Making Prints

by William Lulow

As I have mentioned many times before, today many people view photographs by scrolling through the thousands of images they have preserved on their camera phones or on their digital cameras themselves. If this is all they do, they haven’t really had a chance to process any of the pictures they made nor taken the trouble to view them carefully. When you attend any kind of an “art show” the works, if they are two-dimensional, are displayed hanging on a wall, often with a frame of some kind around them. Artists use frames to help isolate and thus draw more attention to their works. So, the best way to view a photograph, painting, lithograph, etching or drawing is to frame it and place it on a wall. It’s not the ONLY way to view such works, but it makes them stand out a bit and says to the viewer that it has some importance. It always pains me to have to scroll through images on my iPhone, looking for the right one to make a point. These days, with camera/phones that can store thousands of snapshots, it may be the only way to show an image quickly.

I mentioned in the last article that I wanted to make a presentation to a prospective client who was interested in perhaps buying some of my photographs of Paris for his French restaurant. Instead of just scrolling through some images on my iPhone or my website, I decided to make a presentation consisting of 11×14 Black&White images with beveled mat boards, all placed in an archival presentation box. Mounting photographs, even if they are not going to be part of some exhibition, gives them some added attention and is usually an impressive way to display any art work. I chose the size because it is larger than an 8×10″ picture, the size usually used for headshots and promo-pieces, but small enough that it can be carried without too much difficulty. It is also large enough to make viewers stop and look at each image more carefully. The mat boards were actually 16×20″ in size.

I believe that photographs should be edited, worked on at least minimally by cropping and doing some retouching where necessary. It is what we have always done with continuous tone prints in the days of film. The snapshots we made fifty years ago we still were able to hold in our hands and examine, unlike so many digital images that offer sometimes only fleeting glances. So. I am always looking for ways to make the photographs I take more lasting.

I have tried to emphasize the importance of the photographic print for years, and more so since the advent of the iPhone which has made images less impressive overall. The process of making a very impressive presentation is detailed below:

• First, I chose the images I wanted to show
• Then, I printed them all the same size and in Black&White to give some uniformity
• Next, I mounted each on its own beveled mat board
• Finally, I put them all in an archival box to lend some feeling of importance to the prints

So, my main point here is that the display of photographs should be purposeful. If you are just looking at snapshots, the iPhone is probably acceptable. It’s far better than having thousands of pictures in a box or drawer somewhere and then trying to go through them. Any digital process will automatically put a date on each image and file it according to how you set up your system in the beginning. This certainly makes them easier to locate, provided you can remember what year and month they were recorded.

If, however, you want to add a bit more emphasis or permanence to your images, it’s probably a good idea to make decent sized prints and then mount or frame them. These prints were made to 11×14″ and mounted on 16×20″ black archival boards with a white bevel. Note how striking they look with the black mounts. The portfolio case is also archival and makes for a professional presentation.

The idea for this presentation should actually be credited to my longtime friend, Jean Rault, a photographer in France who has many such portfolios of his work for various submission purposes. He is well-known as an “art photographer” and has won many awards and mentions in France, Japan and other places as well. In addition, he has published many books of his photographs.