This week I was reminded of conversation at a wedding attended about a month ago. People around the table were comparing the number of photos held on their camera’s memory card. These were photos they had taken over a number of months and in some cases years. The same applies to mobile phones where they can upload them onto their Facebook page. The made me pose the question to myself as to whether my approach, as a more serious, of downloading to a desktop, processing them and filing eventually to a hard drive was any different.
Since my retirement Patricia and I have travelled a lot both home and abroad. A few months ago Patricia nudged me about getting prints made of photos from each trip enabling her to create physical albums. By doing this ,she argued, it would allow her to revisit these memories as the years go by and mobility becomes an issue. This, Patricia further argued, would be better than sat in front of a computer.
Finally, after doing as I was told, Patricia has her albums and to be truthful it provides me with a sense of achievement on a number of levels to see the end result. It instilled a discipline into my processing in terms of greater attention to detail when preparing to send away for printing. There is an awareness that my images will be seen by other people potentially over a number of years. Therefore, your flaws will be there to haunt you.
Yes I had printed previously but in reality it was not that often and it would be for a specific purpose and to use digital versions was, in reality, very convenient,not requiring a lot of effort on my part. Ironically in 2009 and 2010 I had participated in a photography club exhibition, which was really enjoyable. There is realisation on my part that I have learnt through printing both in terms of technique and disciplined processing.
A couple of weeks ago I become aware that the issue of my prints coming out darker than on the screen was due to working with a display brightness of 77%. A pro photographer heard in a podcast recommended working at 27%. A significant improvement in my prints resulted.
The next big step was to use two of my images as wall art. After a fair amount of research the chosen option was large canvas prints. The supplier was Photobox, who I use for prints, as I was confident the colour quality would be as seen on the screen. Three days later they we delivered. Not only were we delighted with the prints it has given me a confidence lift. These will be seen by visitors to our home and I have a real sense of pride in the results.
In September the new competitive photography season begins and I am looking forward to producing the rest of the prints needed for it.
Photograhic Journey 