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| The Photographic Giclee Printing Process |
A brief overview by Terrell S. Lester.
Giclee ( gee-clay ).
Perhaps the greatest innovation in the photographic process since its original conception is that of the photographic digital process. The technology has made huge strides in the past two decades and offered tools to photographers not even previously imaginable. I began using digital processes with my photography in 1998 to create a mockup for my publishers at Random House of my book "MAINE: The Seasons" published 2001.
I have found the digital process to be a powerful creative tool in creating my fine art prints. The advantages of these digital prints are:
1) They are more environmentally sound using much less natural resources such as water and they do not contaminate the environment with heavy metals and toxic chemicals.
2) As an artist I have greater creative control with the digital process so I can create my best prints.
3) The pigmented inks used by my Epson 9500 large format archival giclee printer will produce prints that resist color fading for up to 200 years when printed on the fine art papers I use in my process.
4) I promise you the image you are seeing is a fair and realistic representation of the natural world I photographed. I do not create colors that did not exist nor do I add, subtract or unrealistically alter the scene that nature presented to me at the time I made the image. Nature provides an abundance of color and spectacular light to creative landscapes that no person, machine or photographer could out create.
I do not yet regularly use digital cameras to capture the original image as I find they are not yet powerful enough to reproduce images and prints large enough for my work. But that too is quickly changing. Currently my camera of choice is a Hasselblad medium format camera and my film of choice is Fuji Velvia slide film. To create a digital giclee print from my original slide first I must digitally scan the slide to create a digital file to work with. After scanning I use Adobe Photoshop as my primary editing tool to correct color shifts caused by the scanning process and as a tool to recreate and interpret the original scene as I felt and remembered it. As Ansel Adams once said of his prints when asked if it really looked that way, "The original image is the score for my symphony and my print is the performance of that score".
I believe nature provides an abundance to all of us both materially and spiritually. My work is dedicated to being a sounding board but not a mirror to that which I saw and felt at the time I took the picture but I have yet to ever outdo what I saw or felt in the natural world. I have spent the last 20 years of my life dedicated to creating fine art photographic images of the natural world. It is my greatest pleasure in life to share that part of my spirit and my art with you. |
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