OK, wipe that grin off your face, this is a photography blog. This rant is directed primarily against photographers who believe that just because they have made their images large, that they are somehow better and worth more money. Now, to be fair, these photographers often are not good enough to even realize what makes a great image and are often guided by unscrupulous gallery owners who will take advantage of the artist by getting the work cheap and selling high, convincing its customers that the work is a quality piece that will hold its value for years (as I saw when one famous Hollywood Star bought a crappy wall sized mural for $110k at Art Basel. “there is a sucker born every minute” – P.T. Barnum). But in my experience, if you really talk with the photographer about the image, they know its shortcomings but rather than go out and shoot more, they blow it up and convince themselves it is good.
There are many problems with that line of thinking but let me tackle the two most important. First. if the image does not strike you as amazing small, then it is not going to be amazing large. You cannot force an image to be good. If it looks like a snapshot when it is small, then it is just a large snapshot blown up. Secondly, blowing up an image shows many of the imperfections you will not see when the image is small. Often there are fuzzy of out of focus areas, color artifacts from digital cameras (especially in the dark areas), edges that have lines , or shadows that have bands instead of a gradually darkening tones. I have seen so much of this, that I wanted to make my readers aware of this and to look for these problems when they see large photos they may like or want to purchase.
Let me give you an example from my own portfolio. Below is an image that I took in Patagonia, Argentina. I love this image. I think it has an interesting composition and I like that the two little girls are a little out of focus from their movement. But in reality, that out of focus is combined with a camera shake blur from my not holding the camera perfectly steady.
The shake manifest itself in blurriness in the foreground while the mountains further away are clear. You dont notice this in the kids because they already had some movement motion. However, the rest of the foreground is also blurry which is not as noticeable small (I used some tools to sharpen it up) but blown up, the out of focus is pronounced as well as some of the artifacts due to sharpening of the foreground in Photoshop. Standing far away, it is fine, but as you move closer, the image is a disaster. Yet many photographers don’t seem to care when this happens in their work.
When a person gets close to a large image, the small areas should have exquisite detail. Blowing up a large image should reveal new detail that was not seen in the smaller image. For example, if the image is of a bedroom, then blown up, you should be able to look at just the side table, which would be crystal clear. It shouldn’t be a pixelated , or slighlty out of focus. If it is, then don’t blow up the image. Leave it as an 8×10.
Let me give kudos to the Emmanuel Fremin Gallery, which I have mentioned once before in an earlier post. The Fremin Gallery (which is opening its Chelsea Gallery on January 15th in New York City. I urge anyone in the City to take a look) sells large images from some extremely talented photographers. One of the things I really admire about galleries like Fremin, is that they don’t compromise on the work they exhibit just to make a buck. (I know, I sound like a curmudgeon, that everyone is out to screw everyone else and I may be that guy that yells at kids to “get off my lawn” but I am not. This idea is shared by many other photographers.) The Fremin Gallery along with other galleries like the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery here in Miami, and Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York City, understand that good work sells. Its that simple. You don’t have to play games to be successful, just be knowledgeable and honest.
Take a look at this image below, part of the Ruined Detroit series by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. At sizes printed at 40″ by 30″ or even larger, you can almost put your nose against the photo and see such minute details that you continually find new things you didn’t notice when looking at it before. It is not Photoshopped, it is not trying to be greater than it is. The image is just a solid, quality image photographed by a talented team, and exhibited by a knowledgable gallery owner who chose this piece for all the right reasons. So if you are looking to buy artwork of any kind and are not that knowledgeable about what is available in the art world, first step is to find people like Emmanuel Fremin and Bernice Steinbaum and listen to them. It will make the whole experience more enjoyable and worthwhile.
One last thing, regarding my first point about the image having to be good in itself; the Fremin Gallery had printed small 8x10s of many of their artist’s works for Art Miami, which ended up selling very well. That is because the images were fantastic regardless of their size. They may have been better large, but small they were still impressive. They were not snapshots blown up to make them look better. The photos were striking both technically and stylistically, so they can be shown at any size, on various mediums and they will always be stunning. So if you are on the fence about an image, look at it small and see if you would still want to have it.
So a final word to photographers: don’t force it. Bigger is not better. Sometimes, you just have to let an image go and get out there and shoot some more. And to the buyers: if you don’t indulge these photographers and gallery owners, then maybe they will get the hint and we can see better work all around.
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