Ann-alog, a Pixel Remix, where Ann Torrence blogs about photographing for a book on U.S. Highway 89, the greatest road trip route in America. Photography tips, locations, trip reports, and real life.

Neon relic of Highway 89

By now, the Photocampers are thinking about making final prints for the print display. I still haven't decided what I'm bringing--either a picture I scouted last week and will shoot on Monday, or one of two images from the archive. Either way, I have narrowed it down to neon, blue hour and that I will print it on metallic paper. I did a test run with Replicolor on the T-bird, and I love how the blues look on that paper.

I hope this Print-a-week Challenge and display opportunity inspires attendees to stretch out and show some work, maybe for the first time. Remember that we have a Flickr discussion going where you can post questions and get advice. And that the Photowalking/PhotocampUtah ethic is to "say nice things" so don't let fear of criticism prevent you from participating. The display wall is intentionally lo-fi to cut down on costs and intimidation factor.

At the end of the day, consider the possibility of trading prints too. You have plenty of your own pictures--this is a chance to start a collection of works from other photographers.

See you (and your print) in 16 days.

Flowers in motion, Albion Basin

I made this photo on the August Photowalk to Albion Basin, thanks to Scott Jarvie's loan of a Nikon 14-24. I might have freaked him out a little by swinging my arms through the flowers with it. Motion+flash=fun!

How's the printing going? We have a volunteer to organize the print display at Photocamp 2010 and it's going to look lovely in the space--that is, if we bring prints.

I made seven prints this week, including this image to take to Guy Tal and Michael Gordon's photography workshop. I could have brought Highway 89 prints, but I decided to bring only things I've shot since I wrapped up the project. Just making the collection gave me some insights on what has and hasn't been working for me lately, which is a nice place to start a weekend of serious shooting.

I printed these at Costco. Yep, Costco. At $1.49 per 8x10 or 8x12, I can't print on my Epson for that. And the quality is outstanding, if I remember to:

• convert from Adobe RGB to SRGB. The colors are more vibrant. I don't know why, but I did some test comparisons on 4x6s. Try it yourself-at 13¢ a test print, you can learn a lot very cheaply. Label the prints with some text before uploading!
• make my image size match the exact size of the print paper. If I am printing an 11x14 on 12x18 paper, I will use Photoshop to increase the canvas size to 12x18, and if the blank pixels are white, I will stroke the outer edge with a black line. Costco's printer assumes the white pixels are to be cropped, but anything inside the black line will print as uploaded.
• On the final screen, click the "Print Options" link and click the "Do Not Auto Correct my Prints" box.

I can't count how many prints I made at Costco to give away to people I photographed for the Highway 89 project, and I never had any problems if I did those three things. For 39¢, I can make a 5x7 that feels like "real" photography, slips into a greeting card, and costs more to mail, and yet is a much appreciated thank you gift. I should have put my local Costco folks in the acknowledgement section of my book. They've seen more of the work than most of my friends, and I can count on them when I need quality prints.

What have you printed this week?

Deer Creek Falls, Grand Canyon National Park

With my travel schedule, I haven't updated in a while about the Print-a-week Challenge in the lead-up to PhotoCamp 2010. I did make some prints last week, shipped them straight away. This week I am working on a project I've had on the back-burner ever since the Grand Canyon rafting trip last April.

My goal is to print this with my Epson 2200 on Legion Moab Entrada, probably on the 8.5x11 paper, as gifts for my shipmates from the voyage. It might be a Christmas gift at the rate I'm working on it, but this week, I got started by locating the RAW files, making an initial file selection, and working on my RAW interpretation. I started by printing a basic, uncropped work print, a baseline to carry into different lighting conditions. Next I'll go back to the RAW file to make global changes in color temperature, contrast, black-point, and a pre-sharpening, before undertaking any detailed Photoshop work.

Lately when at my computer, I have been listening to audio files from my collection of LensWork Extended DVDs*. Brooks Jensen has a segment, "Assume You'll Do it Twice (Issue 80)" that struck a chord with me. He said, "You almost can't do something for the first time brilliantly--it just doesn't happen. The first time you try anything, it's going to require a repeated effort. Why do we not remember this going in?" I learn something from every first print, so long as I'm critiquing the print and not myself for failing to produce a miraculous perfect-on-first-try print. That perfect first print hasn't happened for me yet, and cutting myself some slack, as Jenson suggests in his podcast, makes the process far more pleasurable.

Printed anything this week? Did you enjoy the process?

* I highly recommend the LensWork magazine and Brooks Jensen's essay books. The magazine showcases entire photo projects and essays, with insightful interviews with the photographers themselves. Jensen's books address how photographers can work on the development of creativity, craft and personal vision. You can download free PDF samples from extended.lenswork.com.

