Addios 4x6 prints

I spent 23 years in the photofinishing business. Since our clientele was primarily professionals, we called the 3x5 or 4x6 prints “proofs.” That was really just a subtle hint that we didn’t consider a little piece of paper a suitable end to the art of photography.

We knew that 95% of all photographs would end up as 4x6 prints in a drawer. This was never a particularly satisfying thought. Figuring out what to do with all those little prints has been an ongoing challenge ever since George Eastman began cranking them out in 1893. By that time photography had been around for nearly 60 years, but Eastman’s Kodak Company opened photography up to everybody, and opened the floodgates on all these little pieces of paper.

Now in the age of digital photography we have a lot more choices. We are no longer bound to the tradition of the little paper print. We can share photos on web sites, email them to anybody who might be interested, display them as wall size works of art, or wrap them around our cars. As a lover of books, I have been challenging myself with book projects that were not feasible even a couple of years ago. Anybody with a good eye and a little cash can publish a coffee table photography book. I see specialized books of photography as a coming market for commercial photography.

Comments

Jim said…
I particularly love the photo books that you can make with Apple's iPhoto, which comes free on new Mac computers. My wife was feeling guilty about not printing and arranging all our pictures into those enormous albums. Now we can make a book that looks so much better than those old albums, and it doesn't cost nearly as much.

The new iPhoto has some particularly cool features, especially for a consumer-grade product.

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