A couple of weeks back I posted an article about getting some of my photographs professionally printed and ready for entry into my local Camera Club’s Annual Print Competition.
I just joined the club this year and this was my first real experience of entering competitions.
Well my efforts were rewarded - as luck would have it I ended up winning 1st prize for my image “Suitcase 1519″. The competition was judged by Roy Robertson FRPS.
To say I was well chuffed was an understatement
Interesting post from Paul Butzi on his “Musings on Photography” blog about print size and attitudes to the value of art:-
“One of the things I’d like is to move away from my prints being viewed as ‘extremely valuable art objects which must be treated with great care and deference’. Back when I was making gelatin silver prints in a wet darkroom, I was just like everyone else - prints were handled with gloves on (literally) and carefully mounted and protected in special boxes. When making a replacement for a print that gets damaged means hours in the darkroom, that’s a sensible view. But when I switched to digital printing, all those attitudes went out the window, because making a replacement print amounted to pressing a few buttons and waiting a few minutes. “
I’ve recently been entering some of my work to the league competitions at my local camera club and I’ve been encouraged by the results and feedback. Whilst digital images are fairly easy in terms of preparation (basically resize it to an agreed screen resolution and set sRGB as the profile), the printed image is something completely different and is an area where I wanted to step up my game.
Printed photographs entered for such competitions are typically mounted on 20 inch by 16 inch card. That is quite a large workspace to fill and if, like me, you only have an A4 capable printer, it’s not ideal. Added to that the choice of doing a “proper” job on mounting using traditional framed matting on the board or a simple spray mount job.
For my first couple of competitions I had went down the spray mount route and put a digital border on the images to at least give a “mounted” effect. Whilst the images did quite well, I still think they could have been presented better, by being properly mounted, and most importantly, larger on the mount. Basically my A4 printer wasn’t going to cut the mustard.
More after the break….