What do you give the photographer who has everything?
Okay, stupid question. No photographer will ever admit to having everything. There’s always one more lens, the latest full-frame sensor body, a software upgrade… but those are things you should leave them to drool over and buy for themselves.
So let me rephrase that. What can you afford to give the photographer who has everything?
If the photographers you know are anything like me, they’ve got hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs that sit on a hard drive and seldom see the light of day. If they’re lucky images, they could get loaded onto Flickr or Facebook for strangers to see on their screens. If a shot wins the jackpot, it might actually get printed and put in a photo album, or even… drumroll… be framed and hung on the wall.
This will involve a trip to the photo lab, then another trip to pick the print up, a trip to the framer, and a second trip to the framer…
Bring on the canvas print, ordered on-line and delivered to your door.
On Friday afternoon, I tried out a new website: www.printwild.co.za. The way it works is simple. You go to the website, select the type of print or framing you want, select a size and decide whether you would like Printwild to do any processing for you (improve the colours, convert to black and white etc), and whether you want the shot to continue around the frame or not (this was a tough decision, but I decided against it). Then you upload your photograph and proceed to checkout. An invoice is emailed to you, so you can pay via EFT or credit card.
The best part, in my opinion? You can buy gift vouchers for the site.
Prices for stretched canvas prints start from R323 for an A4 print to R1492 for an A0 print. You can also order square and panoramic formats, or a custom size. Delivery of purchases over R300 is free anywhere in South Africa.
If canvas isn’t your thing, you can order various framed and mounted print options or loose prints (including loose canvas prints).
Because the ordering process is so quick and easy, I got to spend hours on the fun part: choosing a photo and processing it to perfection. Once the lucky winner was selected, it took three minutes to place my order. And on Wednesday morning (two working days later), my print arrived.
I was impressed by the speed of delivery, but when I unwrapped it, I was even more impressed by the quality of the product. The print is on a sturdy, solid wooden box frame. It is exactly as I specified and the colours match the image on screen (I did take care to export my image using the sRGB colour profile, as Printwild say that they use this). Although the canvas gives it a painterly look, the image is clear and sharp.
Everyone I showed it to exclaimed ‘Oh, what a gorgeous painting!’ or ‘Wow, that painting is so realistic I feel like I’m actually there!’ With a happy feeling of being unwittingly flattered as an artist, I could then inform them that it was in fact a photograph – my photograph.
Tonight I’m going to hang it on my wall. And then I’m going to go through my thousands of photographs again, looking for another lost shot that might have a chance of glory.
Now everyone knows what I want for birthday and Christmas presents…
P.S. If I didn’t do a good job of explaining how quick and easy it was to order my print, you can watch this video instead.
