Story of the Print

The rationale for 'Story of the Print'

I have always been an enthusiast of the provenance of a picture or the etymology of a picture’s title, but that’s more common in the literary and music worlds than in the visual arts. And of course, the engineering world talks about the ontology of labelling stuff, particularly in systems engineering. But artists usually believe that the power of their imagery makes everything self explanatory! I haven’t progressed that far yet. In any case as an honorary systems engineer, retired, I can subscribe to that discipline’s notion of creating a truth map for a system. Replace system with print, and draft a ‘truth map’ story.
The photo-historians are quite good at it, but often overdose on, not-surprisingly, historical context.
Occasionally in this website, the visitor will find a little book-y icon close to an image; the icon is shown above. These are direct links to an associated Story of the Print.
They are generally about single images, but sometimes the provenance needs help with some supplementary images.
Learning that my pictures exhibited in Field of View, had some similarities to the mid-1970s New Topographics movement - see Source Magazine #119, Autumn 2025, pp72-73 - pleased me. Alas, I had not been aware that that formal movement had existed, but I’d be pleased to join that ‘club’.

Below is an alternative route to the Stories via an Instagram-style matrix of the images currently documented; just click on the image, or its little open book icon.

Alas, coming soon
The matrix of images is ‘coming soon’; in the meanwhile pictures which do have a Story of the Print will be selectable from that page; the image will only be seen when that sub-page is invoked.