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Photo Book Reviews

Nash Editions: Photography and the Art of Digital Printing (New Riders) - Introduction by Graham Nash, etc. Nash Editions: Photography and the Art of Digital Printing recounts the extraordinary feats of musician Graham Nash and his business partner R. Mac Holbert to take digital printing from a fantasy to a reality. Article rating: 9.50

Nowadays, color printers are so widespread in American homes and offices, we forget that once upon a time it was impossible to print anything of quality at all. You may, in fact, be surprised at how recently those dark days came to an end. As late as 1988, there was basically no way to create an aesthetically high-quality print of an image that you saw on a computer screen.

This fact triggered the genesis of Nash Editions, America’s premier fine-art digital printmaking studio, whose history and output are celebrated in the lavish book Nash Editions: Photography and the Art of Digital Printing. The “Nash” in the name refers to Graham Nash, perhaps more commonly known as the English-born pop/rock musician of The Hollies and, later, Crosby, Stills & Nash. Together with R. Mac Holbert, he founded Nash Editions in 1990. But the story, as recounted by Holbert in the introduction to the book, began in 1979, when Holbert discovered the PC.

Holbert, who was tour manager for Nash’s band at the time, began using personal computers to handle every aspect of the band’s business. Then he discovered digital imaging, toying prolifically with a high-resolution scanner. Graham Nash started to get curious. The two of them put together a high-end scanning and imaging system, and Nash reveled in his newfound power to digitally edit his own scanned photos. There was one problem: Nash couldn’t print out his edited photos to his preferred standards of quality. So he and Holbert began searching for a way to “get the image out of the computer” - to create an “aesthetic translation.”

And thus began the quest for fine-art digital printing. In 1989 Nash and Holbert purchased an Iris 3047 high-resolution printer, customized it (“We were so sure of the printer’s capabilities that we voided the warranty on our $126,000 Iris by hacksawing off the heads and repositioning them so that the printer would accept thicker substrates”), and began cranking out some beautiful photographs, which met with success on exhibition in Japan. The artistic possibilities were exhilarating: “Never before were such realistic reproductions possible.” Nash and Holbert decided to professionalize their photo-making passion; and Nash Editions was born, in Manhattan Beach, California.

Over more than fifteen years, Nash Editions has attracted such big-name clients as Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Horace Bristol, Eileen Cowin, Eric Fischl, Lynn Goldsmith, Robert Heinecken, David Hockney, Pedro Meyer, Jenny Okun, Stephen Shore, and Maggie Taylor. The international leader in fine-art digital printing, Nash Editions has fostered a growing interest in digital imaging as a legitimate mode of art, with its own rich potential. When digital printing first arrived on the scene, many artists were skeptical, denying that inkjet prints were even legitimate “photographs,” because they were made up of millions of tiny dots, or because, unlike true photographs, they were not created as a direct result of exposure to light. After fifteen years of Nash, that perception has lost considerable ground.

The process of digital imaging is, in fact, quite remarkable, and the book gives you a proper sense of respect, both for the technology and for the achievements of Nash’s studio. In his note “An Afternoon in the Future,” photographer Horace Bristol describes the astonishment with which he watched Mac Holbert scan eight of his negatives, then transform them on the computer: “He not only ‘cleaned them up,’ which involved removing all sports and blemishes in the original print, but offered to change the intensity of any area, no matter how big or small, to suit my concept of a perfect image. It was truly miraculous! He demonstrated how it was possible to change the relationship between various tonal values between black-and-white areas so as to emphasize others in an unlimited spirit of creative review, or even change completely the effect of the original image.” A revolution in photographic printing was taking place, and Nash Editions was at the vanguard.

The book is furnished with many more such notes or short essays, as well as an introduction by Graham Nash, and four longer essays: “The History of Nash Editions” by R. Mac Holbert; “The Four Stages of Photography” by Richard Benson; and “A History of Permanence in Traditional and Digital Color Photography: The Role of Nash Editions” by Henry Wilhelm. Each of these essays is highly illuminating and, while saturated with as much technical and historical detail as you could possibly want, quite readable. Some of the anecdotes recounted by Holbert about himself and Graham Nash are especially interesting.

You will find it hard to read the text, though, unless you are extremely focused, because the book is replete with such gorgeous photos, showcasing the very best of Nash Editions’ work, that you may find yourself engrossed in the visual feast of it all. This is a very rich book, superabundant with fantastic images and information that should intrigue non-specialists and general photo-enthusiasts alike, and beautifully laid-out - in short, a fitting tribute to a remarkable printmaking studio.

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