Thierry Maindrault’s Monthly Cogitations
Not all people who work behind the scenes are secret agents. Some go even further and work in the dark, without necessarily engaging in underground mining activities. Our colleagues in photography who work in the shadow of a computer or in the darkness of a laboratory call themselves “photo printers.”
The activities of a photographic printer essentially involve mastering the techniques to convert a negative, a slide, or a digital file into the final version of a work.
The printer is a very special character in the photographic world. He, and quite often she, walks in darkness bathed in red light, or even orange or greenish for sodium lighting, which has the virtue of being inactinic for most of the photosensitive compositions used. In a corner, the small isolation booth, as dark as possible, is reserved for loading and developing the exposed “multichrome” films. That’s the atmosphere, with its slight permanent smell of different chemical reducers accompanied by a hint of acidity. For the work process, almost always the same: exposure, followed by development, stopping, fixing, drying and finally checking for conformity to the desired image. While this sequence of operations is practically immutable, the technologies that can be used to achieve the desired goal are as multiple as they are diverse. From Judean bitumen to the latest UV printers, including wet collodion, cyanide (a valuable product for the photographic laboratory technician), potato starch, silver bromide, and other pigment inks, all these possibilities (and many others) allow skilled printers to obtain the best-suited result for a future image. It should be noted that excellent printers are recognized by their great ease in switching, indifferently and without difficulty, from one method to another at the level of all the actions of the process. The good printer is as efficient behind a computer screen as above an enlarger plate or in handling a contact box.
To be very clear (in this permanent ambient darkness), I have never yet met an excellent digital printer (even if he proclaims himself as such) incapable of making a silver print or a cyanotype. The same is true for good color head manipulators who were able to quickly master the various preparation and adjustment software for prints, whether by projection or sublimation.
As you can see, the photographic printer is a scientific wizard with a phenomenal memory, just like a master cellar master or a perfumer. If your creative request is coherent (even if it seems impossible to you), the right printer will find the solutions to create your image.
But be careful, the laws and customs regarding creative works and works of art are clear: the technical execution must be carried out exclusively under the control and instructions of the artist. The printer brings only their mastery of the tools, necessary and indispensable to achieve the result sought by the artist.
All technologies combined, I identify three main categories of printers.
The first is formed by the cohort of photographers-printers, as was the case for all professionals until the end of the last millennium. After shooting, the photographer developed his films, exposed his enlargements (or even his contact sheets), dried and selected his images. This situation is returning with digital, which many photographers imagine they have mastered perfectly. If their photographs are presented as emerging, it must be explained to them that their images are still very much immersed. For the others, who have been using film or digital for years, it is certain that they are never better served than for themselves.
The second category, which I call the appointed printers, those who remained in their shadow with their skills to execute as closely as possible the desires of the great masters held to the skies. Many renowned photographers call upon the services of a well-identified printer for their prints. This practice of a duo – appointed, reassures the photographer, often totally ignorant of the technical aspects of a photographic production. In their defense, all those who have contacted me (or who hire a printer to carry out their work) absolutely do not hide their ignorance.
The third category is formed by a mass, almost always formatted for the use of software packages. Their job is to check that the highly automated digital printers do not make errors or have technical accidents in their actions. For the rest, cells and other perceptive sensors are supposed to give perfect prints. I will not comment on these so-called prints as much as on the incompetence of certain organizers or exhibition curators incapable of perceiving the problems. Spot the error! But since we are told everywhere that Art is born from error, I think I have prepared this list in the wrong order.
So, what are the most obvious printing errors that are so easily avoided by a real photographic printer? As far as I’m concerned, the first comes from the choice of raw materials. The naive and uninformed photographer often lets himself be given a support that is hardly suited to his work, the exhibition conditions or the use made by a collector. The products (chemical or not), the inks or the machines used are little, or not at all, compatible with the image supports. Printing is not research, which does not prevent us from doing research to improve or diversify the potential to obtain the best result.
The second error comes from stopping a process prematurely, which significantly affects the results. Early removal of a bath has never corrected a counting error. Removing an overcoat of ink is immediately interpreted by a reader. Saving time, money, or the laziness of redoing don’t go well with the message of a photographic image.
Conversely, successful photographic printing isn’t all that complicated in the vast majority of cases.
First, it is essential to return to the original base, whether it is a digital file, a negative or a flower branch. Respecting the starting point, in all its aspects, is essential to the success of the final work. A good printer must know how to refuse a work based on an intractable element; unless, he is certain that his personal know-how will allow the achievement required by the author. This is also true when the author and the printer are the same person. Great successes are made from quality bases (universal rule).
The second point for the printer is to constantly monitor that their approaches are consistent with each other and with the foundations of their work. This dogma is surely even more essential when working digitally. Binary choices allow for very little digression.
I visited the two major international photography festivals in France. I was quite appalled by the poor quality of the prints (this trend is increasing). Certainly, three or four exhibitions are presented with superbly crafted prints. But what should be the general rule has become rare exceptions. Ladies and Gentlemen, Commissioners (excuse me: curators), how do you fulfill your mission? With the selections already becoming imprecise, the qualitative presentation of the images is too often sloppy.
Printers now add their names to the presentations in these exhibitions (the displays are becoming a telephone directory); between you and me, they would do better to abstain, and not just out of personal shyness.
Thierry Maindrault – September 12, 2025
your comments about this chronicle and its photography are always welcome at
[email protected]
