Whether you are brand new or have years of experience, printing your work can be the most satisfying part of photography. What you may not realize is how much your work can change after you make that first print.
If you divide photography into shooting, editing and printing – printing has as much weight in the equation as the other two variables. The transition to digital has taken away so much of the physical interaction and absorption of photography over the past 20 years, which means that for someone like me, I have never experienced it. In my opinion, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing your work in print. Witness it in a space surrounded by the presence of other tangible things, touching your work in physical form for the first time as if it were existing in the real world.
Seeing my work on the wall for the first time made me realize how much I needed to start thinking about printing before taking pictures, and doing this changed my job forever.
The art of printing
Printing itself is an art. Think of what you see on your screen backlit in the RGB color space. Maybe you’re viewing your images on an IPS LCD or OLED panel, or what about the age of the screen? Then you take the image you see on the screen and change it to the CMYK color space, which means you’re creating the color using a completely different algorithm. On top of that, the paper you’re using completely affects how that image will look. Shadow? Blur? Metal? All the dark areas that you can create on the screen suddenly become darker when printing because there is no backlight. The process is an entire industry that you could spend a lifetime learning. It’s fun to print your own work and learn its nuances, but if you’re like me, you may not have the resources to print your own work.
The good news is that if you want to print your work, you can skip a lot of the technical aspects by having the professionals handle it and focus on what’s more important, which is the medium it’s printed on and how it works. they will present. themselves in a room. When I started thinking about prints and the rooms they would fit in, it completely changed my perspective on landscape photography. The world of vast images with intense dynamic range, vibrant colors or extremely dark images with light has been around for more than 10 years.
It wasn’t until I started thinking about what those images would look like in a space that it clicked. I started looking at murals in public places, hospitals, waiting rooms, hotels, and anywhere there is art. I started to notice and pay more attention to the kinds of pieces that actually make up the wall. I don’t care about sharpness, perfect color accuracy or anything like that. I pay attention to their visual type and how their weight feels in a physical space. This has changed my photography forever and I think it’s really important to think about your own work.
This Changed My Image
When I started thinking about my image for a spot on someone’s wall, I started to see a shift in my photography. It’s not that the bright and vibrant images I take have no place in someone’s home but the reality is that they’re a lot less realistic. Think about how your work will look in the room you’re sitting in. Is it a statement piece meant to be the center of attention like my photo of the Dolomites you see above? Does the room need something subtle? Something that can get someone’s attention but can also sit quietly on the wall without them noticing. So when I sit down and look at all of my work, I realize most of it is more “outstanding” work. Photos that want people’s attention. Photos that make people unable to move on social networks. Photos are not good in most rooms.
That was about two years ago and since then, I started to think differently about my job. Don’t get me wrong, I would still shoot an epic scene if it was in front of me. But it got me thinking about how the gravity and charm of a scene would manage itself framed against a wall. It also makes me more interested in learning about different papers and presentations.
How to find your perfect print
If you go online now, you will be completely overwhelmed by all the options you have for printing: Metallic, acrylic, glossy, matte, platinum, sheen, satin, and the list goes on customary. It can be overwhelming. And the only experience I’ve really had is that large, vibrant prints like the Dolomites photo I shared earlier will look amazing on metal. But that’s all I really know.
So what I did was order a few styles of my own images on a few different types of paper to see how they all performed on different surfaces and textures. I highly recommend doing this. Many places offer small packages with different types of paper but the point is that it’s not your own image, but it will still give you an idea of the surface and print pattern. What I strongly recommend is to take an image that you know and print it small on 3-7 different types of paper from the same printer and see which medium you like best. It’s important to understand what paper and finish looks best depending on the type of photo you’re printing. This is where the art and exploration of print really comes into play. Choosing the right print media is important to your final image. This can be really overwhelming at first, how can you tell which papers will match what the photos?
Ideally, I would be a master at this and be able to look at a photo and know exactly what type of paper would suit the needs of each particular image I create. It is at least possible to print the image on a number of different options and choose which one works best. Living in my car makes proofing basically impossible. So what I decided to do was narrow down my photos into different categories to try and simplify my print: Images with lots of contrast and vibrant colors, images with texture and tones are more muted, and the image needs paper to “glow”. If I could find an article that covered each of these situations I would cover the majority of my portfolio.
Go explore print!
If you want the full details of how I print on the road, the company I chose in a blind test, and what paper I chose for my own prints, be sure to watch the video at the top of this article.
There are so many great places to order prints from online, and I strongly recommend that if you live in a larger city, use local stores for a more hands-on experience. Don’t hesitate to buy an economical photo printer and try printing the photos yourself. No matter who you print through, just print your work! It will change your perspective and the way you see photography in general. The satisfaction I get as a photographer seeing my work in print, only me – no one else has to see it, is more of a gratification than I’ve ever posted pictures of myself. I show it to everyone online. I cannot recommend it enough.
Once you’ve cultivated the types of prints you want to make and you start sticking them on the walls around your home or selling them to friends and loved ones, you might be surprised to find exactly what you’re looking for. best-selling photos. Or you may find that choosing a photo for a particular spot in your home can be more difficult than you think. It’s these experiences that will give your creativity a boost, and the next time you’re in the field, you can start shooting different scenes than before simply because you’re thinking about the scene. How great would it look in a particular location.
As always, thank you for reading and I hope this inspires you to get out and print your work if you haven’t already.
