28 Pascal Printing, The importance of printing to display your work and building community.

Today I'm joined by Pascal, founder of Pascal's Printing in Los Angeles—a photographer, printer, snowboarder, and one of the people helping keep photographic culture alive in a very real and tangible way.

We live in a time when millions of images are made every day, but most of them never leave our phones, hard drives, or social media feeds. They exist as digital files, viewed for a moment and then forgotten. Pascal has built his career around the idea that photographs deserve more than that. He believes images should live in the physical world—that they should be printed, held in your hands, hung on walls, shared with others, and experienced as objects that carry meaning and presence.

But what makes Pascal's contribution to photography so special goes beyond the prints themselves.

Over the years, he has created a space where photographers and creatives can come together to share their work, exhibit their images, exchange ideas, and inspire one another. Whether you're just beginning your photographic journey or you've been making pictures for decades, Pascal has cultivated a community where artists can connect through a shared love of the medium.

In this conversation, we talk about why printing still matters, what is lost when photographs exist only as pixels on a screen, the importance of creating physical spaces for artists to gather, and how community can play an essential role in helping photographers grow and find their voice.

Please enjoy my conversation with Pascal.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Today I'm joined by Pascal, founder of Pascal's Printing in Los Angeles, a photographer, printer, snowboarder, and one of the people helping keep photographic culture alive in a very real and tangible way. We live in a time when millions of images are made every day, but most of them never leave our phones, hard drives, or social media field. They exist as digital files, viewed for a moment and then forgotten. Pascal has built his career around the idea that photographs deserve more than that. He believes images live in a physical world, that they should be printed, held in your hands, hung on walls, shared with others, and experienced as objects that carry meaning and presence. But what makes Pascal's contribution to photography so special goes beyond the prints themselves. Over the years, he's created a space where photographers and creatives can come together to share their work, exhibit their images, exchange ideas, and inspire one another. Whether you're just beginning your photographic journey or you've been making pictures for decades, Pascal has cultivated a community where artists can connect through a shared love of media. In this conversation, we talk about why printing still matters. What is lost when photographs exist only as pixels on a screen? The importance of creating physical spaces for artists to gather, and how community can play an essential role in helping photographers grow and find their voice. Please enjoy my conversation with Pascal. Pascal. Hi. Hi, how's it going, man? Okay. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Thanks for having me, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Yeah. So we are here in your print shop, and I wanted to start with I heard a story, it may or may not be true, but you are an avid snowboarder, and you had a sprinter van that you sold in order to buy your first printer.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Not a sprinter van. Those are very expensive. Um I had a 16-foot trailer. Oh, okay. So yeah, I was pulling it behind my Tacoma. And um yeah, I did that because I was going to Mammoth all the time. And um, you know, I grew up mostly in Colorado. I was born in Texas, lived there until I was about 13, and then parents divorced, and then I went off to Colorado, ended up, and then my mom came out, ended up living with my mom, and um just fell in love with snowboarding in the 90s, man. So that's all we wanted to do in high school was go snowboarding, and I took some photos of snowboarding, kind of probably early photos with snowboarding stuff. And um, yeah, and then you know, I just kept snowboarding for a while, and then uh yeah, but back to the trailer, yeah. So I got a trailer um because mammoth is very expensive, the lodging, and uh, and I have a dog. So it was made perfect sense to be able to just pick that thing up in Bishop, pull it into uh Mammoth, the RV lot there at the bottom of the town, and uh just post up for a storm, and it was like I think it was 45 bucks a night. So I could literally just tap in the electricity, have my heat, um, no water, right? There's no running water, so you bring all your water. Um and yeah, my dog and I could just live our own lives there in a little little lot and then go uh hit the storms. I was always chasing the powder. I'm a powder chaser. How long how long did you have the trailer for? Uh I only had it, it wasn't that long. I would say I got it in maybe it was 2016 or 2017. Um yeah, and then I sold it yeah, right before I opened this to help pay for this massive printer right here. And it was just time to let it go, man. It was it was, you know, I spent a lot of time in Mammoth. I love it up there.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I didn't buy the pass last season, so I took a it was my first time not buying a pass. So I took a season off. I got one day of snowboarding in at June Mountain. It's probably the least amount of snowboarding I've ever done in my life because that's an outlet for me. It's an active outlet, you know. Uh I'm not really a surfer. I grew up mostly in the mountains, so I tried to get into surfing, but uh Venice, I don't know, just didn't happen. Um so yeah, snowboarding's always been my active outlet. And uh I bought the icon pass for this winter, so I hope to get back and do more. Hope to get back to Japan again. Been going to Japan about uh probably 13 or 14 years, at least once a year, but I missed the last season. And um that's the Powder Kingdom, Japan, and best culture, best people, best food. I mean, it's that's snow surfing over there.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Yeah, Japan is the best. I I don't know anything about the mountains or anything like that, but I've spent some time in Japan and I'm definitely falling in love with it.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

There's a reason everyone goes. It's and they love photography. Yeah. You know, just it's insane.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Japanese have a lot of respect for the arts, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Well, I mean, they m they also make all the machines in here. Oh. All my Epsons are Japanese, my monitor is Japanese. Pretty much everything I use in my life is Japanese. You know, I never made the correlation that Epson was a Japanese company. Yeah, yeah. And so is the uh Canon 2. Okay. So yeah, I mean, they're all the technologies coming out of Japan, the inkjet technology, and um and I mean the cameras. I mean, look, the camera you're using, yeah, my Fuji camera, yeah, my Tacoma, right, my glasses, my snowboard, yeah. Everything I use in my life is Japanese.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

Yeah, my indestructible third gen foreign exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

They're on the forefront of technology. What's crazy is how small that country is. Yeah, I I need to explore more of it. I'm gonna go explore uh more of Hanchu this winter instead of going back to Hokkaido. I'm gonna check out Uzawa. What's that? That's all up north? Uh still no, it's uh I'd say it's west of Tokyo. A few hours. Okay. Two, three hours. There's a whole zone of mountains I've never been to because I just kept going back to Hokkaido.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

