Inspiration from Printing one's own work

I've just finished printing and mounting one of my prints for an order I received a few weeks ago. Here is the very picture - an 8" x 8" print of Cono de Arita in the Puna de Atacama of Argentina.

Cono de Arita, Puna de Atacama, print, framed.

When preparing images for framing, you should always use acid free materials. To not do so, would render the print prone to future damage. As time goes on,  the acids in the gum or tape leak onto the back of the print and can cause discolouration.

Here in the UK, I get all my supplies from Silverprint.co.uk.

Once you have a mount with an aperture cut into it, you should also have an accompanying backing board. Both should be made of museum grade acid free materials.

The next stage is to create a hinge so that the front board hinges to the back board at the very top. I use Lineco gummed linen hinging tape, which is acid free and extremely strong. You can get it here.

Once I have both front aperture board and backing board hinged, I then need to attach the print to the backing board. First I position the print on the backing board and move it around until it's centred in the front aperture window of the front mount board. Once I have that. Then, I attach two strips of acid free paper tape to the print in vertical orientation with the gum side up and attached to the back of the print. The vertical strips are going to form the vertical part of a 'T' shape with two horizontal strips attached to the top of each vertical strip. The reason for creating a 'T' shape is to allow the print to expand and contract with temperature changes and still be completely flat on the backing board. If you just attach the print to the backing board with one horizontal strip, you will find that the print will contract and expand at a different rate to the backing board as temperatures change in the room and the print will never be entirely flat as a result.

Image © www.reframingphotography.com

For the inscription on the front of the print, it's best to use a pigment ink liner pen, or pencil. Either of these will not fade, whereas a standard ink pen will easily begin to fade after just a few years being subjected to daylight.

And that's it.

It's been a while since I prepared a print for a customer. Truth is: very few people actually buy prints and I think that even fewer photographers buy anyone else's work at all  (but perhaps that's a subject for another post sometime in the future).  

I've always thought that the ultimate journey with my photography has been to have the images in print form. Making this print has been enormously satisfying for me. It has allowed me to reconsider setting up an exhibition.  I'm currently working on a 3rd hard-back book to be released sometime either next year or in 2018..... some projects are never finished and I'm finding that the Atacama regions of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina seem to be an exhaustive area for me to make photographs in.

Maybe when I get round to releasing the 3rd book, I can coincide it with an exhibition of my work over the past few years. Who knows, but one thing is for sure - printing my own images is a hugely rewarding exercise and it has given me inspiration to think about a possible exhibition sometime in the future.

For more information about mounting, this is a good page to visit: http://www.reframingphotography.com/content/mounting-matting-and-framing

My First Black & White Print

I've spent a bit of time over the past few months researching black & white printing. Until this year, I had deliberately stayed away from monochrome work as I feel that it is a very different space in which to work. It is also an extremely difficult medium to master because any tonal errors or tonal distractions are more evident in the work. With colour, tonal errors are less critical because we have the added distraction of colour.

Printed on Museo Silver Rag paper, using Colourburst's RIP Print driver and Pixelgenius capture and output sharpeners

So I'd looked into using the John Cone system of loading up a dedicated Epson printer with monochrome ink sets. I really liked the sample prints I got from John, but I went ahead and used my own standard colour printer inks to do the monochrome print you see above. My feeling is that if you have a really well calibrated / profiled system, I think monochrome inks via the colour ink cartridges is really nice. I'm certainly happy with it and I would suggest if you are thinking of doing monochrome work with a colour printer, to use really good profiles, or as in my case - a dedicated RIP print driver.

When I looked into printing a few years back, I was amazed to discover that it is almost a religion for some and many people have different ways of tackling it. My system is very simple - I use BasICColour's Display 5 software to calibrate my monitor, and by using a RIP driver with good paper profiles installed, and suitable sharpening algorithms for the final print (I use Pixelgenuis' Sharpener toolkit), you can't go wrong. Oh, and of course you need a really good day-light viewing booth with which to evaluate the final prints.

The print you see above is my first monochrome print, and it's for my client and friend Stacey Williams, who is from Trinidad. Stacey will be on my Torridon workshop next weekend so I'll be delighted to hand her the print in person.

Printing is a very personal thing. The paper choices, how the work is presented are all personal decisions. But what sets a print apart from a computer screen is the fact that it's tangible, physical thing.

And with all tangible physical things, t's an extremely rewarding feeling to be able to actually give the work to whoever it was intended for :-)

Acid Free Tape

You can probably tell by now, that printing is on my mind of late. I've been matting a lot of my work for overseas clients - I guess Christmas must be calling. I thought it would be good to discuss the use of linen hinged tape - in particular - why you should use acid free tape.

