Caffeine Priority: Printing your own photos brings your work to life
posted Saturday, May 28, 2016 at 6:59 AM EDT
Wake up with IR! Here's today's cup of Caffeine Prioirity...
Printing is a special experience. Jaron Schneider recently wrote an excellent article for Resource which did an excellent job of highlighting why printing your work is a distinctly rewarding experience. He says, "It wasn't very long ago that I really did not understand the people who dedicated full rooms in their homes to printers, paper, mounting equipment and matte board…But now, looking back on it after getting my own printer and dedicated a whole room to it and printing supplies, I understand."
Make no mistake about it, printers and all of the associated costs are high. There's a time investment too. It's easy to prepare a file and fire it off to an online lab. But the easy way isn't always the best way. For me, there's a sense of detachment when viewing my work on a screen relative to viewing a physical print. When you make a print and watch it coming out of the printer, there's a genuine sense of anticipation that has not been lost after nearly ten years of printing my own work.
There is a real connection to my work when I hold up a print. When looking at a print, I recall the moment I pressed the shutter button and all of the memories associated with it. If it is a particularly special image, it is an immensely rewarding experience to see it come to life beyond a screen.
A piece of who you are as a photographer and more importantly as a person gets brought into the world when you make a print. I know that might sound a bit silly, but for many photographers, printing is a special experience.
Read my review of Epson Legacy paper here.
I strongly urge you to read Jaron's piece because he hits on a lot of important feelings that come from printing your own work.
If you're on the fence about printing, check out my reviews of the excellent Canon PRO-1000 and Epson P800 printers, the former of which received our Printer of the Year award.
Caffeine Priority is a series of short photo-tidbits to ease you into your day, and give us a chance to share a bit more of what life’s like here at IR. We're more like a group of friends testing and talking about cameras and lenses than the buttoned-down, big-corporation world that some of our photo-friends at other companies work in; hopefully these little snippets will share some of that. So... grab another coffee and join in the conversation with us down below!
