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OneWorkshop featured at Manila Standard

Manila Standard Today
April 17, 2010

By Carlo Cecilio

OneWorkshop Group, a provider of fine art services since 2006, is encouraging the promotion and preservation of Philippine fine art photography through exhibits, workshops, and archival fine art printing.

While digital photography and the Internet have spawned a new breed of photographers satisfied with posting photographs satisfied with posting photographs on their websites, “true photography is meant to be appreciated as a print,” says One Workshop president Ross Capili, an accomplished photographer and painter with 30 one-man exhibitions and recipient of numerous awards from the fine art community to his credit.
     
 

Fine art photography refers to photographs created based on the creative vision of the photographer as an artist, compared to photojournalism which provides visual support to news stories and commercial photography which focuses on selling products and services.
In fine art photography, the photographer does not need to conform to such standards as the rule of thirds in composition. The goal—if it could really be called a goal—is to reflect the photographer’s personality, ideas and beliefs in a photograph.

Capili encourages advertising and fashion photographers to explore fine art photography as a means of expressing themselves without seeking approval from others. “In commercial photography, we sometimes need to follow what the client wants, instead of what we want. In fine art we get to do what we want.”

Commercial photographer Tom Epperson and Jake Versoza are OneWorkshop stalwarts. They also personify successful commercial photographers who have embraced fine art photography.

Giclée printing is a specialty of OneWorkshop. A method of fine art printing, giclée comes from French le gicleur or the nozzle, more specifically gicler or to squirt, spurt or spray. It was coined in 1991 by printmaker Jack Duganne for inkjet digital prints as fine art.
The difference between a giclée print and the output of a one-hour photo lab is quality and longevity. One-hour prints could last two-three years and then start to fade. OneWorkshop uses EPSON inkjet printers with original pigmented or archival links that would last more than 50 years. OneWorkshop accepts large digital files like TIFF, a file format that gives a higher quality print output compared to JPEG files which is the only format accepted by one-hour photo labs.

A high quality print is crucial for fine art photographs and digital artworks to appreciate in value over time. An artwork appreciates in value by 10 percent each year. “If we plan to sell our artwork, we need to make sure that our photographs will last a long time,” says Capili.
Ink in general reacts to different kinds of paper. Sometimes color and printer calibration are not enough that practical experience and a trained eye are crucial for faithful reproductions, particularly in digital printing.

Institutional clients such as the Yuchengco, Lopez and Ayala museums have placed the burden upon OneWorkshop to reproduce paintings in digital form for security reasons.
“With giclée printing we can produce painting-like prints that have embellishments, which means if you touch the print you will feel texture just like a real oil painting,” says Capili.
But closer to the hearts of Capili and his wife Ellen, who manages One Workshop, is their missionary work in serving artists and promoting fine art photography. Capili finds this mission more relevant in this day and age of the digital anything to rekindle the love for the printed photograph.

OneWorkshop has recently opened its fine art center at the third floor of LRI Design Plaza on Nicanor Garcia, formerly Reposo, street in Bel-Air II, Makati.
     
 
 
 

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