Earlier this year, WhiteWall invited me to their New York offices to showcase their printing process. They called it a workshop — and everything was paid for by WhiteWall. The experience, which lasted a few hours, took me through some of their printing types and surfaces. Whitewall had asked me to bring a photo that was special to me for printing — which they fully covered the price of. It was delivered to me a while back, and it took me some time to figure out where I wanted to hang it and how I wanted to have it displayed.
I chose an image that I felt was very unique. It’s from my Sony a9 III review, and is a photo of birds at a bird feeder. But the specific technique that I used to photograph them hadn’t been previously possible. I used an insanely high shutter speed without high speed sync. Yet, during the morning hours, I shot the photo with full illumination with a flash. Only the Sony global shutter could do that. Of course, I’ve got loads of more artsy images, but this one was very special to me because I’m one of the few reviewers who did it.
WhiteWall’s print is great by the standards of everything that we’ve defined a good photo print by for decades. And to hang it up, I used some special instruments that I bought off Amazon. The print itself comes with some hanging hardware, but my apartment’s design has metal studs. And I didn’t want to use wall anchors.
The print is great and so is the framing — but it truly doesn’t bring me joy. However, that isn’t WhiteWall’s fault. Instead, it’s society’s fault.
The standard photo print these days doesn’t give the same amount of pop and inspiration that they have in the past. By all means, I can’t tell the difference between a WhiteWall print, one done by Millers, or one that I probably would’ve made in my own office. And for years, I’ve been making my own prints. Instead, I think that photography has to embrace the idea of becoming more about mixed media when it comes to bringing our images into the real world.
This would’ve been much more cool as a puzzle, having glitter sprinkled on it, or doing something else that’s very unique. Looking at one particular print is nice, but it’s nowhere as ncie as paging through WhiteWall’s books. That’s because the book is a sensory experience. For something to be a more stimulating visual experience, I need a reason to want to stare at the image for a longer period of time. And even if I printed one of my best photos, I don’t think that I’d want to look at it for all that long.
I say this as I own a Justin Aversano mixed media print. For reference, Justin Aversano sold one of the most expensive photos ever made — and we’ve featured him in the past. And every time I pass by his mixed media print, I feel something more because the print itself as an added layer of artistic intent.
And these days, we really just need more.
I hope that in the future, WhiteWall considers other ways to making their prints able to be more mixed media as I think that it will help photographers so much more in the future.