At Aardenburg, we love digital imaging, but we cannot envision taking cherished photos without making enduring prints. Throughout history, photography and printmaking have gone hand in hand. One almost can’t define photography without referencing printmaking. If a rendering of a digital file changes, the interpretation changes.
In our modern age of electronic displays, shifting paradigms regarding use and sharing of images, the ability to manipulate images easily, and with new digital technologies and file formats constantly emerging, digital images are truly ephemeral and subject to constant reinterpretation.
But what is the photographer’s vision, the artist’s intention for the interpretation of their image, at a specific point in history? Only a finished print has the long term potential of preserving the artist’s vision, with the highest probability of future generations seeing the artist’s original intent in his craft. Additionally, print quality and print permanence, in realizing and preserving that vision, becomes paramount, hence AaI&A Research.
A physical print is the only viable way at this point in time to ensure that future audiences will see the aesthetics of the image the way the photographer wanted them portrayed. The print is where the photographer is able to instill and ensure his or her own aesthetic values in their image craft. At this time, enduring, nothing less than a print, a tactile, physical object, very often hand signed by the artist, achieves this goal.