As my framer says. Putting normal tape over your prints to hang them behind mats will eat through the photograph in a matter of months. I haven't seen that for myself, but the best thing to do when matting your own work is to use acid-free materials where possible.

What I particularly like about linen tape though, is that it's all water based. If you're not happy with the placement - just add some water to remove the tape and reposition.

If you're interested in getting some, one of the best places here in the UK for presentation material is Silverprint.

Christmas Print Orders

I've been receiving a lot of limited edition print orders for Christmas, and wanted to let you all know that the closing date for printing and shipping is Wednesday the 11th of December. Any orders placed after this date can't be honoured, I'm afraid as I will be out of the country then.

Please check below for the last posting date for your country (see below for table).

If you wish to order a print, you can browse my print selection here.

If you wish to have any of my images from my portfolio made up as a print, that is not available on my store, please just email me.

All prints are 7" x 9", matted to 14" x 13" or if the image is square, the print is 7" x 7" and mated to 13" x 14". All prints are £150 and signed, numbered to an edition of 45 only. They are shipped in a strong ready-pack carboard carton and are insured for transit.

- Printed on Museo Silver Rag Paper - Epson 4880 Print - Mount 14 x 13.5 inches (35.56 x 34.29 cm) - 9 x 7.2 inches image size (22.86 x 18.28 cm) - Signed, titled and numbered on front - Stamp of authenticity, titled and numbered on back

Matting & Signing

I've been busy printing a few images as special orders. You might have guessed I've been busy of late with the printing side of things due to the subject matter of my recent posts !

Tonight I thought I would share some of them with you. Each of these images is around 7" inches wide by 7" inches high. Printing, matting, the whole presentation side of things is really a very personal decision, I feel. It should be taken into account as part of the photographers 'signature'.

To my mind, printing is a further extension of the photographers 'voice'. As I said a few days ago - the print is the ultimate calling card, it goes out there into the world, as a representative of who you are as an artist.

So treat your prints well. Give them a lot of care and special love.

Do your utmost best.

Black & White Printing with Piezography inks?

I'm in the process of thinking of setting up a second printer to specialise in black and white printing. I've known about the Piezography black ink set for a while. This is a custom system whereby each cartridge slot in your colour printer is replaced with a separate black tone ink. The printer becomes a dedicated monochromatic printer.

In my mind, I am reasoning that having a dedicated printer set up with different tones of black inks will produce a much better black and white inkjet print, than if I were to use the standard Epson colour inks.

I would really love to hear from you if you have experience of this system, or if you know of any other specialist black and white inkjet system. Specifically, any issues you had, how you feel about the final results compared to doing black and white prints using the normal Epson inks.

Your thoughts are appreciated, and if you feel going 'public' on my blog is too much for you - as was the case a few years ago when I asked for input about colour printing - you can e-mail me directly instead.

The Art of Printing

If we were to gather some stats about photographers, we would discover that few actually print their images, or ever get them printed. The truth is, most images, if they get any further than the hard-drive of a computer,  get as far as a website.

Which I think is a real shame, because I think there's something very beautiful about the print. It is for me, what I always thought was the ultimate aim with photography.

Way back in the 80's when I was a teenager, I remember looking at some Ansel Adams book's that my friend Craig brought round for me to look at. At the age of 19, I was more interested in music and writing songs. But when my friend showed me these beautifully printed books of Ansel's work, I was really taken in. I still look back at this moment and realise that for me, I've always thought that the final result for any photographer is the print.

I understand that things have changed. We live in a more electronic world these days, and one where everything lives on-line. We enjoy music streamed down from the internet, and we often do the same with photographic images. But I've always been at a loss as to why we're satisfied with this? It's different for music, because the quality of the audio is pretty good. Whereas the quality of a photographer's work can't be enjoyed to the same degree as it would when viewing a well produced print of their work.

When I released my first book, I had so many emails from buyers who told me that it was so nice to discover there was so much more detail present in the prints, that they hadn't been able to enjoy on my website. It was a very heartening thing to know that others were keen to get closer to my work - because that's what prints do - they allow us to have a more intimate audience with someone's work. I think this is because of two main reasons: the first is that the image is brought into the real world. It exists as a piece of paper and we can touch it and enjoy the quality of the paper it's printed on. Secondly, it's much easier on the eyes to look at work that is printed, rather than being transmitted at so many hertz from an illuminated panel. We tend to interpret work differently when it is presented on different mediums. The way we look at a print, is very different from the way we look at a computer screen.

I would love to see more photographers printing. Because printing is an art-form. It takes a long time to master printing, and it is one half of the photography story. As photographers, we should feel a need to strive for excellence in how our work is presented. And printing our work well is a craft.

