Triptych

I’ve never really been one for creating “fine art” from my photographs, but I have always loved producing prints. There’s something deeply nostalgic and satisfying about spending time creating a really good photographic print, then selecting the best paper (a lustre-effect one by my preference) and creating a proper photographic print to pore over.

In my youth, I’d spend far too much money creating less-than-average quality prints in a chemical darkroom, hand-cutting passepartout mounts with a bevel-edged cutter, mounting the prints, and either putting them in frames or entering them into competitions at my local camera club. I was moderately successful at the time, but it was the process and the physical print which enthralled me, rather than any other result.

In my small home, I have far too little wall space to mount as many photos as I’d like. In recent years, I’ve found a configuration of frame layouts which I like and, with the purchase of a new printer with A3+ capability, I’m now able to swap out images whenever I feel like it. On one wall of my home office, I currently have a set of three street scenes, illuminated by street lamps, from a trip to Venice last year.

This is, I think, the first time I’ve explicitly composed, taken, printed and framed a set of images with the express purpose of viewing them as a set.