Is printing photos dead?

Harry S.

Harry S.

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Hi everyone!

The topic of this thread is a bit of a misnomer, Im sure. What Im really trying to investigate is the actual value or usefulness of printing photographs in what is, a pedominantly digital age.

I myself love prints. Its great to see a tangible result of this hobby in my hands, I like the feel of paper, I like to stare at printed photos on a table, I like to move prints around and sequence them without all manner of electronic paraphernalia.

But Ive found a problem. Ive just spent a month and a half travelling China ( one camera / one lens, proudly!), and have printed off 110 8x10" prints. Im sure the average person might print smaller sizes for this use but I shoot in a 4:5 ratio and 8x10 paper is ideal. Now the stack of prints is lovely, but at almost 2" thick is pretty unweildy and not very user friendly. A lot of people have expressed interest in seeing my photos, but logistically its a nightmare and after 5 viewings the prints will be no better than a used napkin!

There are basically no 8x10" albums available that will hold 110 prints. Id most likely have to buy 3 albums. Not only is this expensive, but no one expectiong a casual peruse will want to be handed a stack of folders. That would be too much like work!

You can get ipads and the like that are less than a 1/4" thick and will hold a million photos.

Thoughts? Advice?

Thanks for reading,
Harry.
 
I feel the problem lies not with prints vs. digital displays, but rather trying to show off 110 photos to interested parties. Seems a bit excessive - I would try to edit down pretty heavily.
 
I think this is more of a mismatch delivery method.
Do you friends WANT to see the prints? Or do they just want to see the photos?

You should get prints done for the right purpose and if you feel that it is not worth doing all that work/time/spending money to get stuff printed to show your friends, then tell your friend you won't be showing them your prints but rather look at my photos on the ipad or whatever.

But to answer your question, no, printing photos is not dead.
 
Printfile makes an 8X10 page that will hold two prints, back to back. That way, the prints are protected and very visible. But as Shyoon says above, you need to edit your work; showing someone 110 prints is nearly the equivalent of the old three Carousel trays of slides - overwhelming.
 
When the hard drives no longer run, when the cards, cds and dvds will no longer play, and when the servers no longer work, you will wish you had prints.
 
I did some photos of my neighbors granddaughter , just impulse shots.

I made prints and delivered them the next morning. They were shocked they got a print they could hold.
 
maybe you should do a show. any galleries interested in your work?
 
I understand what people are saying about having a tighter edit, and I agree that is a very big part of photography. But I think that is more related to journalism and photo essays, and this set of travel pics is neither. People dont care about the cohesiveness or the "story" of the edit here, they just want too see all the places and things. The 110 photos were selected from over 500; even to cut it down to 80 there would already be significant photos missing.

If I go so far as cut it down to 50, There is arguably no point in the first place when so much would be missing.
 
I think printing a photo album with 110 8x10s is an awesome idea! Beats a powerpoint, Ipad, flickr and facebook any day. There is nothing like a print, especially big ones. The only memories we bring from our trips are our photos. Our apartment is full of our own photography prints in various sizes. We change the prints out every three month or so. My wife and I print our photos primarily for ourself because we enjoy them. So far nobody was bored from looking at our prints. Photography without prints is like food without spices.
 
Perhaps you could put them away for a while then come to them with fresh eyes and then edit. From that point you could publish a small online book. I do this just to show people what I am doing.
 
Multiple albums isn't bad, in fact it lets a group of people view the pictures more easily, rather than waiting for one album to be passed around.
 
110 of over 500? That's not a very tight edit. I shot an 8-month body of work on a small organic farm with over 4000 photos and took it down to 15 and I think it tells a very good story without much missing. Initially I had almost 100 photos in a book I made with Blurb, but after looking at it about 10 times, I started to hate it and knew that most of the photos were just decent shots at best.

Think of it this way. Put all your photos up along a wall, baseboard, whatever you can for wherever you are. Walk around them for a couple days and "live through them". Even spend a couple hours looking at all of them around you. If at any point you say to yourself "okay, I'm bored" or "I don't want to look at these anymore", you know you'll have to cut them down. I'm sure you'll find at least half of them mediocre by your own standards.

If the purpose is just to show a compelling story, then I don't see the purpose of that many 8x10 prints. I'll bet my Leica you can do the same with 20 prints. If the purpose is to exhibit your work in a professional way, then you'll have to cut it down to about 10-20 prints, which should be exhibition quality. I personally think you have to weigh out quality over quantity because I think you can tell the same story with 20 photographs as you can with 110 if you chose them well.

...to answer to your post, printing is not dead. The tangible end-product is the most impactful way to experience art. Screen are great for preview, but not for experience. right now I think you're just struggling with finding your balance between a more professional portfolio and a facebook album.
 
Printing all those 110 shots is good, because it's much easier to edit prints than it is to edit on a computer screen. Plus you can hand pairs, series off to a 'second pair of eyes' much easier.

I find the number of prints is one of those 'less is more' things. It's better to have your audience finish the set wanting more than wanting out!
 
Harry,
I would strongly recommend that you download the free software from Blurb (Google "Blurb Australia") and do a trial layout of your photos in book form to see how you like it. You can insert, delete and move images around to get the final result you want.
When I travel that's what I do with my photos and it makes a nice presentation and means of letting people see the images with something they can hold in their hand. You can print one copy or many. You can put them up on Blurb's site for sale if you wish to. I only ever get one copy printed and it pretty much becomes a coffee table album.
Costs are not outrageous compared to buying a professional album and the print quality if you use one image per page and the premium paper option they offer is (to my eyes) quite acceptable, although it's not photogravure! But it's a lot better than Hardly Normal or Office Wx can do.
Image files and layout are digitised and transmitted via the internet but the book arrives in a nice cardboard outer carton. I've had several done and have always been satisfied, but there are other printers who can do a similar job.
My most recent efforts were all B&W shots of Paris (62 images) and UK, Ireland and Cornwall, (102 images). If you want to have a look at the finished product send me a PM and we'll try to meet up. I live at Camden.
 
Harry S. said:
I myself love prints. Its great to see a tangible result of this hobby in my hands, I like the feel of paper, I like to stare at printed photos on a table, I like to move prints around and sequence them without all manner of electronic paraphernalia.
Click to expand...

Harry, I love reading the above paragraph.
You know what you like and did it.
I myself would *love* to see those 110 prints in person.

But those 110 prints are -- in a manner of speaking -- the gift from you to yourself. You get to keep those. If I were you, I won't hand those for casual viewing to anyone.

If you want to share it with friends, I'd investigate a trustworthy digital lab who will scan those prints for you. With the images on disk, you can either create a photobook, website, post some here for us to see... 🙂
 
I print photos and hang them on my cubicle at work. I also make prints of friends and give them away to them. Most seem to like actual prints over just an email. I honestly would like to print more to stick in my photo albums, but just don't get around to it.
 
Managing 8X10 Prints

Managing 8X10 Prints

I print 8X10's from digital files, for my own (and friends') viewing. I like them 1000X better than 4X6's !

To handle them, I keep the "good" ones in a 3-ring binder, each in its own ClearFile plastic sheet. If I really really like the print, I matte and bag it, and the matted/bagged ones are the ones that I show people.

I also frame some and lend them out or give them away or hang them in the hallway here.

Apologiies for the terrible photo below, but it does show the stuff I'm talkig about.

This works very well (for me, anyway).
 

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