FRAMES Photography Podcast
FRAMES Photography Podcast
Louisa Panetta
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In today's episode, W. Scott Olsen speaks with Louisa Panetta, an Australian photographer, printer, and educator whose lifelong involvement with photography spans darkroom work, sports, weddings, portraits, and photographic retail, now brought together through her work at Prestige Prints.
You can visit Prestige Prints website here.
I want to know how they want to see it on the wall. So I talk to them as much as I can to get as much information and as much passion, if that's the correct word, that they want to see in their photos.
SPEAKER_01This photography podcast is brought to you by Frames, a quarterly printed photography magazine. Here is today's host, W. Scott Olson, with another fascinating conversation.
SPEAKER_02Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another podcast from Frames Magazine. My name is Scott Olson, and you know what, gang? We're gonna do something today that we have not done very often, and frankly, we should do much more often. You know, the the the subtitle of Frames is Because Excellent Photography Belongs on Paper. Frames is a print magazine. There is something about the tactile pleasure of holding a magazine, a book, of a print in your hand that really does change the way we relate to photography. And even if we're not holding it in our hands, to see a print on a gallery wall or on a coffee shop wall, it's not backlit like a screen, it's not temporary, something that we're gonna swipe by within a microsecond. The physical print, the thing itself, is essential to the work that we do. And there are a lot of people out there that are photographers that are really into printing their own work. They have expensive machinery. They spend hours and hours and hours, you know, refining their technique as a printer. Because for them, the photograph is not only a digital file or a film negative, it is an artifact. It is a piece of art, a physical manifestation of whatever vision we've got out there. In other words, the print is important. The print is is essential. And we don't talk about that enough. So today we're gonna be talking with one of the very best, one of the new people out there. I shouldn't say new, we're talking 37 years of experience, but one of the in terms of a small business, a new person out there who is dedicated to the physical print, to the the aesthetics, the quality, the magic of a physical print. Uh in other words, we're talking with Louisa Panetta. Louisa's down in Perth, Australia. She runs something called Prestige Prince, uh, which is a printing company, obviously, down there. And a genius when it comes to what a print should be when we encounter it. Louisa, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_00Oh, very good. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. And, you know, I'll talk to anyone who wants to talk about photos.
SPEAKER_02Well, okay, let's talk about your history a little bit. Because, you know, you did not decide just last week um that you were going to get into printing and photography. You got 37 years of experience. And even before that, you know, you talk about being nine years old and taking pictures of a merry-go-round. So, I mean, yeah, t tell me how the camera came into your life.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, I was in the Perth Zoo and the Merry-Go-Round is still there. So let's put it this way: I'm 60, so and I take my grandkids there now. Um, well, I was nine years old, and my grandmother handed me this little box thing, and she said, Yeah, take my photo. And I went, Oh, okay. And I looked down because it was the good old box brownies, and um, and I saw my grandmother upside down in this little magic box thing. And um, I think I was hooked there and then. So obviously, she showed me the photo and I correlated the both together. It's like, oh, okay, then. So then my poor parents, mum and dad, they had to buy me the old 126 cameras and the 110 cameras, and um back in the what'd say early 70s, oh mid mid to eight late 70s, anyway. You had to send your rolls of film away, and you know, you wait two weeks and they came back and you know, you s saw what you got. Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_02At this point in your life, what was the magic, the the gadget that you had this cool toy in your hand? Was it the the the you know the act of composition and pressing the shutter release? What what was really speaking to you when you were nine and ten years old?
SPEAKER_00What I physically held in my hand. And I remember the old one two sixes and that because they were the square format ones, I would turn the camera on its side so it was more like a diamond shape. And mum would go, what have you done? I went, Hey, it looks good. Um so yeah, then I had a you know a room full of all these photos, and I, you know, had to work my little butt off to get the pocket money to process and buy them. So it was a it was a bad it was a habit from an early age. Um back in the late 80s, early 90s in our good old Kmart stores when the old mini labs came out. I found myself in these mini labs and learnt to read negatives.
SPEAKER_02Well, okay, now you know you know, before that, you know, you and all the rest of us, we would take our little canisters, you know, of negatives or whatever, and we'd put them in the mail or we'd drop them off at a you know drugstore. Yep. Um and then they would come back sometime later. Were you giving any thought at all to what was happening while they were away from you?