I ended up in Yamanashi one night. Yamanashi. I met a bunch of guys there, and we were pretty close to Mount Fuji. So that was a pretty epic night. So I know you do some landscaping, but I also know you do some amazing um portraits. When when did you start shooting? How did photography become a part of your life?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Um, yeah, photography.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

I'd say, you know, my dad was he collected photos a little bit when I was younger, and I'd see him buy some big photographs and put them up on the wall, and I think that's when I really got inspired. Um did he shoot? He never really shot. He might have taken a couple, you know, just point and you know, he wasn't an avid shooter, probably just some point and shoot cameras, but but I remember seeing some of his early photographs that he collected and just being around photography as a young kid. I remember seeing some of those first big prints that were like big prints. I was like, wow. These are I just kind of really fell into them and just love seeing a massive photograph printed on paper. Um because back in the day, yeah, there was there was no digital. So, but then I think I really got more into it. It was kind of in high school. Yeah, I started taking in high school in Colorado in the 90s, mid-90s. So um had some darkroom classes and and um yeah, I just started documenting my friends in high school, I guess. Those are some of my earliest photos are my friends just in snowboarding, so a couple snowboarding shots. Yeah. And uh then that led to uh me. Well then I went to college and and then I you know I kept taking a I was always I would have a photo class here and there, and then I just kept I kept being drawn back to it. So I did a lot of dark room printing. Um and then I that was in Oregon. I went to school in Oregon for a year in Portland in '99. So I did some uh still some early photographs then and then um what do you think drew you to photography? What drew me to photography? Um I think I moved around a lot when I was younger, you know. Uh whether it was the parents getting divorced, moving to Texas, Colorado, and then and then Colorado to Oregon, Oregon, I went to Arizona, Arizona, did a stint in New York for a year, all in my early 20s, and um lived in Wyoming for a bit, worked at Jackson Hole Ski Resort for a little bit. Just kind of I was all over, and I think just realizing how um just quickly how we move around and meet new people and how we leave those people and passage of like time just continually moving, and if we don't document it, it's like we can't reflect on it, we can't you know see. I've always been like a I was a collector of like baseball cards when I was a kid, right? So I collected cards, I collected basketball cards, I collected a lot of cards, anything visual, I was collecting. I even collected stamps, I think. So I was always a collector, and I like collecting images, and I think that's what traces back to is collecting photographs, is being able to collect photographs of people or places and moments in time and being able to look back on them and just have a whole, you know, it's just a whole library of images of your life. It's it's it's always fascinating me, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:23

I had a similar experience with um albums. Like my dad had a bunch of albums, and I would just stare at those big albums, you know, all the different pictures and the pictures in the back.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

They were so the four photography was so important. Yeah. For those, yeah, the vinyl. Yeah. And uh yeah, holding tangible, you're holding tangible photos.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Yeah. So we're sitting in your print shop, and the one thing that I love about you and this space that we're in is that you've created a space for photographers. You've made a community here where people come and have a place to print their work, they have a place to show their work, and they have somebody to sit with that knows what they're doing and will take the time to help them make the most out of their print. And I'm seeing that um in the story that you just told me, how that kind of comes full circle. How did this print shop come about?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Uh yeah, the print shop. So let's say, I well I got my first inkjet printer probably in 2002. So what is that almost 24 years ago? It was like an Epson 2200, I forget the exact name, a 13 by 19 inch printer. So, and that was I think early 2000s is when inkjet printing really got good. In the 90s it wasn't there. So that's why I was strictly in the darkroom mostly. And um, and that printer just I mean, to be able to print your photos in your bedroom or in your home, take a photo, print it out, and just see it come out of the machine and see that image revealed just blew my mind. And so um I've had inkjet printers since then. So 2002, had that one for a bit, and then um the big one, the first big one I got was over there, the P8000. So I got that in 2016 when I was living in Venice.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

And did you get that with personal for personal use, or did you get that with the idea of the? I got it just for personal use.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah, I was um yeah, I had a a breakup, went through a breakup of that time, and I just it was kind of impulse purchase. Um I'd always had the small printers, but I'm like, okay, now I just you know, I think it was like I had it, I was super into art photography, and then I got kind of moved into the, you know, I was assisting photographers. I came here from the Bay Area, I started assisting celebrity lifestyle, fashion, food photographers in my late 20s, into my early 30s, and I just got so involved and into that, assisting and lighting and helping other people produce the work. I think I'd I'd I I'd still be taking my own photos, but I had lost track, I think, of printing my own work for a good chunk of time between my late 20s and I'd say, you know, 34, 35. And so it hit me kind of mid 30s. I was like, wow, I need to get back to printing my photos. And I think people were starting to want more prints. I mean, people were reaching out for prints. And so yeah, I got the 44-inch printer around then 10, 11 years ago, and then I was able to sell my own prints to people, and because I had requests, and and then be able to put my images large on my walls again, which is very important for people to do, photographers to do. You gotta be looking at your prints in your in your own home, in my opinion. Makes you a better photographer, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, the 44-inch, and then yeah, I just started. I think after that, um some people started hitting me up for some prints because yeah, these machines are difficult to manage and they're heavy and they're take a lot of room. Yeah, not everyone has the big ones, a lot of photographers have the small ones, right? But the big ones are it's a whole nother beast. Um and so yeah, I just started printing for some friends, a few photographers, and then um, yeah, that and then this space really came together. So, you know, post-pandemic, my photo shoots, my commercial shoots started slowing down. I just saw kind of like my income going down. I was like, but people were hitting me up to print more, and I just kind of saw that going up, and then my shoots going down. So I just stayed up late a few nights thinking about it, and it's like, you know, I was doing it out of my garage here in West Adams, and I was like, I think I need to pivot more into printing and just helping more people get their images on the paper. Yeah. And um, and then yeah, this I opened this place a year and a half ago. It's not even been that long, man. A year and a half, probably done 10 or 11 exhibitions here of other people's work, group shows, which I love to do, and um got this 64-inch machine and and started learning. I mean, I knew about papers, but I didn't know I wasn't utilizing a lot of different papers because I had a tiny garage. I couldn't store all these papers, and so I was really only using a couple papers. And so I'd say in the last few years, man, I've actually I've learned a lot just about printing images on different kinds of papers and what you know what that does and how the images look and which images belong on certain kinds of papers, you know. Yeah, whether it's a matte paper, a soft gloss paper, you know, a satin paper, different kinds of matte papers, textured papers, um, less texture, warmer papers, whiter papers, you know. Yeah. Um and um yeah, it led to this, man. And I'm sh you know, it's it's scary to uh open a business by yourself. Yeah. You know, especially on a main street when you know it's it's yeah, I stayed up late a few nights thinking about it. But you gotta I'm so glad I did it, man. You gotta step into the deep end and just step off the cliff and you know, pivot sometimes in life. And I can't believe if I didn't do it, where I'd be, you know, what I'd be doing. I've I mean I was on the borderline of changing careers, man. I was like, I was reaching out to my buddy about selling doors and window frames.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Because I wasn't, you know, my yeah, my income had gone down. So I was like, but I just love photography so much, and this print shop has helped keep me in it and killed it's reignited the passion I have for photography and and you know, yeah, printing my own work and just um really helping other people, you know. Um and um what about the the community that you've built here?