In the screen shots you see above, you can see some of my prints. But what you can't see is how much work has gone into them. It's not simply a case of sending a file to my inkjet printer. It's only part of the story to get the entire thing colour managed. It's mostly about being able to convey your vision on a paper medium, and that takes a lot of interpretation skills. Just like deciding on how much editing to do on an image for the web, I have to decide on what kinds of things I need to do to convey my work well on paper. I will often use contrast-masks to achieve this, I will also use creative sharpening applied where needed.

Printing is not only an art form, it is also an immensely satisfying thing to do. To see your images finally come to life, as real objects - ones that you can hold and touch, takes our photography to another level. Our work becomes more defined, because we are no long working in a virtual world. Our work becomes committed, because unlike the electronic world of pixels and websites, the print is an immutable object. It is a fixed constant, a statement of your intent. Above all, it is the ultimate calling card of who you are as a photographer.

Creating a market for Photography

I was delighted this week to hear that there is a new photographic gallery that has opened up in the heart of Edinburgh's city centre.

I'm so pleased, because I wish there were more galleries out there for photographers to illustrate and sell their work.

My motivation is easy to understand, because if there were, the medium would be taken more seriously as a collectable form of art than it currently is.

So this leads me onto my main reason for this post....I've been wondering just how many photographers buy the work of other photographers? I'd hazard a guess that the answer is 'not many'.

And yet, when we look at the number of people out there who take up photography and eventually wish to look for a place to exhibit their work, we will find that there are few places available for budding photographers to show their work in print form. The reason for this is simple: photographic prints do not sell for one reason or another - particularly here in the UK where there is almost no market for them. I could go into great depth as to why I believe they don't sell and I'm sure that the comments to this post will go down that route. There are of course exceptions to this when we consider the big names such as Steve McCurry or Michael Kenna, but I'm really talking about the general photographic community that you and I are part of.

There are thousands if not more photographers who create beautiful work, yet have no means to sell it. Sure we have things like Flickr and it's easy to make our own website and put up a web store in which to sell our work, but prints do not sell from websites because people need to see them in the flesh to appreciate what it is they are buying. Each time I have had an exhibition, despite reassuring buyers that everything on my site is up to the same quality as the prints they see at the exhibition, they always buy from what is on display at the exhibition, even if they prefer a particular image from my website.

In one way, photographers are more blessed these days because they have an outlet and many forums in which to illustrate their work. But the truth is that there is no market for photographic work. People do not buy prints.

I think the main issue for me is a lack of support for photography as an art form from within the photographic community itself. Many of us photographers have never bought another photographers work, because we're far too interested in selling or promoting our own work. And therein lies the problem. If we were more willing to consider other photographers work and patronise it, we would be creating a market in which many photographers, including ourselves, could flourish. In a nutshell, if we wish our work to be patronised, we should patronise others work.

I've had a look around my home, and so far, I have two prints made by other photographers. One I bought from a 'photo of the week' winner on Photo.net many years ago titled 'London Tourists' by David Malcolmson. I was so taken with the image that I contacted David and bought a print from him. It has pride of place in my sitting room and I still enjoy looking at it very much. There's something extremely satisfying about owning a piece of work that I love. I'd like to own a Michael Kenna print at some point, and I've decided to ear mark his work for some time when I know I'm in a position to invest in his work.

I've decided that this year, if things are going well for myself, I'd like to start collecting some more work by photographers I admire. So far, I've only been able to afford to buy their work in book form, and I think this is a great start. The print reproduction quality in book form these days isn't too far away from print quality (the exception for me being Ansel Adams work, which is stunningly beautiful in print form and a million miles away from the excellent reproductions in his books. Same applies to Fay Godwins work also - her prints are so beautiful and although the books are good, they pale into insignificance to her silver gelatin prints).

But books are a great way to patronise and endorse the work of a photographer you like, and perhaps this is the crux of the matter. As a photographer, I'm inspired by my heros, and I've bought just about everything that Steve McCurry or Michael Kenna have produced in book form. I get a great deal of inspiration and I learn a lot by studying their work too, but the learning is less important than the inspiration I've gained from enjoying their work. So often I feel, that it's easy to become engrossed in the 'how' of photography, rather than just enjoying the work at hand.

I'm digressing here a little perhaps. Ultimately, if we wish to have a market space for our own work to be bought and endorsed, we should be opening up ourselves to buying other photographers work, be it in book form, or as prints. We should be supporting and encouraging our field of interest, and I can think of no other better way to do this than to buy other photographers work.

First Prints on their way

I've just packed up my first set of Ltd Edition prints for shipping. Both of them are on their way to different addresses in Canada. Anyway, it's all very exciting to be able to finally do this. Each print has been wrapped in black acid free tissue paper and then wrapped in bubble wrap for the journey.

They are both matted in 'snow white' with a stamp of authenticity on the back of them. Both are edition 1/45.