SPEAKER_00Not not as a child. Um but further along when I started working and I bought my first almost a Canon, Canon, oh I've got it somewhere. Um it was a little canon, oh my gosh. Yeah, little can it was a little canon. Um then because we bought that duty free no, my friend bought that duty-free for me. Um so yeah, so then I started buying my own films and you know, tag them off to the chemist to get to get developed because that's the only place you could get it. But then the mini labs came out when it was being installed and everything. I saw all these big tanks and whatnot going through, and then I um wangled my way into becoming the manager of the lab and everything like that. So, and that's where um you know we had the C41 and the EP2 at that time, that was the chemicals used for the film. That's when everything kind of like went, okay, this is this is how it this is how it happens, and I still love to this day, love the smell of bleach, not very good for you, but it really cleans the jewelry. It's a really good thing.
SPEAKER_02So, did you have a dark room at home? Did you did you have the you know the little bottle of HC110 and a larger and all that was it?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, and um after I got married and whatnot, um my husband was not impressed to find out that the back bathroom had been turned into a um little lab with like do not not do not open the door, and um, and that's where my mum, oh she's I've got it now. It was a she gave me a Kodak, a yellow Kodak box, which would have been back in the 50s. I still it still got the chem, some of the chemicals still in the paper bag in the little packets, so they haven't been opened. It was a box and it had everything in it. I had this enlarger and she gave me all her grandma, so my great-grandmother's negatives. Um so and my great-grandma was still alive at that time, so I printed one out for Nana, Nana James, and yeah, I got stuck on the dark room. I eventually sold that dark room kit because I was working in Vic Park, which was just popping a step from the Perth City, and the photographer who shot my parents' wedding, his son shot my wedding, and I said to George France at the time, I said, Um, can you teach me how to do you know hand painting? And he goes, No, no, go away, go and learn digital. He goes, Don't do this, do it. Learn the digital side. And I would have been all of like 20, something like that. So that's where I didn't learn to do all the hand painting and things like that because George growled at me and said, Go and learn the digital side of it.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Now, wh which came first? Working in the photo labs or having your own dark room?
SPEAKER_00Working in the photo labs. Yep.
SPEAKER_02Okay. For some reason, it that seems, you know, the reverse to me. That you know, a lot of people would say, I'm really digging, you know, having having you know the developer tray in my basement or my bathroom. Let me go do this as a job. But you went the other way.
SPEAKER_00No, I went, yeah, no, I went I I worked in the industry. Um then, you know, the old mini-labs that popped up in the old Kmart stores. I made sure I got into that area.
SPEAKER_02In in in my mind, those machines in the Kmarts and stuff were just all presets. You know, you you're not sure. Well, I say I mean I need you to educate me here because I I don't know what the the what the printer as a person did versus the machine when you got when you got 300 rolls of film every morning, you know, from all over the region, and you've got to get them out as fast as you can. Walk me through what used to happen when I would put my roll of film on the desk at at Walmart or K or you know, Walgreens, whatever, uh, and before I got it back.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so you'd get your little tags, so you can, you know, you know, we can match them up when they come back. The film goes through the process of C41, which is um just the developer, the stop bath, and and whatever. Um so you'd have to do put them onto leaders. So you could do two rolls at a time. Um, and you had to be careful because if you put slide film through with the see the with the C41, the films, you you you had to dump chemicals and and start again. But anyway, they go through it goes through, we've done that a few times so.
SPEAKER_02Could you correct that? I mean, so you could correct that.
SPEAKER_00No, once it once it's once that little box shuts and you put the film in and it goes through, and then you pull those canisters out to put the next one in, and you realize that it's an E6, it's not a C41, you say, Oh, holy. Holy Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh golly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, oh golly.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so now there's no there's no tweaking though, you know, at that point, right? Those are all presets?