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Community in West Adams or the shop? Yeah, just the shop in general. Like I've uh every time I come here, I always meet some photographer that you're printing with, and I'm able to conversate with them and to be able to see their work, and you're constantly having shows here. So um what what has that done for you building a community of photographers and creators?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah, I mean it's very important, man. Um uh obviously community is important, but yeah, the photography community, we don't have a lot of spaces in LA um to come and you know, chit-chat about photos and you know, look at images and you know, there used to be the Annaberg space for photos. I think they sh they shut down a while ago. That was a cool space. Um but photography is always kind of hasn't had a lot of spaces for people to come today together community-wise. Um and so yeah, offering this space. I mean, I have random people walk in here and just, you know, they're just I can see the fire. Like they want to get their images on paper and they want to learn and they wanna, you know, they think about, oh, I can sell my photos, I can have an exhibition, you know. I've done exhibitions for people here who have never printed their work before.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

It's like yeah, I can do this and making it accessible, you know. I'm not, you know, high these high-end galleries, you can't just go and bring your work in and you know, I'm not I'm not showing everyone's work here, but if I see there's it's quality imagery, then yeah, you know, you print with me, I'll give you a show, you know. I'll like this group exhibition right here is up for you know five weeks. Some of these ladies have never printed their photos before, um, never sold their photos before. And the last opening, just to see the the joy, how much joy that brought everyone, the passion, the the love of the community. Brought, I mean, I think over maybe 300 people came to this exhibition. Um, Black Girl Shoe 2, um, that my friend Kai started. And uh yeah, I mean, I think the exhibitions and having a space to showcase your work, and I think people uh they desire it, they need it, it's healthy. They you know, it's yeah, it's I see and a lot of the youth, I see it. I mean, I'm gonna have another show July 11th, all Latino photographers here. I think it should be a big one as well. Yeah, that's the next big one. Um we did it last summer. Um, my friend Oscar curated it. So we're gonna put that on, and yeah, art is the driver, man. Photo's the driver, people are passionate about it, and you know, it's better than going to some club late night, and you know, it's like I see the sh the art shift happening. People don't want to go to the clubs in Hollywood anymore. They used to. People need art, they want art, they want to exhibit come together more daytime style, you know. But yeah, I think uh community, back to community. People need spaces that come together. I mean, it's LA too, right? It's this is a visual city.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

I mean, we just it every I mean so many creatives here too. I mean, this is besides New York, this is an epicenter.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

I mean, you know, Los Angeles gives it a get gets such a bad rap, and I might have something to do with that as well. But I feel like, you know, per capita, there are so many artists here, and there's so much talent in Los Angeles. Um but um you know, I was gonna say in this digital world that we live in, and you know, people showcasing, you know, most people showcase their art on Instagram, and most people are looking at these really small pictures that are like, yeah, you know, I was I was going through a bunch of bunch of old um photographs from my family the other day, and I came across all these um like wallet-sized pictures. And I've I remember like, oh, we used to have like a mini Instagram in our wallet of carrying around pictures, carrying around pictures of special people. But I feel like now people are realizing that you know that is not the best way to show your work. So can you talk about the importance of just being able to print your work and to see your work large?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Yeah, get it off the internet and online. Yeah. Instagram, I I'm an avid user of Instagram. I signed on pretty early on. My photographer friend that I was working for, this guy Craig Olson. He's like, You gotta get on this platform. He said it was started by photographers for photographers. Just showcase your work. I mean I never really loved Facebook, you know, it was not my thing, but Instagram was made for photographers. So I think it makes sense to use it, and that's really the only thing I use. People try to get me to use TikTok. I I can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah, me not.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Um it's just a way to categorize your work, make a library of it. You can look back. It's I think it's very important, and most photographers should be doing it. I understand some that don't want to do it, it's all good. But yeah, to get your images off Instagram, off the internet, and put it on paper, obviously this is very important, that's why I started this space. Um because the internet, yeah, it devalues a lot of things, right? Like uh even movies, uh books, um, photographs, yeah, because everything's free and everything's fast and everything's, you know, we don't spend much time, you know, really holding it and and putting images onto paper, it just it creates value. It creates value and it you know, it makes you stare at it. It's it's it's a statement. It's you know, it makes you really I mean to even just print want to print your images, you know, it's it's it's uh it's a you know, it's kind of a bold thing. Yeah. Like I'm gonna make a permanent object. Yeah that, you know, these images that if you're using these nice papers, these museum quality papers, will last two to four hundred years, if not longer. You keep them out of the sun, right? So you're making something that's gonna last long after you're gone for you know the grandkids or the family to see in a moment in time that you thought was important and precious and that you put it on paper for a reason. And the internet, yeah, I mean, images. I mean, I had a guy recently wanted to print an image and And it was on a CD not even that long ago, maybe it was 10 or 11 years ago, got put on a CD back when we used CDEs to instead of hard drives. And he had trouble getting it off the CD recently, you know, and that got me thinking, I'm like, you know, having your image on paper is just it's you know, it's kind of future-proofing. That's what it is. Future proofing your image, I mean, the only way it can disappear is if it burns up in a fire, which is, you know, those are usually the first things you're grabbing when you're leaving the home are your photographs. The most important thing that just shows you how powerful they are.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Um so yeah, I mean, we don't know how long hard drives are gonna last. We don't know how long the cloud storage. Things are always changing. You know, I have old hard drives. I I I I can't even figure out the right plugs to plug them in anymore to access my images.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

