What do you do with all of your prints???

[Hugh Sakols]

So you enjoy making 12x18 inch prints or if your lucky prints over 16x20. You really don't make an income on your obsession but have to see how your best images will look enlarged. Most of your prints are given away as gifts or for fund raisers. Others are made just to see what you can do. What do you do with these prints?? Maybe I should get a digicam and print no larger than 5x7.

[Eric Woodbury]

Hugh, you've hit the nail on the head. I recently went to printing no larger than 8x10 unless it had a home outside of mine. I use 2-ply mount board now. Some of my friends don't use mount board at all, just free mats. I give away, throw away, and cut up. Old test prints I write grocery lists on the back.

I used to print 11x14s and mount on 16x20. It is a nice wall size, but I have found the 8x10 to be a very personal size -- nice for viewing one on one.

[Kevin M Bourque]

My standard answer is that I want to give my heirs some interesting trash to sort through.

[William Mortensen]

I've heard Ansel Adams used to save his reject prints, and once in a while, after seeing a portfolio brought to him by a young photographer, would cry "Your work is so much better than mine! My life has been a waste!", and start tearing up the rejects in front of the young person.

Don't know if it's true, but it's a great story...

[Victor Samou Wong]

Now that's either pure humility and/or pure comedy. Ansel is sure someone to look up to.

Cheers

[Chuck_1686]

I just store the prints in boxes. It's too bad that there's no organization that is interested in taking (for free) the estate print collections of serious but unknown photographers. I bet a lot of good work gets trashed by heirs who don't have any time or interest. Everyone has a few good images and a collection of these might be worth seeing and keeping.

[Salty]

I have the large tubes for storing the large prints I want to keep. I also use a lot of old prints to test various toners.

[John Flavell]

Christmas Presents. I already have enough clutter.

[Steven Barall]

A great thing to do with your photos is to look at them. I mean really live with them and not just glance at them. I know, you think that they are test prints or even just curiousities but you went to the trouble of making them so you should take responsibility for them and deal with them.

If you don't seriously look at your work how will you ever know what you are doing? Don't be so quick to dismiss your work and look for ways to get rid of it.

That said, I too use the backs of prints for writing various lists, phone numbers, directions, times and dates and other things like that. I actually get pissed when I run out of them.

[jonathan smith]

I have cut up rejected prints and made interesting collages. I often have a print with a hair it, or bad exposure, or clumsy burning in, that still has an interesting portion. It's kind of fun.

For ok pictures that have just missed the cut for National Geographic, I display them at home which is very nice. I also give them to friends and family. I have them mounted with Velcro so they are all interchangeable on my and other's walls. My idea is to rotate them around.

Another idea is to hit the local coffee shops and see who might let you display some. You can even make a sales deal/consignment. I may try this once I build up a few more decent images. Another place to try this is a frame store. But I think they are meant to be seen.

It is a big hassle to be a producing artist and at the same time have to deal with what to do with what you make. I have a big backlog of unmounted stuff right now.

[paulr]

Steven makes an excellent point. How are you supposed to know at a glance if your new work is bad or just outside your comfort zone? You might be tearing up your profoundest discoveries.

I had a music teacher who used to laugh at me for this. I'd be improvising, and he'd just crack up. He'd tell me "every time you do something amazing, you go back to it and 'correct' it." I corrected it because it was unfamiliar to me, but that unfamiliarity was a part of why it was interesting. I was probably taking something uniquely mine and fixing it to make it generic.

That was the best lesson I ever had. He forced me to really listen to what I was doing and not throw it out too soon.

[John_4185]

I had a music teacher who suggested I become a photographer. I took the metaphor seriously, finding new meaning for symbols, especially Bars - the Irish type.

Actually, I have a stunning opera voice. No kidding. It is a gift. No credit to me. I could actually sing for my supper. Good thing, too. The photos sure weren't selling.

Then I went deaf, but continued to sing. Still worked out.

I hope the same plan works for photography if I go blind.

[Aaron van de Sande]

I leave them sitting around on a particular table and glance at them everyday. You need to get to know your own work moreso than anybody else's.

[Craig Wactor]

I keep them in boxes that I go through once a year or so. Then I think to myself how nice the prints are, and feel good. When I am working on prints though, they never seem that great. The time helps refresh my eyes towards them.