SPEAKER_00No, oh yeah, it's it's all it goes through the chem the the um the processing, same as if you do it by hand, but but a machine does it and times it and do it. So once those negatives come out the other end, they're all dry and everything like that. And each you got Fuji, Kodak, you had boots, you had Agfa, every single roll of film had a different coloured base. So you'd have to in your printer, um, I used an arutsu, can't remember the model number, but I know that my first printer was an arutsu. You had channels, so you had to calibrate each morning the channels, so to make sure all the Kodaks Kodaks are red, got a red base. Fuji's got a green base, um, and Agfa that also had I loved Ag Fa film, um, that had a reddish, each each individual film had its own characteristics, right? Um, and then people would go, then I found out how film was actually created, I suppose. So all it film goes on a big humongous roll, this is what I was told. And the outer part of the film was the cheap film that you buy, um, not in the red dot stores or in the cheap stores. Um, then when it got closer to the center, that's where the quality film was. So the good Kodak film or the good Fuji film. And obviously each speed had it, you know, had its own thing. And then so you get your negatives and you have to wait for the machine, the light to to warm up in the machine. So you've got your first roll of film, might happen to be a Kodak. Okay, so you using the Kodak channel, I'm gonna make sure you put the right channel in, and then you your two your point of finger, and the next thing, you just slide the film through this little box, and you could actually see the negative, but you don't see the picture, you're only seeing the negative. So, and obviously negatives are reversed. So, if it was um hypothetically a green garden and a bride with a white dress, straight away, or you learnt that that green the green foliage is actually magenta in the negative, and you know that that is gonna cut throw a color cast. So, whenever I saw the green foliage, I would automatically take out a magenta and add a yellow because in those labs they're from memory they were subtractive, and in dark rooms it's additive colours. Always got them mixed up, but I think that's what it was. So, anyway, so um if you're if you're standing up against a pine, pine cabinet tree and things like that, you you as a human would have a blue colour cast. So you've got to take out the blue, which you add yellow into it.
SPEAKER_02So are are are you tweaking every? I mean, I'm telling I'm thinking mass production here. You're to every image that goes by?
SPEAKER_00Every negative back in the in in the those printing machines when you're printing film, every negative is was color corrected, and uh and then you add the density. So the negative was very light, it was underexposed. So you'd have to add the density into it, and then if the negative was really dark, there was a lot of light on it, so it could also be overexposed. So you had to judge whether you're gonna go plus one, two, or three or minus one, two, or three in the density side of things. Obviously, not all the times you got it right, but and then when the film and when it comes out the end of the machine, you you match the first and the last negative to the first and the last photo, knowing then you know you've got the right film to the right images, and then you go through and you just flick through these photos and you pick out the ones that correct color, you take them out and put them back with the film, and you reprint them again and make sure that they were the right one.
SPEAKER_02Louisa, this would drive me bonkers. I don't know. No, no, I would last about half an hour doing it.
SPEAKER_00No, it's amazing because you you see some people that you just want to make their photos uh they're when they get them back, they don't know the care that you put into it, but they just want to see, they want to see their memories.
SPEAKER_02Oh man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so sometimes I would some of you too picky said, Oh, well, I don't care. It's like I'm not paying for this paper, you are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay, you you say on your website, here's the quote working in photolabs felt like traveling the world without leaving home. And some of the images that came through gave us all a good laugh. So, okay, tell me a story or two about you know what would cross your eyes in a normal working day.
SPEAKER_00Oh, look, like I said, I basically have traveled back in the you know 90s, traveled the world world without leaving home. People would go on holidays, they'd bring their rolls of film in. I had three cheeky young lads come through and they'll be real smart asses, you know, oh I'll get my photos done, la la la. I said, yeah, whatever. So um, and printing printing their roll of film, there's these three young lads on the side of the road doing what boys do on the side of the road. So, and they, you know, had their shorts down to their knees, and so their butts were there. So I stuck that right to the front of the photos because when you gave the people their photos, you showed them the photos so that they recognize them. Pulled out these three white butts and I said, Um, do you recognise these? And they just grabbed them and and they're like they were just giggling to themselves when they took off. And and then at one time there was um this oh I would say grandfather. He came in and he was going, Love, can you can you love um do my photos? Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, not a problem, thinking oh yeah, whatever. And then there's him and his and his uh lovely wife, I would assume, on these tables with his negligents and high heel shoes. I think it's like okay, no wonder granddad was a little bit nervous when he dropped it off. But I do know what people did is what they did, and they wanted those memories, so you know, you had a good giggle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You but now you you know you went into being a photographer as a business as well. You did wedding work, you did portrait work. Is there is there a conflict between being a shooter and being a printer?