And eventually that's all gonna keep changing and changing and changing, and things will fail. So in the end, if you don't get your images on paper, you're uh it's it's it could be bad. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

My brother was a photographer who passed away, and my mother and father also passed away, and and I always say the most valuable thing I have is the hard copy photos. Like I have a lot of the negatives too, but like all the photos that my father took of his family, and then I found all these pictures of of f images he got from his family. So like I have this whole catal, like I just have like boxes of all all this film, and it's it's so valuable to me because if I lose them or if something happens to them, that it's just gone. It's just completely gone. And yeah, it's the only thing that my daughter has. And you know, when I do show them to her, it's a completely different experience when she's holding an image in her hand as opposed to me flipping a phone or a can or on a computer. It doesn't hit her the same. She doesn't retain it.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

But when she holds the image, she you know, she remembers what's in the background, she like the color and she's really inspecting it and she's probably holding it for I think I saw most people go to museums and look at art pieces for 15 to 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

You know, so you're actually really looking into the image in every corner and looking around and you know, being like, how does this piece of the image, you know, correlate with this? And what's the what does that mean? And you know, with the internet and Instagram, we're scrolling. Yeah. It's boom, you see the image maybe what, a second or two. Yeah. It ain't 15, 30 seconds. I mean, as you really dive into it. But yeah, most people are just, it's yeah, it's really um. Yeah, it's good for I think that's why the younger generation is really wanting to print more of their photos and they're shooting film, right? They want that tangible. They want to be able to hold things, they want to be able to look at it longer. They want to, it's it's a counter attack against the digital and the AI and everything that's happening right now.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Film is booming. I think I think the print business is only gonna go up and up and up. Um, so yeah, it's uh in a world of speed. Everything's so everything is just flying by these days. And disposing. And we're digesting images like more than you know, we drink water.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

We digest them every day. I mean, we all do it, I do it. We're digesting so many, and what do we really retain of those images, you know? So to put an image on a piece of paper and put it up in your house or put it in a show, and it's stagnant and it's there to be looked at over and over and over and over for years and years and years, that's a powerful statement, man. It's a powerful thing to do. And um, it makes you a better photographer, it's made me a better photographer.

SPEAKER_03 25:38

And um, yeah, it's very important. Very important. Well, let me talk about this community here, because uh I kind of stumbled across this this area, and but instantly it just reminded me of like certain areas of Brooklyn before they really got popular. How how long have you been in this area?

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah, you know, it's uh I came over here, what was it? Uh I was in Venice for 10 years, and I moved over here in 2016. I'd been coming over here because uh my friends had a warehouse down the street on Jefferson. Some of my friends from Jelena, they had like a late night, a breakman brewery, it was called. So they did music shows and kind of a speakeasy bar. It was like a it was a social underground, speakeasy gathering spot. And yeah, it was just right down the street here. So I was coming over, I was, I don't know, 20, 2010, 2011, 2012, I think that's when they were doing it. And uh I just I was like, you know what? It was not that it was easy to get to here. Wasn't it's right in the middle of LA, it was like I like the location, it was you know, it was mostly Latino uh community around here, which I love, and uh the sense of community is very strong, and um and you know it's obviously a ch the neighborhood's changing, right? You know, this was a laundromat before. Right. Um and uh you know, all these buildings, it's a lot of new things coming up. As you know, most neighborhoods they change over time, they do.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

And uh I think that's reminds me of of Brooklyn when like I was always moving to places that I could afford. Yeah, I mean they weren't the best places ever, yeah, but they had like these big beautiful buildings, and then somebody opens up a cafe and somebody opens up a restaurant, and then all of a sudden more people start moving here and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

I mean, when I was living in Venice in 2006, seven, it was totally different. I mean um yeah, I mean neighborhoods change, but I don't think this one, this one, the culture is staying strong in this neighborhood, I believe, just because uh I mean there's so many cultures right here in Mid City and West Adams and Crenshaw, and um we're also not by the ocean, so that's you know not drawn super heavy tourists. Um a lot of artists are moving here, yes. Um it's more affordable. I mean, that like you said, you you know, that's it just happens. People move to more affordable neighborhoods. Um but you gotta move in here and you know give back to the community. Yeah, can't just move here and take, you know. Yeah, you can't just move here because it's cheaper, you know. Right. And um you gotta give back. And and hopefully that's what I'm trying to do, get back to the community. I'll do, you know, I do memorial photos for the neighbors for free, you know. I'll you know, I'll I you know, give lots of free prints away to the neighbors. I take pictures for the neighbors, you know, all the time. They ask me to do a quinceanera photo or family photos, or you know, um so yeah, giving back to the community of West Adams, very important. So um what else were you asking?

