Prints

Prints. The final frontier. 

There are a lot of my fellow photographers who would say a physical photo print is the last step in your photography. These days it can be hard to chase that dragon. My history with printing is a deep one.

Sunset in monument valley on a drive from LA to Nashville. (Also one of my new prints for sale)

When I was 17 my high school photography teacher got me a job in a 1 hour photo shop. I would process and print. Often developing 50+ rolls a day and using an old AGFA printer to pump out hundreds if not thousands of glossy 4x6s. I'd change large 12-inch paper rolls. These giant rolls would print a photo using a “wet” process up to 12 inches by however long you might want it. This was just over 20 years ago.

As I graduated from grad school I picked up some hours at the old print shop that was now nestled into the corner of Paul’s Photo camera store in Torrance, California. We no longer processed film, but we printed digital prints mostly from the 3 little kiosks in the store. 

An old Kiosk printing from my phone!

Name tag WILL.

Our view from our Printing pit. Steve always has on a Hawaiian shirt.

Sometimes we would make bigger prints for casual hobbyists or print a stack of headshots for an old sports star. More often than not it felt like printing your art had died. Certainly your memories were living on a digital feed as a vertical 4:5 crop and not a tangible 4x6 glossy print.

Both seasons of my life in the print shop never really pushed me to print my own work. It was a mix of being lazy, it costing too much, or just lack of interest.

Insert a pandemic here.

I bought a printer and thought it would be a great way to make income during the pandemic and be my first dive into printing. It was great, I sold these several prints for a premium price and kept them to a limited amount. 

Ironically I bought the printer from Pauls Photo.

This print is hanging in one of my best friends homes.

Seeing my photographs printed large and framed was a game changer for me. Seeing them in my friends, families, and students' homes… was and is just an entirely another level of what it feels like to be a real artist.

When you create art to express a feeling and that form of expression is passed on to another human - you are participating in real art. Maybe it's from the generation I’m from, but the digital form of this doesn't produce the same feels. Physically having your image exist in the world feels like its final form. It’s a real thing, it needs you to take care of it and be intentional about how you display it. A physical thing existing in the world also means it can be destroyed. It becomes inherently fragile and precious, not digital and invincible. It is tangibly real. 

My little production office as I printed during covid.

If you ordered a print from me back then it came with a thank you and description.

I’ve finally been able to take the time to build out a way to sell prints again. While I will still visit the corner print shop in the back of the camera store, I wanted a way to easily get my prints to family and friends. Through Squarespace and an online store called Printique, you can now order 6 prints I’ve shot in the last decade. 

For now, I might update these “6” every month and archive what I have so far. I'm hoping that through this practice it will inform my creativity and artistic intentions. I'm hoping I can build even more purpose with the photographs I take for me and hopefully for any fans I might have. And carry that intention into the photographs I put up for sale.

use the code: CYBERMON at check out for a special %25 off today and tomorrow

I hope through my eyes these pictures I take will magically physicalize into a large piece of paper that carries its own inspiration for others to enjoy. Because if nothing else, why else are we here then to express ourselves and help each other?