Printed and Framed

Yesterday was spent under the guidance of Mike Downing (many thanks), resizing, applying minor image adjustments and finally printing my exhibition images.

In total the exhibition piece is to feature 12 images, as 18-20 was felt to be too many. Also, using 18-20 images would mean the images having to be split into two locations.

Early issues included the white border of a printed image being too large. This resulted in it being visible when mounted. The was worked around by enlarging the images proportionally and having them fill a larger area on the paper. Even this did not leave much margin for error and it was fairly time consuming to ensure the images were mounted correctly.

After resizing, the printing process started around 10:30ish in the morning and I had the last image in its frame around 2:30ish. On average, each image took about 20mins from print to frame. An image was printed in a little over 10mins meaning another 10mins was spent mounting and framing each.

The next steps scheduled for this coming week will be to re-screw the hanging hooks into landscape configuration and clean the outside of the glass. The inside of the glass was wiped over with a microfibre cloth to pick up any loose debris at the time of framing. I'm a massive clean freak so if I notice any bits inside the frame they'll have to be opened up again during exhibition set-up.

Generally i'm pleased with the way the images printed. Minor criticism (and maybe i'm nit picking) is that some areas of some images are a little bit dark. This might be to do with the lighting in the room and may not bother me too much in a better lit location. Also, the image of the wooden camel seems to be a bit yellow, again this might be to do with the conditions i'm viewing it under so it will need to be looked at in the exhibition area before any thoughts are turned to a reprint.

Screenshots below were taken on my phone while waiting and show the images being printed and some already in frames;

Plugging the research gap - Dennie Eagleson

I found a practitioner called Dennie Eagleson during research undertaken for earlier portfolios. The portfolios were effectively designed to propose what I planned to do for the final piece, how it was supported etc. Problem is, some research made it into the portfolios and not onto here.

As the evaluation document refers heavily to this blog, I need to add research only appearing in portfolio 1/2 to this online repository too. But i'll be brief.

The images are scans from;

Eagleson, D. (2008) “Dennie Eagleson: Archaeology of a Life (2004)” , in Belt, F.A (Ed.) Understanding and Creating Sophisticated Images, Oxford: Focal Press, pp. 136 – 139

Eagleson ventured into the home of her mother after her death to document it and explore a personality. The exploration of her mother's life and personality has been conveyed through still-life photography. I found the use of natural lighting, minimal lighting and angle particularly interesting. It also made me consider that I needed to be careful to have a continuous thread running through my still-life piece to give a complete, true and informative reflection of a life. Something that I feel Eagleson only partially succeeds in doing.

Anyway, visuals;

3 weeks until exhibition

With the book finalised, the checkpoints below need to be met too;

Saturday 4th September: Decide which 18-20 images are to be exhibited in print and transfer to their own folder.

Wednesday 8th September: Meeting with everyone involved in the MA exhibition at 1300. I personally need to conclusively decide where my images will hang. Ideally the private viewing should be confirmed as 24th September 1700 - 1900.

Friday 10th September: Resizing, printing and framing final images.

Monday 13th September: Place the order for promotional flyers.

Monday 20th - Friday 24th: Clearing of areas, final setup and hanging of images.


I'm also in the process of putting the final evaluation together, the sections i'm writing under are;

- Introduction
- Recap and overview
- Overview of key research
- Process reflection
- Post shoot workflow and RAW conversion
- Readying for book
- Book layout
- Summarising development
- Exhibition setup
- Closing summary

The write-up is time consuming but i'm being careful to be reflective, critical and direct regarding the development of the project. Where possible i'm referring the reader to this blog for major parts of research to save repeating myself.

Book progress update

The start of September has seen the MA programme gather yet more pace and on Friday 3rd September I received the test book from Blurb.

The image quality is manageable but if i'm honest I expected more, some are a little grainy which i'm fairly sure isn't a problem my end. Also, some images are annoyingly dark. This really is a pain as I did everything to avert it. As mentioned in earlier posts, I calibrated my screen, used the correct ICC profile and soft proofed correctly.

To try and resolve the darkness issue, i've raised the brightness in all images to a maximum of +20 depending on the image. These brighter images have been replaced in the book creation software and a new order (the last before exhibition) placed with Blurb. There is no guarantee that the next batch of books will be printed on the same machine which is a little worrying.

On a positive note, I like the relaxed and intimate feel to the book. The white, clean layout with emotive captions works really well and focuses the audience's attention to where it should be.

Images below are not exactly great but have been quickly taken to illustrate what the test book looks like;