Thanks to digital the world shoots more pictures than ever and almost all of them remain on smart devices, in clouds and secreted away on hard drives. To me, as a keen photographer, that doesn’t sit well and I love to print. Of course, I’m not saying that I print every shot – far from it – but having a beautiful print in my hands is incredibly satisfying and it justifies all the time and effort I put into my hobby.
In my workflow, I make prints of potential really good shots early on in the creative process. With my latest shots catalogued and rated, I start with A5 matt prints of any five star shots and I use these as proofs. I’ll keep them on my desk to flick through, and I might draw or make notes to help me in editing and they get recycled once they have done their job. In time, my best shots get outputted onto A3 paper and stored in archival print boxes and, ultimately, some images get printed bigger and end up mounted, framed and hanging on the wall.
Having made the case for prints I appreciate every image maker will have their own way of enjoying their photography and printing might not even be on the agenda, and of course that’s perfectly fine. That said, however, getting your best shots into print is very much a good thing and immensely rewarding too.
Most photographers print for a specific purpose for the simple reason that it costs money. Maybe they have been on a great trip and have memorable pictures they wish to share with family and friends. In the case of camera club members, they print for contests and exhibitions, although the pandemic has impacted on those activities and the feedback from paper suppliers is that printing frequency has not yet returned to pre-pandemic