SPEAKER_03 28:39

No, that was pretty much it. And uh, you know, you talking about giving prints away. I mean, I don't don't not I don't want everybody to expect this, but I I appreciate how um committed you are to the craft and how you're willing to take chances for other photographers, and I could speak on that because when I was doing my show Canyon Peacocks, I had an idea what I wanted to do, and you were like, wow, this would look really good on metallic. And the minute you said metallic, I was like, ugh. Like, I'm not putting my prints on metallic paper, that just sounds horrible. And you saw the look on my face, and you were like, Alright, let me just do it, and if you don't, like I'll I'll just do it for free. I just want you to see what it looks like. Yeah, yeah. And I couldn't that then my whole show was metallic. Like I couldn't believe how amazing the cars looked on metallic. Made sense for the cars. But it just goes, it speaks to the fact that you you care about the craft because you could have easily just said, like, alright, dude, like if that's what you want, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

You know, I got other things to do.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

No, dude, I'm you know, uh yeah. Every person that comes in here, I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna look at the images, I'm gonna suggest papers, I'm gonna show you papers. Um, yeah, I'm a one-man show, you know. I want I want everyone that leaves here to be happy and feel like they've learned something and that they're growing as a photographer and artist, not just like a, you know, I'm not just you know, I'm just yeah, I'm not just trying to get your money, you know. I do it for the love. I'm a photographer. So, you know, I you know, I'm not I'm not even a businessman, you know. I'm learning the business side right now as we speak. Um and how's that going?

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Uh yeah, I'm I'm learning every day, man. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

I got to be more to you, right? You don't have to do it. It's just me, man. It's just me, yeah. So that's why, you know, you know, I have right now I have clamp lights for my walls. I don't, you know, I don't, you know, I don't have track lighting. Maybe the next space, I'll get some track lighting. I want to keep the next space, because I have to move out of here eventually. Who knows when, but yeah, next space. Hopefully I want to get some walls and keep doing the exhibitions because I don't want to just be a print lab. I want to I want to showcase people's work, give the opportunity for people to showcase yeah, group exhibitions, solo exhibitions, and um yeah, I want to keep that going because I mean that's that's what it's all about, you know. I just don't want to be a print factory. Yeah, I never want to be a big warehouse print factory. That's not what I'm trying to do here.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

That being said, what what do you think one mistake that you see a lot of photographers make when they come here and want to print something? Resolution. A lot of people don't understand resolution and how big they can print their files without them being super pixelated or you know how how you shot your what camera you shot your file on and how that correlates with how big you can print it. Um yeah, so I'll I'll make you know I'm not gonna print a massive print for someone if I don't think it's gonna look good. You know?

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

I wouldn't do that. So I you know, I look at the file resolution, the size, and I always suggest, oh, you can go this big with this file, you know, unless you can find the raw file and reprocess it, or you know, there's you could use AI, but I know a lot of people are against it to enlarge, but I don't recommend it. But yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

But um, but speaking about that, do you um has AI changed anything? Your approach or in your style of work or anything for you?

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Um I I literally I only use it for a few people that they only have like kilobyte size files, or not even the megabytes, and they really want something printed a little bigger. I'm like, well, if you can't find the original, this is all you got. I think AI can just it just smooths it out so you can print it a little bigger and it doesn't look pixelated.

SPEAKER_03 32:23

But how is that different from just going into Photoshop and enlarging the size of the image?

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Well, if you just enlarge in Photoshop, yeah, it would be really pixel, it wouldn't, it wouldn't, yeah, it wouldn't come out looking. So AI is able to go in and kind of interpolate and somehow smooth out those pixels and just make it so it prints smoother, I would say. I just like, yeah, I mean it's I've I've used it a few times for people, and you know, some people are fine with it, you know, and some people don't want to even want to touch it. I get it. Um I don't want to use it on my own work, I don't think I've ever used it for my own work, but I think a guy, yeah, from Baldwin Hills came down. He had an image from Rio de Janeiro of like and it's super tiny, and he really wanted to enlarge it for his house just a little bigger. So I was like, well, we could use this Topaz Gigapixel AI. That's basically there's a bunch of softwares, but that's one of them. He was happy with it, man. So if you're happy with it, then it's just another tool. That's how I look at it. But I'm not trying to use AI at all, really.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

What technically about an image takes it from a good print to an amazing print? A good print to an amazing print.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Oh, well, that goes back to the paper. Um yeah, I mean, it depends. This is a metallic paper, the one that you printed your works on. I mean, it really depends on paper choice, right? You know, here's a uh Japanese paper with decled edges. Softer effect. Um yeah, the paper choice is very important, and I've you know I've learned a lot through my friend Eric over at Freestyle about paper. And um, yeah, paper choice is well, first I gotta see the image, and then you know, I'll suggest a paper, and then I'll suggest a couple papers, and then I let people kind of choose the paper they gravitate towards. You know, and yeah, paper choice is very important. People don't realize it is. People, you know, they're used to printing their photos at, you know, whatever CVS or getting just super glossy photos, and they just don't even think about the paper, you know. And like these are a lot of the papers I've here are 100% cotton papers, right? So they'll they're this that's why they're super archival the last hundreds of years. There's um and a lot of these papers I carry on for a reason is they don't have any optical brighteners. So they won't um fade or yellow as quickly, and the longevity will be there. And um what is an optical brightener? Optical brighteners is basically chemicals they put in paper to make it brighter white. Um, you know, so most papers we see have optical brighteners in them. Um and those break down over time and deteriorate. That's why you look at old family photos, they're starting to they become really yellow or they start to disintegrate. And um yeah, optical brighteners, they're you know, they're in a lot of fine art papers, but I'm trying to carry a lot of papers here that don't have them. I'd say 90% of the papers I have here don't have them. Some people say they're okay, some people there's kind of a whole conversation about that. We could go on for a while about it, but yeah, I mean I'm trying to carry mostly um no OBA papers here. Um because I think again, back to the longevity, I want your images to last for hundreds of years and look how they did when we printed them. You know, if you keep them out of sun and maybe if you frame them, you know, it's better. Um yeah, paper choice is important. Um, you know, the printers, the printers are so good now. So I mean, as long as you're using Canon or Epson, I mean, those are the the best, you know, you gotta use pigment inks, right? Dye-based ink doesn't last. So pigment inks that is very important. So if you want longevity and to be truly called an archival print, you gotta be using uh pigment inks. Um this printer I think has like is it 12 colors? Um and nozzles, it has like 9,600 nozzles laying down ink. I mean, it's it's a magic thing, these printers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

What do you think the biggest misconception or of the biggest misunderstanding when people come here to print?

