For workprints, the past few years I have been printing either 10×12 or sometimes on 11×14 sized paper. The exhibition prints have all been larger, but for the most part 90% of all the prints I have are 10×12. (this actually puts me in a bit of a spot since Fuji is the only company that makes paper in this size)
I settled on 10×12 because
1.) the paper has a good heft to it.
2.) it fits well in your hands.
3.) the overall size of it draws you in to the picture better than an 8×10, but a stack of them are more portable to lug around than the same number of 11×14 prints.
HOWEVER- –
The other night I met Onishi sensei, Okabe, and Oyama sensei in Kachidochi, and Oyama brought 3 separate portfolios of his work from the past 30 years of shooting on the streets of Tokyo. The first set was shot in the early 80s, and he had printed them large on RC paper, and then sliced each print down the middle. Each half was placed into an A3 sized clear file and the result was a very large (and spill proof?) photo book. The newest set (shot last year) was a thick collection of 100 digitally taken photographs printed as A4 size inkjet prints. These were also set into a clear file, although their horizontal orientation means that you must flip through the book with the spine at the top.
This is all fine, and also quite normal for how I’ve seen Japanese photographers present their work- but it was the middle-era set which I can’t stop thinking about.
This set was comprised of about 100 fiber based 8×10 prints, all shot in northern Japan in the late 1980s and splendidly edited into a near perfect collection of his travels to that part of the country. The luster of each print shone through the appropriately sized transparent slipcover. They were not bound in any way but were simply kept in a white photo box.
I have not printed on 8×10 because it had always seemed like a waste of effort- (for a few dollars more you can make larger prints with the same amount of chemistry) but in Oyama’s case he embraced the smaller surface area and utilized it to his advantage to create an intimacy between the viewer and the physical nature of the photographs.
For the most part I orient the paper to allow the image area to be as large as possible (while allowing a balanced white border for possible matting) like this:
He had instead printed his photos with the paper vertically positioned like this:
The result was that the pictures dared you to lean closer, to peer into them. The generously balanced white border around each image allows you to meditate on the image, seperating it from the print from your hands from your table in a restaurant. Several times I caught myself few prints right up to my face to draw in the details. The white area both sets the image apart from the surrounding context, but at the same time when regarding the print as an object the border becomes as important as any other part of the image itself. It is the physical proof that the artist could have given you enough to fill the paper, but instead offers you more (of an experience) by giving you less.
Now, of course Oyama is not the first person to print like this. Onishi leaned over while Okabe and I were going through the work to note that printing horizontally shot pictures on a vertical sheet of paper was something all the photographers were doing in the 60s 70s and 80s. No doubt this method continues to this day- But it was a shot in the arm. Once I get a chance to get back in the darkroom I think I’ll get started on printing the “Women” series that everyone seems to be clamoring to see in it’s entirety.
