A photographers journey to creating Fine Art Prints
Since studying photography back in 2016 I have wanted to print my images for saleable artworks. I have printed and framed several shots for hanging at home but I have given myself the challenge in 2023 to make it happen and hopefully turn historical and new projects into fine art prints, create a passive income in the turbulent financial times, whilst documenting my journey to maybe help some others with the same dream. Despite my love of shooting beauty products - my real passion is flower photography and I have won several ‘honourable mentions’ and awards in the few images I have entered into competitions. Here are links to 2 of these: https://igpoty.com/competition-entries/cewb-55/ & https://photoawards.com/winner/zoom.php?eid=8-1652271527-22 . Looking back I would say this is the first place to start. Whatever your genre - get entering local, national and international competitions. This will both help to push you further with your abilities (its often scary looking at other competitors and historical winners, but don’t let that put you off entering) and help you understand what creates a ‘winning image’. The best thing about photography and art is that it is subjective - there is no right or wrong and it is down to the eyes of the individual competition judges what they see as a winning image. If you don’t win this is not a reflection of your ability, but a useful aid to keep pushing yourself and trying out new ideas. It is very useful to review carefully the previous winning image galleries to establish genres, themes and styles of historical winners to give you a guide to what might be preferable to the judges, but don’t let this discourage you from maintaining and developing your own style. Even writing this has kicked me up the bum to apply to some myself as I haven’t for a while…. But as I need somewhere to start I am going to proceed this venture, and my new blog, with the few that I have received some recognition for. The next advice I would give, again to myself, is to get out there and shoot. I often forget to explore with my camera as when you are stuck in a creative rut, feeling generally fed up or disillusioned it is easy to fall into a negative and unproductive cycle. One of my favourite personal images was when I was feeling low and down during my studies. I pushed myself to go out and experiment with an infra red filter and created some images that contributed to getting a First in my degree. It is also a memorable and unbeknown self portrait at that time and reminds me what great art can come of being in a dark place. Think how many musicians create their best work when they are totally flawed by life or love. Before you can even start thinking about printing you need to have a body of work you love, and ideally some good feedback from others both personally and professionally. So get out there, get shooting and get sharing….