Photography and Canvas Prints August 20, 2009
Posted in : Best Photography Resources , comments closedCanvas artwork has become really fashionable over the last year or so, largely due to the the revolution caused by digital cameras. These days people can take their own photographs with their cameras, then go to a canvas printshop and get their holiday / family photos represented on stretched canvas. Or maybe their favourite car, holiday location, or pet dog. In point of fact, any photo that can be photographed can be printed on canvas sheet in minutes and appear as artwork on your house wall.
Digital cameras and photo editing software such as Photoshop have suddenly made it viable to virtually create your own artwork on canvas material – not only saving you some dosh by not having to purchase original artwork, but also adding some creativeness and fun to the task of decorating your surroundings with canvas art as well.
There are many websites now that allow you to add your photographs, choose your size of canvas, and then purchase it. Usually these pictures are placed on canvas stretched out utilising stretcher bars.
If you have a canvas printshop near you, you can literally walk in with your photographs, and leave 15 minutes afterwards with canvas artwork under your arm of one of your photograph – it’s that straight-forward.
What about some examples? Try these examples of pop-art canvas art. If you need inspiration, visit a website with royalty free photos – then take your purchased photos to a canvas printshop or canvas printing website and get them printed onto canvas.
Why You Like Some Pictures More and Pricing-2 of 3 June 16, 2008
Posted in : Best Photography Resources , comments closedEveryone likes what they like, “I don’t know art, but I like know what I like!” Okay, true that. When shopping at a market full of photo prints, you’re bound to fall in love with some images and then get your heart broken by the prices these starving artists have applied! So what’s artistically likable and what’s a price doing so far up there?
Ages ago, before phones, Internet and coffee shops, all people could do was paint and sculpt and pass on diseases for a good time. Two text book philosophers wondered what made some art so universally appealing and they wandered the known World to discover and formalize most of our Western rules of composition. They noted chiaroscuro, strong diagonals, repetitive shapes, leading lines and a zany but easy to find, ‘Rule of Thirds.’
Chiaroscuro was the 2D portrayal of objects using plenty of shadowed values giving a rich, almost 3D experience; the first buzz-through noted this as ‘full range’ in photography. Strong diagonals is just what it sounds like with dynamic, heart thumping lines racing across canvases and causing excitement in the minds of viewers. Repetitive shapes almost made patterns that mezmorized viewers and contributed to the balance of an image where a rectangular shape would appear over and over in different forms; or a circle or a bird shape, etc. Leading lines depended upon perspective illusion so that viewers felt they could travel into an image; walk down a path, through an orchard of trees or along a brick wall.
Following The Rule of Thirds is the fastest way to stop taking ordinary snapshots. The entire canvas or frame is overlaid with an imaginary tic-tac-toe board. Nine squares are the results of two lines across and two likes up and down. There are four intersections around the center square. It’s at these intersections that the focus or idea of the image is placed. This is the cure for the painfully dull “centeritis” that snapshots suffer from. It’s the most effective form of composition and the biggest secret weapon of artists. You’ll now notice movie characters off-center, magazine ads obeying this rule and some of your favorite photos employing some of these devices!
So why the $350 price tag at the market? In two paragraphs you just learned how to shot with wisdom and forethought… If they sell one image that week, they make rent. Perhaps the chemicals they used added up to gallons just to print three acceptable images. If the photo is from a far away land, you know they didn’t just beam there, they probably suffered expensive plane trips, lodging, walks through wilderness, tundra or alien cities and might have eaten food while they were away despite their scrawny, artistic-like appearance.
There is every reason to think that they should, finally reward themselves, but not by robbing children of college educations. Take a chance and make an offer. Ask for two prints and thirty or forty percent off. A little note saying ‘all prices firm’ indicates a trust fund baby. They already made rent, they would rather have the story of having sold a print for hundreds of dollars. If you give them the story, you’ll not be thanked, you’ll be ridiculed over caviar and Cheerios while some underground 80’s rock band guitars ‘cultured’ madness in the next room when they get home and call their friends.
Less than a hundred bucks is madness. Chemicals, developing, film, travel and talent are just too expensive to sell short. It’s not insane to think that three or four rolls of lovingly shot film produced nothing to sell. If you find a photographer with a few good prints overall and a low, three digit price tag (unframed), you’re probably face to face with a very respectable and honestly hardworking artist. The rule of thumb is that one roll might yield two to four keepers. One in five keepers are worth selling to strangers. So a little understanding of why you like what you like, a warning of when you’re being fleeced and a little sympathy to the deserving artist in the markets we all love wraps up this essay.
Bryan makes a living teaching and writing about computers regularly for Dinarius, Inc. but still applies his years of photography schooling from time to time. Other free stories and witty advice is available at http://www.Dinarius.com