SPEAKER_00No, because um I worked for a professional photographer clo in in the you know in the community, and then through my mentor, Mitch Dale Neal, he has is one of uh uh one of Australia's was, he's retired now, one of Australia's leading um educators, he introduced me to uh Kevin and Wendy, and they had Aussies in Action, which is a sport company, and they had the big 24-inch printer, which was my baby. So I would go in and oh, I was like seventh heaven when I saw this printer. It's like yes. So I mean, Kevin told me short showed me a lot in Photoshop to do print. So what would happen is they'd go out and they would photograph a sporting event, then um come back, and then all those images were uploaded to their website, which Kevin took charge of doing all that, and then the orders would come in, and then that's where I would get the sheets, and I would pick out all the images, crop them, print them, blow them up, and then mail them off to them. And then it got to the stage that where they were quite busy, and they said, Oh, do you want to come out and photograph as well? So um I did. So we I went out with them and we shot things like the Avon Descent, which is the longest white water um race, I think, in the world. Oh my, yeah, um, and we'd go out and we'll shoot the Rotto Swim, which is I think about an eight-kilometre uh swim from Scarborough Beach to Rotness Island in amongst um two tidal, is it tides that come together? So it's really rough water, okay. Um, and obviously there's a good old sharks, but no one ever tells you that there were sharks in the water. But anyway, you know, thousand swimmers swimming this thing, and I'm just going, I'm at the end at the beach going, oh I'm glad you got made it back. And then we would go and we would do the local kiddies um football teams or softball or soccer or whatever. So you'd have about 20 teenagers in a room jostling each other, being total idiots, and you'd have to get these 20 kids to look at you. And at that time, I was I was teaching martial arts as well, so I kind of like put the old karate voice on, and most of them complied, but you know, the obviously you're gonna have Billy Joe who always is gonna take a stupid photo. So, you know, you'd take about 10 photos of one group of kids. So when back in the lab, I would have to take heads off of one photo and put it on the other one just so that the picture Yeah, and you never never ever ever trust a phone.
SPEAKER_02No, yeah. That's well, no, the the reason I'm asking is because these days, you know, um a lot of us when we raise the camera to our eye, if it's a challenging situation, you know, low light or backlight or something like that, in in our head there's always that phrase, oh, I can fix this in post. Um, you know, the w what you can do in Lightroom or Photoshop or you know, whatever program people use, that's part of our imagination when we're actually shooting. I and what I was wondering is back before we had that kind of control, whether or not being a printer, you know, would you raise the camera at a sporting event or even if you're just doing a portrait. Thinking, oh, I can fix this in the dark room. I can fix this in the machine.
SPEAKER_00With the group shots, I knew I could. So uh it was a case of getting these kids off and getting the next lot on. So it was a process. It was time versus money. Um, so I knew I could do that. But when I'm out doing um weddings and things like that and family photos and that, it's I was very conscious of the fact the less time in the dark room, or in my case was the computer, the better. So it's what is it, measure twice, shoot once?
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00So yes, it it it all it and to this day, you know, even when I go out and do landscapes, it's like okay, that pole there, if I move, you know, half a meter to the left, that pole won't be there. So I try to do as minimal amount of Photoshop in any any image as possible because I don't know, I'm probably old school where I say if doing the editing isn't really Photoshop. It isn't really photography. You're a digital creator versus a photograph. Photographer takes it, takes it once. I think, yeah, I think that's what I'm trying to say.
SPEAKER_01Let's take just a quick break. We hope very much that you're enjoying today's episode. The very fact that you are listening to this podcast suggests that photography means a lot to you. And if that's the case, you might want to have a look at Frames Quarterly Printed Photography Magazine. We truly believe that excellent photography belongs on paper. Visit readframes.com to find out more about our publication and use the coupon code Podcast to receive a recurring 10% discount on your new Frames magazine subscription. And now back to today's conversation.
SPEAKER_02Fast forward now to you know the the you know contemporary world where everything's digital, most photographers you know that are going beyond their cell phone have access to some post-production software of some sort. And and so the things that used to be in the dark room, dodging, burning, whatever, are not part of the printing process anymore.
SPEAKER_00Are they well? When when I first, because I also worked in a camera store, which we've got camera house here, so I learned a lot, you know, you met a lot of people, you played with a lot of cameras, um, and people would come in and go, you know, I've just bought this camera and now I'm a professional photographer. And they'd say, I'm not, it's still photography. And I'm going, well, you dodge and burn in the dark room, don't you? And they go, Yes. I said, but you can dodge and burn on your computer. So I would try to explain to them that I don't I got got rid of the dark room, and then I got the old, you know, 128 gigabyte of RAM, my first computer, but my computer actually became my dark room because I didn't having known how to print negatives, I just transferred that knowledge to the computer. And like, yes, I still dodge and I still burn and I still crop and I still zoom. The only to me, the only difference is you can actually use, you know, if you're really, really slack, you can you know use the AI to take out the tree in the background. Where before, you know, back in the day you'd clone it or you'd do something to get rid of it. But I in that terms, when you're ready getting an image ready to print, my monitor is my dark room. Except now, you know, you've got histograms and you can do it, you know, you and you've still got your filters, you've got your red, green, your green, your blue filters, which you when you're doing black and white, you would use a red or green or blue filter in the dark room. So I printing-wise, I don't see much of a difference.
