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IanBarber
29-Nov-2018, 14:26
To try and get me out of this Photography block, I have been thinking about doing a small project on 4x5 film and contact printing them but don't want to end up with just a pile of prints.

I am interested to hear from anyone who has done a similar project and especially how they presented the final images

koraks
29-Nov-2018, 15:01
Make a book out of them. You can consider matting them and investigating a binding technique that will work well with the thick "pages" of your matted prints. 4x5 lends itself particularly well for close distance viewing and a book is a fairly space-efficient way to store the prints when not being "used". Moreover, book binding Isa pretty awesome craft that I find is nicely complementary to "wet" photography. There's nothing quite like holding a self-made book of genuine self-made prints.

IanBarber
29-Nov-2018, 15:31
Make a book out of them. You can consider matting them and investigating a binding technique that will work well with the thick "pages" of your matted prints. 4x5 lends itself particularly well for close distance viewing and a book is a fairly space-efficient way to store the prints when not being "used". Moreover, book binding Isa pretty awesome craft that I find is nicely complementary to "wet" photography. There's nothing quite like holding a self-made book of genuine self-made prints.

I like the sound of hand bound book, thanks for the suggestion

Alan9940
29-Nov-2018, 15:41
I did this for a project many years ago and drymounted the prints on 9 x 12" 4-ply matts. Since it was a personal project, I never went any further with the presentation, but the individual prints looked very nice. IMHO, of course. ;)

adelorenzo
29-Nov-2018, 16:43
I like the sound of hand bound book, thanks for the suggestion

Look into Japanese stab binding. Works really well to bind single prints.

Duolab123
29-Nov-2018, 23:32
Art stores like Dick Blick etc. Sell loosely bound small rag paper sketch books. Make some dbl. wt. prints on real contact paper. Use some genuine Ace photo corners if you could find. Or just bind the prints. This is a something I want to do is a portfolio of small prints.

Sounds like a lot of fun. Learning to bind a book would be great.

locutus
30-Nov-2018, 00:20
A year ago i had to do a ontact prints display, i mounted all the prints in 5x4 holders which added some visual interest.

Duolab123
1-Dec-2018, 14:33
A year ago i had to do a ontact prints display, i mounted all the prints in 5x4 holders which added some visual interest.

Very neat idea.

jvo
2-Dec-2018, 16:51
brooks jensen of lenswork online has done a number of portfolio/books/binding methods... he has a video that explains the evolution and the things he did... it includes the upside and downside of the methods he used for each... certainly on lenswork online - maybe on you tube?

jvo

Willie
3-Dec-2018, 06:11
Recently saw a show of 4x5 Pt/Pd prints in 8 ply mats set in 14 inch square frames. It looked very clean and invited close inspection of each print. I noticed a lot of folks would look, move in close and after moving on - come back to a number of images.
The rectangular images in square frames with all that matboard looked very nice.

IanBarber
3-Dec-2018, 06:28
Recently saw a show of 4x5 Pt/Pd prints in 8 ply mats set in 14 inch square frames. It looked very clean and invited close inspection of each print. I noticed a lot of folks would look, move in close and after moving on - come back to a number of images.
The rectangular images in square frames with all that matboard looked very nice.

Out of interest, can you remember what the subjects were.

Willie
3-Dec-2018, 09:37
Out of interest, can you remember what the subjects were.

They were mainly U.S. images of landmarks like Devils Tower, Mt. Rushmore, Niagara Falls. All well done, no people. Two of civil war battlefields were in foggy conditions. Think they were night exposures - they really had 'feeling' in the image.

I thought the presentation helped with the overall look of the image. Like jewels on display and protected.

IanBarber
3-Dec-2018, 09:42
They were mainly U.S. images of landmarks like Devils Tower, Mt. Rushmore, Niagara Falls. All well done, no people. Two of civil war battlefields were in foggy conditions. Think they were night exposures - they really had 'feeling' in the image.

I thought the presentation helped with the overall look of the image. Like jewels on display and protected.

Excellent, the reason I was curios about the chosen subjects was because with small 4x5 prints, I was wondering if simple subjects would work better thus not creating such a busy image if you know what I mean

Vaughn
3-Dec-2018, 13:51
Excellent, the reason I was curios about the chosen subjects was because with small 4x5 prints, I was wondering if simple subjects would work better thus not creating such a busy image if you know what I mean

While a bit smaller, I have been making platinum prints from 2 1/4" negs. Landscapes mostly -- I found you are correct...one can not depend on detail to grab the viewer -- over-all composition is much more important. Not as much of issue with 4x5 as 120 negs, but still an important consideration.

I use to but old plate holders, dry-mount the 4x5 or 5x7 platinum print to a piece of 4-ply board and mount in the plate holders. Use to buy the holders cheap on eBay. When using plates became popular again, I stopped -- it was okay to use the plate holders when they are not being used to make photographs, but I started to feel guilty "mis-using' essential photo gear for display purposes.

I have also matted several 4x5 prints on a single board wit multuple holes and have shown tow 4x5s together like this (Type 55 film, Ladder, Indian Canyon, Yosemite NP):

Jim Galli
3-Dec-2018, 17:42
Oddball Idea but I used to always pick up antique 5X7 printing frames when they were cheap cheap on Ebay because a 4X5 platinum looks really neat in those little antique frames. No mat, just the paper the platinum is printed on installed in a 5X7 print frame with all the kitschy brush strokes and my numbering system to tell me how many drops of this and that I used on that one. It's like an interpretive presence and they stand alone.