What I learned from printing a photo for the first time

I have something to admit: I’ve never really printed my photos. Sure, I have some drugstore 4 x 6″ prints of pictures taken with both digital and film cameras, as well as a few photo books and pieces of wall art, but I’ve never done anything that would be considered a large print, nor have I ever actually been involved in the process.

When I told my coworker Abby this, she was horrified. Making prints is an important part of her process, especially for work that ends up in a gallery. So, long ago (March 5th of this year, according to my Slack records), we decided that the next time we were in the same town, we should make a video where she teaches me how to print.

That opportunity didn’t come quickly – we live on basically opposite sides of the US, after all – but the stars eventually aligned, and we were able to make the video, which you can watch below.

Ever since our first conversation, I knew what image I wanted to print: a film photo I had taken of a baseball player signing autographs. It’s one of my favorite shots, and having the negative meant we could make the video using the photochemical darkroom process. I’ve developed almost all my own film, but that was done almost exclusively in my bathroom using a daylight tank. I figured the fully immersive experience would be far more interesting, and I was right, even if it did present some filming challenges*.

While we didn’t go through the full end-to-end process – I’d already scanned the roll, so I knew exactly what picture to print, obviating the need to make a contact sheet – I feel like the few prints we did gave a lot of appreciation for printing as an art form. I’ve seen my images blown up on a pretty big TV, and spent time laboring over some of them in Photoshop, but the physical printing process forced me to spend time with them in a way that I rarely do. I suspect I’d have a very different relationship to photography if I were in an era where printing was an integral part of the process, rather than a novelty.

A scan of the negative from which we printed.Mitchell Clark

Despite having looked at the image on my monitor many times, I still noticed new things about it after printing it. It also helped me see past some of the flaws. Perhaps this is a bad habit, but when I’m looking at photos on a computer, I often zoom in to 1:1. Doing that with my film photos is a recipe for disappointment; I can see that not everything is sharp, and that I may have used a shutter speed that was a touch slower than optimal.

All of that melts away when looking at the print, though, and I can focus on the photo itself. At the size we used, those “issues” aren’t as obvious, and it can just be a picture that I can experience and enjoy. Looking at it from the other side, though, I can also see how printing could be a very educational process, since spending so much time with the image forces you to consider what you’d do differently if you were shooting it again.

Abby was also kind enough to do a digital print with me too, though the process doesn’t make for as good TV. (We have posted the lightly edited video of it, though, if you’re interested.) I personally enjoyed the darkroom experience a lot more, but almost all of my photography is digital these days, and I think I could still learn a lot by printing digitally.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I will. I don’t really have room for a large photo printer, and I think I’d struggle to spend the money on the ink for one even if I had a place to put it. And even if I were taking film photos worth printing, I don’t think there’s anywhere I could do it in my local area.

Still, I’m glad I had the opportunity to do a print, and feel like I learned a lot from the experience. I’m interested to hear from our community, though. As Abby says in the video, we did a survey in our newsletter about printing habits and there were several responses from people who said they never printed. If that was you, why haven’t you printed, or why don’t you anymore? Lack of interest? Access? Let me know in the comments below.

* – Yes, I probably should’ve manually focused the camera… but then how would I have tested its autofocus in an extreme situation?