I love receiving emails from folks who’ve bought my prints. I love even more seeing my prints framed and in place in their homes.
Over the years I’ve had folks send me emails from all over the world with my prints hanging on the walls. Sometimes I’ve even seen them hanging right next to an Ansel Adams original (which is very complimentary).
I really like the arrangement for this collection. I love triptychs, and to me, single photographs aren’t what it’s really about. I’m much more interested in a cohesive theme, and a collection of three images that sit tightly next to one another is more important than having twenty good images that don’t fit as well.
Of course I’d like to sell more prints. But I’ll let you in on a secret: few amateur landscape photographers buy other people’s work.
But I think most amateurs should really fill their houses with their own work first, anyway. Printing and framing your own work is the final step to completing your work. It is also immensely satisfying to see the work reach another level when it is hanging on a wall. I have often thought that printing is nice, matting the print is nicer, and framing it is even nicer still. But nothing beats seeing the completed object hanging on a wall.
I’ll let you in on another secret: few photographers actually print any of their work.
The print is greatly undervalued in my opinion. We should print more, exhibit more, and also, when we have the spare cash, buy other’s work we admire.
In my own case, I have a couple of John Blakemore prints at home. A Michael Kenna (that’s another story), and a Charlie Cramer. I’d like to get some more in time.
Printing is where it’s at. When you print, you notice things in the hard copy that you didn’t notice on your monitor. It’s the final verification stage, and if you can get it to look great in print, it will always look great on a monitor. But the opposite is not true.
Anyway, thanks so much to Pete for sending me this photo. I get great satisfaction from seeing my work ‘complete’ - printed / matted / framed, and placed on a wall.