frowned upon - unless it is banned.

John
 
>John,

You are absolutely right. I think negatives will increase in value as time marches. So many people now when they get older start to throw away the actual prints ... having long ago discarded the negatives. Digital will mean even fewer negatives.

One day, especially for acknowledged photoraphers, there may be a great, great value associated with an original negative!

Michael.
 
If you thow away the negative and your customer has a problem with his print I think you are in big trouble. I have seen hundreds of Agfa prints come back because of paper defects. I have some myself. Or What if you didn't wash the print good enough? If you sell a print, at high enough price, you should guarantee it will never go bad in youre lifetime or you will re-make it. Toss the negative and and expect to return the buyers money with interest or risk being sued.

Interesting side note.....any lawyers out there? Can the seller be sued if the print goes bad? and he doesn't replace it?

Dave
 
For what its worth:
Last month I backed up about 20 gig of scans to DVD. Tried to read back a couple last week, and found about half un readable.......
Very happy to still have thumbnails, jpeg mirrors and the negs. Never any trouble with CD backup but doubt I'll trust DVD-r again.
jw
 
Oh dear.
I wonder what the matter was. I have just bought a DVD rewriter but have not used it to back up yet. That doesn't sound promising
John
 
I think if we sell the photo like an art paint, the way the owner preserve the reprint/how they protect their invertment will be up to them. As long as the time to delivery is perfect! Afterall they know well enough that the negative is destory and hence the value! it is an unique art work and we are not talking about a couple of hundreds, but if someone is willing to pay, over millions.
It just IMHO, it is not right to do so, photograph and art paint are fundumentally different, by destorying the film and try to make them the same is wrong.

Ben
 
>i am in the fortunate position that I take images for myself and that please me. It is a happy by product that some images are sold via stock sales and framed images, but the thought of creating something for myself in the first instance and then destroying it I find disturbing. Money isn't everything but at the end of the day everyone has a price to disregard there principles, I wonder what it would take financially for the proposition to work for me and for me to prostitute myself ( in the photographic sense of course).Whats my price, come to that whats your price for your principles.

Thats my thought for the end of the year 2003, sorry REM are playing Bad Day on the PC and I am having a reflective moment.

Happy new year Contax users

Regards

David
 
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