Printing Photographs One of One

On my trip to Amsterdam, I only had a couple of hours of sunlight to work.  The key to water reflection shots, is full sunshine, so when I had the chance, I locked into a scene and tried to get as much out each situation.  In these shots, I knew I had good light, and loved the warping reflections of people crossing the bridge.  This is a perfect example of the single edition prints.  I took 6 photos of this scene, and printed 6 different photos. 

Two years ago, I started getting bored with my photography.  Instead of creating new work, I was fulfilling orders from photographs I had done years before--I was feeling less than creative.  

By printing single editions of photographs, I feel that I better encapsulate the true nature of photography.  What used to be impossible, freezing moments in time, now become 1/125 of a second printed on watercolor paper, or 1/30 of a second, when using a slow shutter speed. At any shutter fraction, these micro moments allow us to pause the intricacies of sunlight reflecting on a lake.   Printing each millisecond only once, I feel that I'm better representing the fleeting nature of what photography allows.  
  

Amsterdam Bridge Reflections 1
3x4 printed on watercolor paper
1 of 1

Amsterdam Bridge Reflections 3
3x4 printed on watercolor paper
1 of 1

Amsterdam Bridge Reflections 5
3x4 printed on watercolor paper
1 of 1

Amsterdam Bridge Reflections 2
3x4 printed on watercolor paper
1 of 1

Amsterdam Bridge Reflections 4
3x4 printed on watercolor paper
1 of 1

Amsterdam Bridge Reflections 6
3x4 printed on watercolor paper
1 of 1

I started doing the math on my editions, if I take 30 photographs, and do an edition of 50, I'll have to sell 1500 prints before selling out.  Considering that I surpassed taking 100,000 photos years ago, the edition scale was becoming more ridiculous, the more photos I put into editions, the exponence  became laughable.  If I add another 300 photos, at an edition of 50, it will take 15,000 photos to sell out.  

These were just printed, all are 3x3 on watercolor paper

I just printed 92 new photos, some slight variations of each other, like above, 92 photos in editions of ones, an easy 92 to add up.  Had I had done my previous editions, 92 times 50, leads to a staggerring 4,600 edition size that could have been inititiated during the last week of March 2015.  

So really, the edition size was actually holding me back.  There's no way I would have added 92 new photos.  By moving beyond these large editions, it's constantly pushing me to come up with new work.

by Kasey Child