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Um resolution. I think I touched on that earlier. Resolution, how big I can print my photos. Um, you know, people want to print their iPhone photos massive, and I'm like, well, you know, those iPhone billboards are completely they're a lie, right? And they're just those are massive pixels on the billboard you can't really see, you know. They're and then there's hundreds of people working on those images, probably using AI to enlarge them, who knows? So yeah, people think, yeah, big misconception is people think they can print their images massive and they'll look incredible. Right. You know, but that it, you know, then it comes back to the yeah, uh technology of cameras, like how many megapixels is your camera, right? Yeah. Reason I shoot a medium format Fuji GFX is because it's a hundred megapixels, it's meant for printing. And I switched over to I was shooting medium format film, which is great for printing as well, because it's just it's a bigger, it's a bigger negative. So it's in the medium format cameras, it's a bigger sensor, so there's more information, there's more pixels, um, which leads to bigger prints, you know. But then some people don't care having super pixelated images, and it's fine to have big images that are super pixelated if you know you're viewing them from a certain distance, you know.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

It's funny because maybe pixels are the new uh green, grainy photos. Pixels are the new grainy photos. What is something that something about you that might surprise people?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

I love growing food, gardening. Oh, nice, nice. Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, you know, uh tending to, yeah, I just planted some tomatoes, I got uh, I mean they're all in planters, right? I don't have much space, but I'm growing tomatoes, cucumber, chilies, um, got a passion fruit vine on the fence. Nice. Um yeah, nurturing a plant, growing it, and then uh and then being able to consume it and taste what you nurtured. It's kinda uh you can correlate that to printing and photography, right? Yeah, taking the photo, working on it, you know, in the dark room or in Photoshop, and then actually printing it is like cons like actually consuming it. Yeah. So it's like um, yeah, if you're not printing your photos, it's kind of like just growing the plant and cooking it and then just staring at it, right? Putting it on the paper and printing it is like can now you can actually consume it and really dive into it and share it. And share it. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, sharing a meal. Yeah, so I I'm yeah, I'm a big uh I go to the farmers market every Wednesday. I like to support local farmers. Uh which one? Santa Monica. Yeah, I I've never been to Santa Marketing. But any any farmer's market is great to support. Um but that Santa Monica one is. Well, obviously that's the one all the best all the all the restaurants go to. I used to get to see some of my chef friends. I used to shoot food and beverage and some restaurant stuff. So yeah, it's kind of like get to say hi to some people, but yeah, um, food is very important to me. Um supporting local farmers and just knowing where your food comes from. That's something my mom always drove into me.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

She grew a lot of her own food. And um, yeah, nurturing a plant and growing it and then consuming it and organic, no pesticides, you know. Yeah, that's a whole another rabbit hole about I could go off about our food culture here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about this.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

I I I uh I dropped off some uh veggies from my garden.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh yeah, food is so important, man, and and I love being around chefs and seeing their passion and and um yeah, so yeah, I look at you know, a lot of this printing like that, you know, these are basically organic prints, right? When you don't have chemicals in them and you know, they're you know, I correlate it to uh yeah, farmers market food.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

So um a couple more questions here. What what should people know before they come to you and want to print their work?

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Best to email me so we can set up like an appointment. I I I take walk-ins, but best to email me so we can set up an appointment, get a conversation going about what images you're interested in printing or what it's gonna be for, an exhibition, or you know. Um so yeah, email me first. Um or call, prefer email, and um then I'll set up an appointment and then you know, we can come in, take a look at whatever you need done, and uh give you my advice. And um but I take walk-ins, right? You know, I I had some people come in, they needed a memorial photo that day. Yeah, you know, so I'm like, yes, I can, you know, I can do a memorial photo right there for them, you know. They needed it. So I do some same-day printing for people. As long as I don't have a super crazy important exhibition I'm printing for.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Edit down your images, yeah, and then I can help you edit it more too and give my constructive feedback. Yeah, you did that for me too. Which I'm I do all the time for people, right? So it's like a little like constructive feedback critique about you know, maybe what I, you know, yeah, I give my what would look good on paper and what's important to you, and and um and then yeah, maybe try not to bring images on CDs. So yeah, thumb drive, or you know, you can airdrop it here if it's not massive, or you know. Um but yeah, usually drives are the best. You've been doing this for a long time. What what still excites you about photography? What really excites me is seeing the the joy of people seeing their images printed for the first time, you know, the joy and the love and the yeah, the passion that I see. And uh yeah, I mean, people come in here I all the time, never printed their images on nice papers ever. It really blows my mind, you know? Because then once they see that first print, it's like, yeah, it's addicting. You want to keep printing your images. I mean, you don't need to print all of them, but you should be printing more of your images and living with them and putting them up in your walls. I've always, everywhere I've lived, I've always had my images on my walls. And then you live with those images and then you you take them down, you replace them with new ones, so it's just a constant source of nutrition. Yeah, image nutrition. And you learn and you get better at Tarver and you grow by printing your images. And um so yeah, that inspires me. And um let's see what else. Um I mean, I'm a shooter too, right? So I get you know, being around so many people, I haven't been shooting a lot, but since I do really enjoy shooting, that's why I got into this. Um what's the last thing you shot? Uh personally, I haven't shot too much recently. Um what's the last thing you shot? I did print one of my landscapes recently, my Hollywood winter landscape I shot three years ago. Yeah, that's gorgeous. I saw that post.

SPEAKER_03 43:17

Yeah, so I mean here in the shop.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

What's that?

