In the five years I've been printing fine art images I've never been completely satisfied with my portfolio designs. I say plural because I've been through more box, paper, slipcase, book combinations than I have images to put in them. Printing traditional silver prints requires one to dry-mount them onto a matte board because they curl quite extensively, and coming from the place I learned all this photography stuff from if it wasn't dry-mounted forget about showing it to anyone, let alone a professor. When I switched to printing digitally this curling dilemma went the way of the darkroom and yet I still insisted that they be mounted and over-matted because well, that's what you do, otherwise don't bother showing it to anyone.
The problem with this is each print becomes bulky and heavy and therefore the portfolio housing for them is also bulky and heavy. And so I switched to a book form, but that wasn't much better in price and the construction was a nightmare. My fine art portfolio is seldom called in so another portfolio redesign was extremely low on my ever growing to-do list, until two weeks ago. Having a deadline really pumps the creative juice flowing and so after throwing out all my old ideas, wanting to start from scratch, I brainstormed and researched. And I'm happy to say the result is better than I ever expected. I am one happy photographer. The beauty of whole system is in its simplicity, it's ability to change on the fly, and it's low cost. I opted for loose prints, but instead of a heavy box I folded a thick piece of acid free paper to create a 'wrapper' of sorts. The viewer opens the package of prints and really gets a tactile as well as a visual interaction with them. If a print gets damaged, it's easy to replace as is the paper envelope they are housed in. Here's some shots of the package of flower prints I'm putting together for a possible commission project.
In the five years I've been printing fine art images I've never been completely satisfied with my portfolio designs. I say plural because I've been through more box, paper, slipcase, book combinations than I have images to put in them. Printing traditional silver prints requires one to dry-mount them onto a matte board because they curl quite extensively, and coming from the place I learned all this photography stuff from if it wasn't dry-mounted forget about showing it to anyone, let alone a professor. When I switched to printing digitally this curling dilemma went the way of the darkroom and yet I still insisted that they be mounted and over-matted because well, that's what you do, otherwise don't bother showing it to anyone. 
The problem with this is each print becomes bulky and heavy and therefore the portfolio housing for them is also bulky and heavy. And so I switched to a book form, but that wasn't much better in price and the construction was a nightmare. My fine art portfolio is seldom called in so another portfolio redesign was extremely low on my ever growing to-do list, until two weeks ago. Having a deadline really pumps the creative juice flowing and so after throwing out all my old ideas, wanting to start from scratch, I brainstormed and researched. And I'm happy to say the result is better than I ever expected. I am one happy photographer. The beauty of whole system is in its simplicity, it's ability to change on the fly, and it's low cost. I opted for loose prints, but instead of a heavy box I folded a thick piece of acid free paper to create a 'wrapper' of sorts. The viewer opens the package of prints and really gets a tactile as well as a visual interaction with them. If a print gets damaged, it's easy to replace as is the paper envelope they are housed in. Here's some shots of the package of flower prints I'm putting together for a possible commission project.
1 comment:
Huzzah! I'm really pleased with it too. Although the pic you posted here has no scale and makes me think we should do a teeny tiny version...3x3? Put 5 prints in and sell it on Etsy? That would be cute!
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