Power of the Printed Photograph | Revisiting Older Work
by Sidney on October 24, 2014
I’ll revisit older images for editing purposes for 3 main reasons: 1) it’s never been edited before and therefore hiding in Lightroom, 2) I want to try a different technique, or 3) upon request.
When I took this image, I liked it enough, but it wasn’t my favourite by far, so I never really did too much with it outside of posting the colour version in a blog post 3+ years ago and on Flickr. When I was asked to come up with 3 18×12 black and white metal prints for above a black leather couch and dark wooden wall, I had a few ideas in mind, this being one of them. She originally wanted at least two snowy pics, which I was happy to oblige, but then I decided to go with a hunch and suggested photographs with a more dramatic tone instead of a pretty one, to which she agreed to take a look. I had 3 in mind, but having seen only 2 of them in print before, I knew I needed to have the third one in print as well. Since metallic paper is the closest to a metal finish to have printed on the fly, I edited this to black and white, had an 18×12 print done up at my local pro lab and showed up at her work with it and a few other goodies. To my pleasant surprise, not only did the print look fantastic and 20x better than on screen, but also she was thrilled with the outcome, showed it off to her colleagues and an order was placed to fill for the beginning of the year.
As photographers, most of us well know of the power of a printed photograph. It’s the best way to really judge our work, the good and the not so good. I say most of us, because it still amazes me how many photographers do not print their work. I cannot stress it enough, so if you’re reading this and you have not done so yet, what are you waiting for? After all the work we put into our images, it’s the least we can do to reward ourselves, don’t you think? You deserve to see your hard work in print – the bigger, the better!
Oh, and as for those snowy prints, one of them is now going in her kitchen!
See you in the field!