SPEAKER_03 43:20

Is that print here in the shop?

SPEAKER_01 43:21

It's rolled up right over there. 43 by 76 inches. So that's a 16-9 uh aspect ratio. So yeah, aspect ratios are very important to think about. Like what aspect ratio are you shooting in? How's that gonna translate on a paper? You know, you can change your aspect ratios, um, you know, and think about that way. I don't do a lot of cropping of my own images, cropping's fine, but when you really start thinking about aspect ratios and how that's gonna lay on paper, that helps you become a better photographer as well. Um so you can just get the most resolution out of your sensor because you start cropping, you're losing resolution, right?

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

So really thinking about aspect ratio is very important and Becoming a better photographer, yeah. I mean, some people say it's all good to crop. Yeah, I think it's fine, but really you want the most info info out of that sensor.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Um but yeah, personally, I shoot a lot of you know, I'm I'm a big landscape guy, man. I I you know I love landscapes. I love surrounding myself in nature. You know, I grew up going, my mom took me to all the national parks as a kid out west. I've been to pretty much all of them. You know, I was very avid outdoors, man. I was climbing mountains, I was, you know, whatever, snowboarding. I'm I'm a nature dude, even though I live in the city. And I love surrounding myself in my own. And right now in my house I have photos of Japan, snowy winter landscapes. Um I love photographing in Japan. I love photographing the winter. They just they calm me. So I have some massive, they're pretty big. I showcased them here for a second. They're uh I'd say they're 48 by 64 inches. So I have one above my bed, I have one in the kitchen, just these really tranquil, beautiful, snowy landscapes that make me feel good when I get home. So it's really about what you you want to look at when you come home and what makes you makes you feel more at peace, right? Right. Yeah, it could be a big portrait, it's fine, you know. Um I used to shoot a lot of portraits. Maybe someday I'll make a book of those. Um, but yeah, for me, a lot of landscapes, so I get you know I get more inspired now when I go on trips, you know. So I don't have any trips planned yet. Maybe I'll go back to Japan uh in December. But um, you know, I I went to Oaxaca. Here's a here's a shot from Oaxaca. Oh, that's yours.

unknown 45:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

All these images on the papers are mine.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

See, I did uh went to Oaxaca a few times um with my friends from uh this restaurant, Amano, up in uh Idaho. They took me down there and and learned all about Oaxaca and did a little book on Oaxaca. So I love Oaxaca. Yeah, Oaxaca. I mean, everyone should go there. Um here's a here's a shot of um some wild mustangs up uh near Mammoth. Amazing. And um they're just out there living, man, these wild mustangs. There's a that's yeah, that's a whole nother subject actually though. Um, because they're starting to, you know, they're actually rounding up some of those mustangs. It's not a good deal. Um this is a landscape I shot uh from Santa Monica Pier. Uh Golden Ocean. Um here's a shot of my sister that on that you saw this earlier. Yeah, it's such a beautiful shot. Shot this 2007, probably on my Mamiya 7. Um I really I really think your portraits are really amazing. Thank you, man. Yeah, I have a lot of portraits no one's really seen. That's why actually I've been diving into my archives. I have a lot of film photos I'm scanning right now, so I might make a little book. Um, probably mostly of portraits, early portraits. Um I wanted to ask you, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:03

When people print, usually framing is an afterthought. Oh, framing, yeah. Is should people be thinking about framing more when they talk about aspect ratios and fra and image size, or is should you just focus on the image and the best size and then you figure the the the print out, I mean the frame out later?

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Yeah, so what I always say is that you know, people want to they want a nice big print. Where's that print gonna go, right? It's gonna go above your bed. Where what what space is it going into? If it's not going to exhibition, where is that print gonna live for a long time? Um so I always tell them to measure that space. You know, you want to fill that space properly, right? You don't want it too small, you don't want it too big. So really measuring the space where your print's gonna go is probably the first step before printing. And then, you know, a frame usually adds a few inches. So yeah, measuring the space and then framing, yeah. If it's gonna be in a ready-made frame, which are mostly smaller frames, I have some over there. People need it last minute, they need it in a frame, you know, for an affordable cost, which is fine. I'm not I have nothing against ready-made frames. Um it's a great quick, you know, thing to do. And you have to think about, yeah, if what image is gonna fit in that ready-made frame, you know, down to the sizing. Do I have to trim it? You know, so that gets a little more tricky there. But custom framing, I really it's about measuring where that image is gonna go, and then custom framing. You can add a mat, you can keep the image right to the border. You know, do you want your signature shown? So then you give a little space on the below the image, so then you put a mat around that, or you just use the paper as a border. I mean, there's many ways to go about it. So, yeah, I talked that out with people. A little bit of framing. I offer um some framing through my friend's Sherman Gallery in Venice, so I have some samples here. But uh yeah, framing is very important to protect the image, having that layer of plexi. I I always say plexi is better than glass, but um to protect it, yeah. I mean, because yeah, I if you don't, yeah, over time your image will just things will get on it. Yeah, it'll get ruined. But then there's something to be said for for not like I do shows here without frames just so you can really see the paper, and it's more affordable, and it's easier to hang. And this is how I've been doing shows here with just these clips, and it just makes total sense. Um and then once these ladies take their images, then they can decide how they want to frame them or you know what they want to do with them, and and it's just easier to transport. And yeah, so I'm gonna keep doing shows, probably not framed. And then, but when an image finally needs to live in its space, it probably should be framed.

SPEAKER_03 49:51

I don't ask all my guests this question, but this the show is called shoot wisely. Shoot wisely. It's something my brother always used to tell me. What would your advice to shoot wisely be?

