Breaking With Tradition, Multi Image Prints
For quite a while now, I’ve been exploring ways to enhance or expand how I present my photography. I’ve been wanting to get back into making prints available in the future, but before I do, I’d like to consider different options. I’m not sure I’m all that interested in doing traditional matted and framed pictures anymore. With today’s technology in printing, there are a lot of different ways to make a print. Besides inkjet and traditional c-type photographic prints, we also have the choice of metal, canvas, and acrylic prints, which look to add a more modern and possibly a more dynamic way of displaying art. With these alternative materials, you can choose to hang the art with or without a frame. I love the idea of not having to frame a photo to hang it on the wall.
By Natures Design - This set of images was made along a trail where I take my dog Nori on our daily walk. I like to call this “By Nature’s Design.” The images bring attention to the wonderful patterns and shapes we can find in nature if we look close enough.
Getting away from tradition, I’ve been experimenting with putting a black border around my prints or adding a hairline white line around the image, then placed on a black canvas. I like the look this brings to my black and white images. I’ve also been thinking about displaying multiple images on the same canvas, I think it could be interesting to put multiple images that have a theme or just look good together on one canvas. Take that a step farther and make these prints metal or acrylic. I think a three-image panel could be very dynamic, with each image bringing an element to the overall presentation. A side benefit would be when making images from a small negative like 35mm, you wouldn’t need to enlarge them as much and still get an impressive display with more impact than there might be with a single image.
In The Forest - I’m calling this 3-image panel “In the Forest.” These are images that you could possibly find in your local forest. This forest theme could be just the first set; there could be numerous sets displayed in the same fashion. I really like the storytelling aspect to displaying photography this way.
Two Sides Of The Same Image
While I think I prefer a 3-image panel, I think this set of two works well because of the idea it represents. These are basically the same subject from different sides, one dark, one light. If you start in the center and look a little to the right, taking note of the tree, then look left, you may notice this is a mirror image. I wish I could say I planned this ahead of time, but it was only when I opened these photos up and had them on the same screen that I noticed how well they worked displayed together. These images were made a few months apart, and I did purposefully return to photograph these trees in the fog for another interpretation of these trees. I just made the photo from the other side because it looked best in the fog, so it wasn’t just luck; the luck was noticing how well they worked together. This will definitely make it into a book or zine, and who knows, maybe even a piece of wall art someday.