SPEAKER_02Tell me these days, you know, I d let's say I've, you know, I'm relatively competent, you know, at um taking an image and relatively competent at post-production. I bring it to you for printing. Tell me what the challenges are now. Tell me where the magic is. Um, I mean, there are different printing outputs. You know, it can be a silver gelatin, it could be, you know, whatever else. But where is the where is the art and the magic of printing if what you're being given is a fairly competent digital file?
SPEAKER_00Oh, if it's a competent digital file, I look at it and I say, and for me, I see an image and I go, oh, that needs to be printed on a gloss, or that needs to be printed on a rag, or that needs to be printed on a barata paper. Knowing all the papers that are out there this day and age, it's like, oh no, you've got to print it on here. Just recently, I printed um a guy down in Secret Harbour, which is about 30 minutes away from me, um, and he's taken some lovely landscapes. And he so he brought up his file digital files, and we sat at my computer, bought them up, and said, Okay, yep, you've taken them a good quality, so yep, you can blow up to this size. So that that that was all good. I said, Now the trick is what paper do you want it on? And he goes, Well, and he goes, Well, gloss or mat. Oh no, don't worry about just gloss or mat. No, and then you know, because you know, you got this little stash. I got my stash of papers. Um, so we went through the papers and he picked out a beautiful paper, and yeah, so he he left it with me. And then I just you wanted 20 12 by 16. Because he he when he did it, he did it on, he obviously um edited it on his laptop, which the lighting is different from a laptop to a calibrated monitor. So his was a lot darker than what well, yeah, his images were really dark on my computer. And I said uh I I contacted him, said, Um, can I play with this? And he goes, Yeah. So um, you know, one of it was a a bridge, and it was like early morning, so I just whether the light rays were on this bridge, I just dodged them. Yep, I dodged them and like I just brought it basically hand painted it with the dodging and the burning just to do different to me, it gave it depth rather than just a flat, you know, you do your histogram and you do your levels and your curves and boom. No, I I have to I have to go in and play with basically every image from what I how how I see it would look on paper.
SPEAKER_02And and the different paper, I mean forget printer profiles. You know, the paper profiles are substantially different. There's a company here in the States that I use every now and then. And and if I select what they call their art paper, I know my standard image is going to be way too dark. I have to boost it if I'm using that paper.
SPEAKER_00If you did your image the way that you saw on your calibrated monitor, once you put the the profiles in, you use the correct profiles for that particular paper, it should be what what they show in their website is do you want standard paper or art paper?
SPEAKER_02That doesn't tell me anything. So you know I just know that the you know the art paper, whatever it may be. Um just out of curiosity, how many papers roughly are out there?
SPEAKER_00Oh well, I was doing a quote a quote for a gentleman for his to reproduce his artwork, and I got him a choice of nine papers, which I think which I think is totally gonna confuse him because he just wants his artwork printed, um, reproduced and printed. And I'm going, well, this will bring out this and this will bring out that. And um, hang on a second, let me have a look. I have got just for one brand. I've got five twenty one different papers for one brand of paper.
SPEAKER_02Oh, are those textures, are they brightnesses?
SPEAKER_00Are they there's this is I can never say the name properly, so I do apologize. Horn it's a German one, Hornemul?
SPEAKER_02Yep, I know I know what you mean. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna try it myself.
SPEAKER_00I've I'm after all the I still cannot say they tell me every single time. But there's um you've got rice papers, a photo rag, um, with with a bright white, and then um you've got the the textured ones, which is like German etching and torch and and William Turner, and then you go to the glosses, which I haven't got any glosses on here, but then you've got canvases as well. So becoming familiar with these papers now, I see an image and I go, oh, that would look really good on that paper, you know, with a textured one. Or I was up my one of my boys is in Darwin in the defense, and I was up there on the way at Christmas, and so I got onto one of the you know, I love Darwin pages, and there's some amazing um photographers up there, and I just go, Oh, you should print that on a gloss, and they go, Oh, what? And I go, Yeah, print that on a gloss and you know, put it in this kind of frame, and they go, Oh, okay. It's like, who is this random woman telling me how to print my photos?
SPEAKER_02But I Jim, but just out of curiosity, I bring you a picture of an iceberg, and there's lots of blues or you know, lots of you know, off-whites and stuff. What are you gonna tell me to put it on?
SPEAKER_00Straight away my mind went to a textured matte.
SPEAKER_02Okay, why is that?