SPEAKER_01 50:01

First advice, print your photos. If you're not printing your photos, man, you're missing out. And you know, like I said, those images could disappear. You know, you get them on paper, at least you can re-photograph them or scan them, or you know, don't don't trust the digital cloud and don't trust hard drives. And um and get your images out in the world, you know, get your images living in whether it's a restaurant or your friend's place, or get get your images living and breathing out in the world that you know that you know bring uh joy to people and you know reflection. And uh I mean that's why we do this. So yeah, print your images, um whether it's with me or someone else, I don't care. Um and let's see, what else? Definitely keep shooting. Um and uh growing as uh, you know, keep pushing boundaries and uh don't get set in your ways. Um, you know, we kind of pigeonhole ourselves. And um like most people probably think I'm a landscape photographer because I print a lot of my own landscapes and that's what people mostly see. That's what I thought until I started. Yeah, you don't know. I I have a lot of portraits, man. Yeah, you know, so maybe I need to print more of those. And um, so yeah, don't pigeonhole yourself and experiment and you know, and just keep pushing, you know, once you feel comfortable and it's time to change it up, you know. If you know you're a portrait shooter, start taking some landscapes, you know. Um play with double exposures, triple exposures, quadruple exposures. That show shot I just showed you earlier, that's a double exposure. That's only where I got the sun and the moon. Oh wow in one, you know. I saw the moon, captured it, and I put it over the sunset because I saw it at the same time, and like they belong together.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

So, you know, um I love multiple exposures, those are fun to play with. Um and um, yeah, uh besides printing, man, just being a good person, eating well, you know, trying to support your local farmers, support your community, um, be nice to each other. Um yeah, there's a lot of competitiveness, I think, in the everything, right? And I kind of felt it in the photo world a little bit when I was younger here. Everyone's trying to be competitive, like, oh, especially in the commercial world, oh, they got that job, or why didn't I get that job, or how did you get that job? It's like just throw all that out the window, man. There should be no competitiveness. Get rid of all that, and just be like, I'm me, I'm shooting my photos, you know. You know, it's just and be patient, you know. And um, and yeah, I think yeah, community is very important. That's why this space for photographers to come together, and there is no competition here, you know. That's what's great about exhibitions. Everyone's showcasing what they love and how they shoot and how they see. You gotta shoot personal work. I think that's what you gotta shoot your person, you gotta shoot your friends, you gotta capture your family, you gotta capture your life because you're the photographer in your own surrounding circle, and if you don't do it, maybe no one else is doing it. It's like my family photos that I have been going through, all these negatives, four by five, six, seven. Um no one else in my family took those photos. So they're very important to my brother now and and my family, and you know, I just my uncle passed away recently, and it's like, you know, you gotta be the photographer in your network and document it all because life is. I'm I'm mid-40s now, and you said you're 50, but it goes by quick, man. Yeah. And you start really feeling it more in your 40s. And it's like life is fleeting, man. I got, you know, I had a friend that just passed away recently. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, multiple people passed away recently. It's just like it makes you think about what's that?

SPEAKER_03 54:06

Unfortunately, the longer you live, the more people.

SPEAKER_01 54:08

Yeah, and there's gonna be a lot more, I feel like, coming at me soon, and you know, um, whether I like it or not, it's just so then it's like, you know, so yeah, the best advice I can give is really to take those pictures that no one's taking in your surrounding network, just like you do, like all the photographers do. But yeah, and not just not just the commercial and stuff, but you know, the family photos, the friends, like I said, uh the landscapes that you see, those sunsets that mean something to you that you know maybe no one else saw the way you saw it. And um because yeah, in the end, that's you know what's what's remaining is our our photographs, right? And hopefully by printing those, those will last for generations to come, and that's why I do this. And hopefully that inspires other people to come in and print their photos.

SPEAKER_03 55:03

Awesome. I heard um I heard a photographer say that uh, and I can't remember who it was, but they said that you know, not all your pictures are gonna be like the one, you know. But it's like it's like collecting change. It's like you got pennies, you got quarters, you got some dollars in there, yeah, and then before you know it, you got this jar filled with all this money. And together, it's it's worth a lot. And I thought that was such a great way of putting it because some some pictures you take might be a penny, and other pictures you take might be, you know, yeah, a silver dollar.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

That makes me think about um I studied up at CCA in in Oakland with some legendary photographers, Jim Goldberg, Larry Sultan, Todd Haido, and uh Larry Sultan had a quote. I actually have it here. I was I'll read it. He says, When it comes down to making work that really sings, I don't know if I can teach any of it. I don't even know if I can do any of it half the time. It's so much about failure, it's so much about making pictures that are so utterly boring and overstated, you're endlessly disappointed. And in that process, you hopefully find something that always draws you back and calls to you. Great quote by Larry Sultan. Yeah. He passed away pretty young. But look up that guy. He's yeah, so yeah, I mean, yeah, keep shooting, man, because yeah, those some of those photos, just like this one that, you know, of my sister that you said. Yeah. It's like, I'm so glad I took that picture, right? How old is she there? She's probably probably seven, eight, or seven or eight or nine.

SPEAKER_03 56:54

Yeah. And you know what's special too is you're probably the only person that could have taken that picture of her in that setting. She's very vulnerable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

You know, it's just her and I on the little walk in the park near where she grew up, you know. Yeah. And uh I actually documented her every year because I only saw her pretty much Thanksgiving. I only saw her a little bit growing up, um once or twice a year. So every time I saw her, I document her. Maybe that could be a book of her growing, getting older over the years, you know. Yeah. So that's the thing, thinking about time, like, yeah. Some things just come into little projects without you even knowing it, you know? That's why I just keep shooting. Yeah. Shoot wisely. Pascal, I really appreciate your time, man. It's always a pleasure. Okay. Thanks for having me, man.

SPEAKER_03 57:42

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

Thank you for listening to Shoot Wisely. If you found something in this conversation that inspired you, moved you, or made you think a little differently, please share it with someone who might need to hear it. Your support means a lot, and it truly helps the show grow. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and leave a review or comment on your favorite podcast platform. Those small actions make a big difference and help more people discover these conversations. I'm your host, Amir Bahemi. And remember, create with intention, live with curiosity, and always shoot wisely.