A Good Soup Takes 3 Days

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We are rather impatient. Modern life has brought us to this state of existence where we are impatient at multi-minute delays. Yet we know for a fact that soup tastes best on the third day.

With the digital age of photography and the computer display, we have become visually impatient. I am of course no exception. I find myself racing through photo albums of beautiful pictures, racing to find the perfect scene, and having found it revel in it for 3 minutes, an eternity, then downloading it for a background which will satisfy me for several days, to be replace by some other breathtaking image. I am modern man…

Print an image, and the race screeches to a halt. Print 11 by 17 on Hahnemuhle paper with Epson inks, and you slow down because the tint is off and everyone is a slight, sickly green. What slows you down is the pri$e tag of such a rush to product. And when all is said and done, it is a matter of taste. And it takes taste a little time to settle down.

So here is the end result. The whole enchilada of a journey. As you can see, there are lots of 5 by 7 tries at the color of the leaves and the tree trunks. My mind’s eye remembers a much yellower aspen leaf, but a much whiter aspen trunk. But looking back, the trunks must have gotten some of the yellow/orange of the leaves. So it was a wrestling match pulling on one color getting pushes of the others.

When the colors were close, checking the results on different, larger format paper with different “brightness” meant contact proof type printings. Bigger all by itself changes bright. And when all that is done, finally printing on the large format for the completed product… Well no.
For a slightly darker print leads to depth. A lighter print results in a sparkle and glow. Well…

When all is said and done, I like both. I let them sit for a couple of days, and by the 3d, it became clear that my favorite was the brighter print with more intense colors.
So printing is about the one picture that you really like. It is about slowing down and really looking. It is about letting the soul of the picture out, and therefore, letting your soul out.

So when all is said and done, a good soup really does take three days.