SPEAKER_00Because it would to me, it would probably bring out the 3D effect of the colours of the blues in in the icebergs. Mind you, the closest I've come to seeing snow is defrosting the freezer. So I'm just imagining what Louise, I I I live in North Dakota.
SPEAKER_02We have snow 12 months of the year.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I am so envious. I went to Tasmania two years ago because my friend goes, This is the time of the year that the the snow is, and we have the northern southern lights.
SPEAKER_03Southern lights, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um two days after I went home, she got it all, and I was just like, no.
SPEAKER_02So, okay, I I'm a relatively competent tourist, and I have yet another picture of a Luru. What are you gonna put it on?
SPEAKER_00That would be for me a um bright white, because you've got all those reds, and you want the contrast that that'll bring out the contrast of all those those reds, and um do you know depends what if it's a dark sky or a light sky, but the ochre colours in those reds, if you put that against a bright white paper, would be stunning to me. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Is there such a thing? And I'm not talking, you know, um paper that is better for black and white than for colour?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, I've got a Epson um because I had to buy a new printer, hence prestige. I had to buy a new printer, and I had to do because the cost of the inks, you know, you have to sell a kidney to get those. So I thought, well, I better make some money to make my photos, so I better, hence, prestige prints came out of the riot, the Phoenix fires. But with the Epson printer that I got, um you get a voucher, and of course you have to spend it. Um, so I bought some traditional paper which looks like silver halide paper, so it looks like the good old black and white paper. But the paper that I really love, I haven't been able to find, um, is a paper that actually looks like SuperCrome, which is looks like your slide, like your slides, and yeah, I'm still looking for that paper.
SPEAKER_02You know, what one of the things that that frightens me about getting into printing is is simply the cost. And not only the cost of the machine and and the cost of the ink, but the cost of my inexperience. Because what I can see is I buy I buy a nice printer, I buy a good set of ink, I hit print, it comes out and it's not quite right. So I print it again. Well, closer. And suddenly I have 85 prints, of which 84 I don't like. Um, does that go away with time or is that just an occupational hazard?
SPEAKER_00It's it's just damn, I should have done this. Then you go back and you redo it, and you know, you might dodge a dodge a level or dodge a curve or do something there. But I've kind of like got my printer to to behave, to do what I tell it to do now.
SPEAKER_02It's like you are magic, okay.
SPEAKER_00It's either that or throw it out the window. But you know, it's it's it's also yeah, it cost me a bit to get it, and the inks, I think the inks cost just as much. But no, I it does happen. So when I know that I'm doing um a rather large image, um, I've always got my A4s, which is my my little stash, but I use that as a tester, so I can print just a strip. Like if there's one area that's got you know a lot of contrast, and then there's a lot of shadows in it, I can take a strip of that, put it on my stashy paper, and print that, and then that will tell me how it's actually going to look physically because no matter what you do, what you see on the screen, there's always a slight difference to what comes out. That's the way it's just the way that light refracts and and how what paper obviously that you're putting it on. But I I can I've learned to do tests on on the very, very, very expensive ones. And then when I worked in the camera shops and things like that, once you know, you still print them by hand. It's like, oh well, I could have done this, but let's just send it out, and if the custom comes back, we'll we'll we'll we'll do it again.
SPEAKER_02The collaboration between shooter and printer strikes me as as really interesting. So let's say, you know, okay, you know, I'm a photographer, I'm fairly good, I have no interest uh in investing a you know a mortgage and into printing stuff, but I want a good print. I call up Prestige Prince. Tell me about the relationship, you know, not just the products, but a photographer calls you up and says, let's work together. What do both sides bring to the table?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so the young gentleman that I spoke about before, he bought in his laptop and his hard drive. So, and I, you know, obviously I work from home. Um, lucky enough to have a big enough house where I can have a lab in my dining room.
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, Louisa, just as an aside, I can imagine a real estate company saying, you know, we ought to we ought to start marketing homes, saying that the bathroom is darkroom ready. Or that the basement is, you know, we have the rough ins for a dark room. There's probably a lot of people that would check.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I reckon so too. But anyway. Well, but let's because I worked in labs long enough, I knew what what I needed. So, like my scanner is, you know, I had to sell my firstborn to get the scanner. Um, but it it scans everything. You know, and it's it's a in a later model than what half the labs have got in in the retail stores. But um, but anyway, you know, the young gentleman come in with his stuff, so he and he brings up, tells me and shows me on his laptop what he wants. So then obviously I write down what I want and like talk to him where you're gonna put it. I want to know how they want to see it on the wall. So I talk to them as much as I can to get as much information and as much passion, if that's the correct word, that they want to see in their photos.
