Best Printers

[cliveh]

What would FADU members list as the greatest photographic printers of all time?
I would suggest as starters:-
Ansel Adams
Lee Miller
Edward Weston
But I am sure there are lots more who are probably as good if not better.

[Ed Moss]

MCullin, a heavy style he has made his own.

[Ian Marsh]

Bill Rowlinson, innovative genius

[Miha]

Voja Mitrovic - it takes a genius to print from others' negatives to Picto standards.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/08/voya-mitrovic-part-i.html

[StanW]

Bill Brandt

[DougHowk]

Brett Weston
Bruce Barnbaum
Ray McSavaney
Howard Bond
Paul Caponigro
George Tice

[Maris]

Best by projection: Ansel Adams.
Best by contact: Edward Weston.
Worst by the standards of the two above: Bill Brandt. But he had a personal style so extreme that no one has gone there since; so good (?) after all.

[Andrew F]

I have gone WOW when seeing prints by the photographers below. I've also been fortunate to have been on workshops given by a couple of them,.and in also having prints from three of them

John Blakemore
Wynn Bullock
Paul Caponigro
Emmet Gowin
Paul Strand
Edward Weston

[Steve O]

W. Eugene Smith
Larry Bartlett
Ansel Adams


Steve

[Trevor Crone]

From original prints that I have seen;

Edward Weston
Brett Weston
George Tice
Wynn Bullock
Lewis Hine
Paul Strand
Ansel Adams

[Richard Gould]

Larry Bartlet, Eddie Epharums, Robin Bell.
Richard

[vanannan]

Did Bill Brandt print his own work???

[borek]

I like old masters(all) and now I like Clyde Butcher and Robin Bell

[dsallen]

For most of his career Bill Brandt certainly did all of his developing and printing himself. Towards the latter part of his life he was dogged by illness and could not always print his own work. He placed a strong emphasis on the need for photographers to do their own printing and was disparaging about those who didn't - as he felt that it was a key part of realising the image. The major shift in his printing style from dark moody somewhat grey prints to high contrast prints he developed after the war whilst working with the ultra-wide angle camera.

If memory serves me correctly, Robin Bell currently prints Brandt's back catalogue with prints being available in silver, platinum and, possibly, inkjet versions.

I have had the following quote from Brandt in my notebook from the early 1980's - I think it was noted down from a 1970 UK photo mag interview (or possibly Bill Bishop's notes for the big London retrospective).

"I consider it essential that the photographer should do his own printing and enlarging. The final effect of the finished print depends so much on these operations. And only the photographer himself knows the effect he wants. He should know by instinct, grounded in experience, what subjects are enhanced by hard or soft, light or dark treatment. But ... no amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph ... It is part of the photographer's job to see more intensely than most people do."

[Les McLean]

Paul Caponigro
Tom Baril who made Robert Mapplethorpe's prints

[Tony Marlow]

Robin Bell, Tim Rudman,

Tony

[WillShade]

+1 for Larry Bartlett and Tim Rudman.

[PaulD]

Wynn Bullock
Paul Camponigro
Edward Weston
Ansel Adams

[Peter Fitz]

I wouldn't be sure of the greatest printers of all time but I have seen the following in action and think their work is amazing.

John Blakemore
Les McLean
Tim Rudman

[David Lingham]

Whoever printed Salgado's work would get my vote.