∴Think Big, Print Small∴

I released my latest video today and it’s about a topic close to my heart:

· Making small prints ·

Making these prints has had such a positive effect on my photography, and I’m sure it could do something similar for you. If you’ve never tried it before, hopefully I can convince you to…

Here’s how I got into it

When I first bought my printer it seemed really important to print my work as big as possible. Before long I was printing everything A2, and loving it. I’m not sure if it needs saying, but there really is something special about printing your photographs.

A2

But I came to realize a few things:

Storage can get tricky

• Prints require a little care in their storage, and it helps to have a bit of space to work with.

• If you’re DIYing it, you’ll need to store the paper used for prints too. You’d be surprised how quickly a few A2 boxes can take up space on the shelf.

Printing costs can get pretty high

• DIY ends up cheaper in the long run, but it took me about 2-3 years of occasional printing for other photographers just to pay off my printer and the ink that requires semi-regular replacement.

• Also, ink prices will vary among printers. For a full set of 12 inks on my Canon Pro500 I’m looking at around $600 US.¹

Big’s not always best

Some photos belong in a locket

And so I started printing smaller and smaller, until finally I landed printing 4x6s.

4x6 vs A2

How Printing Small Changed Me

For my first 10 years of shooting I’d been on the hunt for single, stand-alone images.

But when I started making small prints of what I’d been shooting, I got to see all these images I typically wouldn’t have printed, come to life. And I could see how their strength lay in how they worked together with other images.

I started printing, and thinking about, the image set. The image set means all the images that fit together to form a cohesive whole. In other words, I started thinking about how photographs work in community, rather than how effective they are on their own.

And here’s what I learned from this:

Print for Perspective

• Printing 4x6s can help give you a sense of the broader subject matter you’re getting drawn to. Staring at 20 or so images I’d printed and stuck up when I first got into this showed me some overlapping motifs I hadn’t really realized I’d been shooting. This helped me focus my intentions.

• Identifying the broader subject matter is the first step to narrowing your focus on your subject. Right now for me, that’s the Korean suburbs (and how they relate to my position in Korean society)² , but I wouldn’t have realized it without my stack of prints for reference.

I’m someone who figures out what I’m shooting while I shoot it. Seeing the images displayed together in these prints has helped make my intentions a little more precise.

Print for Improvement

I’d always thought the main goal of printing was to sell your photos. And don’t get me wrong, that’s rad and worth investing time and effort into doing. But I suggest making small prints because:

• It helps improve the quality of your photography. When you’re looking at a print you’ll know pretty quickly if an image works, and if it doesn’t, you’ll get a sense of why not. Is the balance off? Distracting elements you didn’t notice before? You’re emotional response is not quite what it should be? This is possible on a screen too, but it’s just that much clearer in a print.

• It helps improve the quality of your thinking about photography. Seeing these prints side by side encourage relationships to be made between them. It’s in recognizing these relationships that you’re ideas about how all these images work together can develop. This makes it clear which images fit, which ones don’t, and what you still might need to shoot.

  

  I felt a connection to this image when I first shot it, but after printing, the things that don’t work about it became pretty clear

Print for Projects

This has been one of the most profound changes making small prints has had on me. Shooting single images puts a lot of pressure on them. Either the image works or it doesn’t. But having a project mentality means each image is building toward a greater whole than any one image might achieve. I’m not advocating for shooting dull or underwhelming images, but to keep in mind that some images work best when they have others to communicate with.

Pair #236

Making small prints has helped me keep a presence of mind about what I’ve been photographing, and how to divide these images into various mid- and long-term photo projects. It goes something like this:

Make photos → Make prints → Identify relationships → Identify subject → Build project

Even if you have a clear subject from the get-go, your prints will tell you which images belong to it.

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So if you’ve never done it before, pull out some of the photos you’ve been shooting lately and make a few small prints. My bet is that when they’re in your hand, you won’t just be seeing them.

You’ll be seeing all the places your photography can go.

I hope you enjoy the video.

Cheers,

Chris

1. This is a rough conversion, could be a little higher or lower. Also, each ink is priced differently for some reason.

2. I promise to pick this apart at some point.