SPEAKER_02Tell me why it matters if I'm gonna hang up, you know, let's let's say I've got an image, I'm gonna hang it on a green wall in a dark hallway outside the bathroom versus over the fireplace in the living room. Why does that matter to the printing?
SPEAKER_00The finished product has to evoke an emotion when you look at it. So if you're gonna look at an image on a green wall, you'd want a bright image. You want the you want it to complement the image, not the other way around. Um first of all, I'd say paint your walls because green is gross.
SPEAKER_02So you you're an interior design company as well. Um, I look no, this is exactly why I'm asking because I I love the collaboration bit. So, okay, they they come in and you say where's it gonna go? What happens next?
SPEAKER_00Um, and then we obviously decide on the size because some people want it humongous and it has to be relative to the ratio of the wall, because you don't want it to take up everything. You want you want people to walk past it and that image needs to catch their eye, needs to be the centre of attention on that wall. So where you place it to me is is relevant as well. A lot of mine, well, most basically all my images at home, um, I've got a black frame with a white mat around it, whether it's black and white colour or or whatever, because to me, your eye automatically goes to the white of the mat, because that's that's what stands out the most. Um, and then you get drawn into the image, and if you stand two or three feet or a couple of meters away from it, and you find someone standing there looking at your photo on the wall, you know you've done right because they're actually standing there and looking at it, and whether they like it or not doesn't really matter because A, they don't have an emotional contact to it, and B, it's created an emotion in them. It's um they like, oh my god, I love it, I love it, I love it. That's created a really happy emotion, but it's like, oh, okay, it's nice. And you do you just want to smack them and say, Look, took me ages to get that shot, but anyway, they've that's also created a an emotion. It's a it's confronting them, it's making them think, Do I like it or don't I like it? What do I like about it? What don't I like about it?
SPEAKER_02Their composition and your talent and presentation really do form a partnership.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. You have to I like to develop a relationship with the actual person themselves. So you and then you can understand what they were trying to capture. Then you sit for an hour. No, not not that long, not that long. Um then you try to create it on on the on the screen, and then the scary bit is when you press print, it's like, did I do it right? Is it is it gonna come out? And then you look at it and you go, if if I like it as a print, I know they're going to like it.
SPEAKER_02You know, what what I'm thinking about here, B, because you know you mentioned um you know matting and that kind of stuff. Does it matter to you if I come in and and I have a framing um idea in head? Let's say I'm one of these people that loves gargantuan mats and a tiny little picture in the middle, versus I want, you know, a half-inch white border around the whole image. Does that matter to your choices of paper and to the way you produce the image?
SPEAKER_00Yep, absolutely. If you've got um, when you say the the thick mat, I'm thinking square, um, then you've got this humongous thick mat and this eight by eight inch photo or four by four inch photo. You want that means the the viewer needs to get it up and close to it. Um, if it's a black and white, let's throw it on a on a textured paper, or do you want it super duper gloss, depending on what the image is. But once I know what the viewer wants, I don't know, things just pop into my head. Cool. Whether it's right or wrong is a different story, but well, hey, if I like it, that's all that matters.
SPEAKER_02I I I was talking with a commercial printer the other day and was told that the trends these days are metal and acrylic. Yes, yes. And and it's okay, professional opinion about metal, acrylic, canvas, um, all the all the things that are not what we would normally call photo paper.
SPEAKER_00Back in the day when I went in the camera stores, we would print on metal. It was absolutely stunning. The colours that would come out of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The only thing is, like you once again, you sometimes have to print one image four times to make sure it actually adheres to the metal and everything like that. And I'm printing it on acrylic is absolutely lovely. I love it. Then just recently I went up to my little dealer up in the city, Team Digital, um, and Ben comes, goes, Oh, look, look at this, look at this. And he was actually printing a photo which had dimension, it was like 3D. And it was absolutely I'm going, Ben, I love it. How much is this worth? And he goes, Oh, about three and a half. Oh, yeah, I don't like it that much, but you know, it's the new thing that's coming out. So now you can have a photo that is basically 3D. And that's that's the latest trend that's that's coming out now. And obviously, you know, you can print on magnets and and whatnot. So um, but I love the metal printing, the high gloss metal, the depth that you can actually see in that is just stunning.