Print me often!

Did you make your work print yet this week? I did a revised version of a shot from the Highway 89 project that I want to give as a gift. The earlier one had "issues" with cropping, and I'm glad I left enough time to redo it.

Instead of doing the things that would contribute to successful peddling of books, I made a new test print file to share. What's it good for? When I'm trying a new paper, printer, or color profile, I like having something standard to make test prints. It reduces the variables from "what's wrong with my prized image file on this printer?" to "what's happening here compared to other printer/paper/profile combinations?" Print this first, get the printing workflow kinks worked out, then go for it with confidence on the masterpiece. That's my theory, and I have a drawer full of test prints to refer to when things go wrong.

You can buy a standard file, but it's easy enough to make. I like having an 11 step black-to-white ramp and a smooth gradient to check for banding and blocking up of the highlights and shadows. I made a file similar to this ages ago, but my tastes in post-processing, especially skin tones, has changed so much that I don't want my prints to look like that test sheet today.

So if you need something to print for this week's Print-a-week challenge, I have put this file in its 300 dpi glory on Flickr for you to download and try out. Better yet, make your own using your images, because that's what you'll be printing from here on out.

If you made a print this week, how did it turn out? What did you learn? What are you printing next?

Practice generates a pile o' prints

A group of fool-hardy undaunted folks are getting together tomorrow to start work on the spring 2010 PhotocampUtah. On my wish list for the next round is a display of prints contributed by the campers. So imagine my dismay when I met up with a Photowalker last week who confessed that, even though he is quite a capable photographer and has traveled the world making photos, he had just made his first print. Worse, he wasn't very happy with the results. I was able to show him a few tricks I use when printing at Costco. He left a happy camper, but he got me thinking: if he is just starting out with printing, a number of Photocampers are probably in the exact same spot: unsure how to get started making prints and/or unhappy with their initial results.

So to help us get ready to produce a fabulous collection of prints at PhotocampUtah 2010, I propose the Print-a-week Challenge: make a single work print (not a final print, just a test print), at least 8x10 in size, every week from now until Photocamp. Any subject, any printer, any paper, ink, whatever you want to try. Just print a photograph on real, honest paper.

In the wet darkroom era, there was no dodging the printing process-- unless you were satisfied just looking at negatives or slides. Today, with email and on-line sharing of image files, many photographers who started out in the digital era have altogehter skipped learning the printing process. That's not really surprising: there is an overwhelming amount to learn about working a camera and then the post-processing software. Adding one more skill-set to the toolkit can seem daunting. Who wants to suffer through potentially unsuccessful early experiments if it can be avoided. Just upload 'em to Flickr and forget about it!

But there will come a day when you want a print. Not just any print, but a great print of your work. Maybe as a gift to someone special. Maybe as a representation of your work (it's not always easy to carry around a computer monitor to show off your portfolio). Maybe you want, as I did, to pitch a proposal to someone and you want it to impress them immediately, not for them to have to toss a DVD in THEIR computer, which is twice as likely to get tossed into the trash as looked at. That's not the time to learn the print-making craft.

The time is now. The only way to learn to make prints is--to make prints. Books and articles will help, but without a work print in hand to evaluate, view under different lighting conditions, tack to the wall, recrop with an exacto knife, what you read is just information, not knowledge.

What can you get out making a work print each week?

• learn how to crop for different aspect ratios (which may affect how you shoot in the field to leave yourself options),
• learn how much saturation, contrast, brightness works for your images,
• learn how much sharpening to apply,
• experience the pleasure of showing your pictures with people who (horror) don't read your blog,
• have fun giving them away
• assemble a portfolio, one piece at a time, to share and discuss with other photographers.
• confidence that you can make a print whenever you need to.

Even if you don't have a printer, if you have a Costco membership, you can participate in the Challenge for $1.49 per week (plus tax, where applicable). I printed most of my give-away prints for people I met doing the Highway 89 project at Costco because I can't print that cheaply on my Epson 2200.

As we go forward, I will share some tools and tips I've picked up when I started my own personal print-a-week goal a few years ago, and perhaps a guest blogger or two. If there's interest, we can have a meet-up to share and fine-tune prints before Photocamp. Even if you can't possibly attend PhotocampUtah 2010, please participate in the Print-a-week Challenge and share what you are learning with others.

The word "photograph," remember, comes from the roots for "light-writing". Not "light-temporarily illuminating a monitor." Commit a photograph to paper this week, report back with your success and encourage another photographer to do the same.