I was given a bit of a taste of the life of an artist by a very good friend of mine. Avi is an amazing photographer who over the last couple of years encouraged me to pursue this passion of mine. He gave me an amazing opportunity to exhibit my photographs in his gallery in The Rocks earlier this year. Those of you who were there, know what I’m talking about - thank you for supporting me!

In planning this exhibition, the most important thing I had to do was decide which photographs I would display and in what format I would do this. This led me down one huge rabbit hole.

Firstly, I had to decide which of my images I would exhibit. Luckily, this wasn’t too difficult. I’d just recently shot a bunch of mainly Australian native flowers and Avi thought these would be perfect. The gallery was in the Rocks after all and well, you know…tourists.

Secondly, I had to decide on the size I wanted for my prints, the paper they would be printed on and the type of mounting. At this point I started to feel adventurous and spontaneous. I was channelling the art galleries I’d been to - New York’s Guggenheim and the Met, Hobart’s MONA, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. What size are their artworks and how are they displayed? This was rudely interrupted by my bank account telling me to calm the hell down.

So back to the decisions I needed to make. Let’s start with the paper. Did I want glossy, matte, satin or lustre? Have I considered metallic? There are literally thousands of options within each one of those. And we haven’t even talked about whether it will be fiber-based baryta, fine art rag, cotton fibre paper, alpha cellulose or canvas. Did we include recycled? And don't get me started on all the speciality papers. Have I Iost you yet? Do I need to *insert eyeroll?

So now we're up to deciding on the weight of the paper. Did you know the paper weight is specified in grams per square metre or GSM for short? The higher the number, the thicker or heavier the paper.

And make sure you print 16-bit tiff or psd (not jpeg) in the ProPhoto RGB (or at least Adobe RGB) colour space; the image has been non-destructively edited; has proper noise reduction and sharpening applied; and has ample pixels to print at the desired output size with little or no artificial interpolation. Say what?

coffee choices

I consider these choices akin to the coffee choices we’re offered. In a quest to offer a perfect tailored taste we have a choice between a variety of different beans (Arabica or Robusta), countries of origin (Colombia, Brazil, Ghana, Ethiopia,...) and roasts (blonde, medium or dark). Then there’s decaf or caf or something in between.

But picking a bean is only the first step. Next, you have to decide on a specific coffee style - Ristretto,  Espresso, Lungo, Macchiato, Cappuccino, Flat white, Café au lait, Turkish, Americano, Long black, Mocha, Caffe latte, Frappé, Irish coffee. Then comes the milk - full-fat, skim, lactose-free, soy, almond, oat, rice milk. Would you like sugar or honey or artificial sweetener?  

Apparently Starbucks offers a choice of 87 000 different drink combinations! Yep, Google it! It’s true.  At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Bar Italia in Leichhardt, Sydney advertises "No soy, light or skim milk.” Cash only. I get it. 

Oh, and while we’re on the topic of coffee - to that person who long, long ago, first looked at coffee beans and thought, 'You know, I bet we could make some kind of hot drink out of these things!'  I thank you - very, very much! 

I’ve digressed, but you get the point. I chose my images to be printed on lustre photographic paper which are mounted to a premium, gallery grade, aluminium composite panel and an integrated hanging system - in two sizes. These mounted prints are available here. You can also choose any other image on my website to be mounted the same way, in a range of sizes. Contact me to let me know if you have a particular image in mind.