SPEAKER_02There there was a um camera store, not not a printer, but a camera store here in town that used to print on metal, but they would not do black and white on metal. And I said, why? And they said, because their production house, whoever they send it off to, it would all come back green. And they f you know, whatever happens, they could not correct that. Now, mind you, the store right next to them had no trouble whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say, if it's coming out green, they just haven't got their um calibration correct. Because the same thing would happen on black and white film when you pro back in the day. You'd have a hue through it, a green hue or a magenta, which means your um your calibration's not right. So that's what their problem is.
SPEAKER_02Well, it did yeah, and and you you would say that and they would nod their heads, but then they just simply said it's so many of them came back bad. Um they stopped doing black and white on metal. But Louisa, as a photographer who is, again, relatively competent with Lightroom and Photoshop, what is the best thing I can bring to you? Uh it's not only a print that looks the way you know I want it to on a good monitor, but I really should bring to you my ideas about placement, about framing, about the stuff. Will you tell me no at some point and say that's a really dumb idea?
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. I got no no I got no shame in saying that. Um if like I've had one lady come and she's got a she wanted a printed on gloss and it's gonna go behind um a really she had a I don't know what sort of glass it was, but it was a really reflective glass. And I said, Oh no, we're not doing that. And she goes, Well no, I said no, because you know, you're gonna look at it, you're gonna have hot spots when you're looking at it, and she goes, What's a hot spot? I said, It's when you can't see the photo because of the glare, basically. So I talked her into doing it on a mat, and she when she said later on, she goes, Oh my god, that's absolutely beautiful. And then there'll be some people that come in and because digital cameras, phone cameras have got a different ratio. So back in the Dome, everything was a two by three ratio, which is basically 35 mil. So, and that's what all the frames are, commercial frames are, um, based on you know, 8x10, 8x12, whatever. Um, and I'm finding recently the people um sending in stuff through their mobile phones, they have their ratio set to a 4x5, or their set to um 9 by 16 ratio, and they want you to make it trying to put a square peg in a round hole, it just doesn't work. So I contacted this lady, it was um her wedding photos, and I said, Look, I'm gonna have to make I'm gonna have to make the canvas bigger, and I'm gonna have to create the edges, and she was absolutely fired by that, and that's and I do say that's where AI is fantastic. It just I just did told it what I wanted it to do, and it did it, and it was only like an inch on either side, just to change the ratio so that actually fits her frame. So commercial-wise, AI is can be good, otherwise I would have had to recreate it all by hand, and then I wouldn't have been happy because the lady ordered them off the internet, like she ordered it online. Um, but I I mean I could have told her, look, I can I have to crop it, which would have crop cropped out her wedding dress and everything like that, but I couldn't do that. I would rather spend that time and recreate the edges so it'll fit the frame that she had for it, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Is there a print by a by a pro, somebody who knows what they're doing, that was particularly challenging or that you're particularly proud of in the past?
SPEAKER_00I had I remember taking a fill of an image of Bustleton Jetty and I did it on slide. And there wasn't it was just it's horrible to say, Oh no, you guys have just um had it over there. It was just after 9-11, and there was an old man on the jetty, and he says to me, I hope you're not doing anything untoward here, and I go, No, no, no, I'm just taking photos. But he was actually still in that photo, and then printing it on slide, I someone bought it and put it in an office in the city, and I had to get that printed. Oh, it's like over a meter, and I'm thinking, oh my god, this slide is is it sharp? Is it but it turned out absolutely beautiful, and I couldn't, I obviously at that stage, this is back in the early early 2000s, um, I had to have that printed through um I think it was Fitzgerald's one of the one of the the city's leading leading printers up there, and yeah, that was that was scary for me because then I had to get it tra um framed for him and yeah, and then when he came and picked it up, he absolutely loved it. But yeah, it was it was challenging because I didn't know and I wasn't in control of how the output of this image was gonna come. It's like this is the size that I want, you can do it. Yeah, that was it was out of my control, which I didn't like, but it was it was a gorgeous image.
SPEAKER_02I I gotta tell you, you know, I I am really impressed with the history and and the work you're doing. And equally scared that one of these days I might get the printing bug myself and then you know have to sell two kidneys to be able to buy the ink. Um but it's it is an art. And and I guess you know, God love you know, you you and people like you when I show up uh and say, I'd love to print this, and you say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, just let's chat. Let's let's have a conversation first.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, basically. Well, I always always say to my friends, all artists have an easel. Mine is light.
SPEAKER_02I love it. Very cool. Thank you, ma'am. I have enjoyed this conversation immensely.
SPEAKER_00Oh, awesome. So have I. I hope I've said the right things.
SPEAKER_01Frames. Because excellent photography belongs on paper. Visit us at www.readframes.com. That's readframes.com.