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Showing prints at a photo club meeting

adelorenzo

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Mar 10, 2012
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Location
Whitehorse, Yukon
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Hi everyone,

I'm giving a presentation tomorrow to my local photo club. I plan to project some images (scans) a then I want to show some of my prints.

It's a small room with maybe 20-30 people so I figured I'd talk about a print and then pass it around for people to look at.

I'm not sure the best way to do this. Here are a few things I'm considering, all thoughts and suggestions gratefully accepted.

  • Just pass around loose prints. They are printed with a border for handling. Obviously the easiest thing but not as impressive.
  • Overmat the prints with the standard hinged mat and photo corners. Looks nice but the whole thing is floppy to pass around and the print could slip out.
  • Temporarily mount the prints on foamcore or mat board. This would look better than loose prints and also easier to handle. I don't know if there is a way to securely mount them and then remove them later, maybe double sided tape of some kind.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks!

Regards,
Anthony
 
There is something called "repositioning adhesive" I've seen at the art sore. It is spray-on, I think made by 3M. Don't know much about it, but it might be a quick way to temporarily mount to foamcore?
 
Anthony -

For my photoclub displays, I use 1/2 or 3/4" wide artist's tape to attach the print to the back side of the overmat. One long strip along each of the 4 edges of the back of the print, overlapping onto the backside of the mat. This holds the print securely to the overmat, but I can remove it without damaging the print or mat board.

For more rigidity, you can attach a backing mat board with 4 (or more) small pieces of double-backed poster tape. Enough to keep the 2 mat boards together for passing-around. This double backed tape (3M) is available in light or strong adhesives - the light adhesive should be enough. The strong adhesive is pretty tacky and may tear the mat board wheh you try to pull them apart.

Good Luck!
 
An alternative that I saw at a photo club and now use for our group is not to pass around prints, but to attach them to a mat board "easel" with binder clips and just have the group come up to the front of the room and take a look while the photographer is talking about the print. That way, the focus is on both the presenter and the print together, prints don't get dropped passing from member to member, and I find it's more social. One can engage in a dialogue about the print, and everyone can see what you're discussing.
 
A member of my Darkroom Group claims he should be entitled to royalties for this idea, but so far none of us have paid him any .

Make up a backing board and an overmat with a piece of mat board in between. The overmat is hinged to the backing board on one side and stuck with tape to the "sandwich" on the other. The in between mat board is cut with a slot open at the side, which permits you to slide the print in between the backing board and overmat - like large format film slipped into a film holder. Leave a slot cut into the backing board so you can temporarily fix the edge of the print in place using painter's tape.

They work great as re-usable presentation mats as well.

The only downside is that you need to use different ones for each size print.
 
Iwas horrified to read some of the responces(spray-on adhesive?,really?)OMGI suggest a portfolio binder to keep lose prints and pass that aroud,otherwise,I'd mount them all properly to show how much you care and respect prints but you don't have much time left.
 
Iwas horrified to read some of the responces(spray-on adhesive?,really?)OMG....
Yikes, sorry Ralph, I recant! Nix the repositioning adhesive! I thought since the meeting was today, Anthony might be looking for something fast. And if the prints are being passed around, I was guessing they might be "spare" copies or proofs rather than finished versions.
 
If you're using a digital projector, why not display all of them that way? Then the ones you also have prints could be left up front so the guests can look at after the show. Since i'ts there anyway, it would be easier to explain these to everyone while they look at them on the display screen.
 

But they would not look the same as silver gelatin prints, which is the whole point. Just because it is new technology and you can do it does not in itself make it the best for all things automatically.

Put the prints on easels and let people walk up to them.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone!

I ended up matting 5 prints in the traditional manner, then used double sided tape to stick the mat down to the mat board so I can pass it around without it all flopping out. Then I've got a portfolio of additional prints that I can pull out if needed. I think that should work.

Matt that's a great idea for re-usable mats. I'm definitely going to file that one away for the future.
 
The Wyandotte Camera Club in Kansas City KS displays mounted and matted prints on an easel for discussion, then passes the prints around so we get a proper look while the discussion is fresh in our minds.
 
Small child's magnetic white boards with 4 of those tiny powerful magnets holding the corners of each print.