prints

The benefits of printing your work by Maarten Rots

(Words and photos unless otherwise stated is by Maarten Rots. Maarten is an artist working with photography based out of Amsterdam. In his photographs you can see a sense of abstraction and surrealism found in everyday situations, captured by the camera. He loves printed photography and one of the ways he shares his work is through his self-published quarterly photography magazine March & Rock. Maarten will also give away a copy of of March & Rock. See the end of the article for details)

Digital photography is definitely one of the most important developments in photography of the last decades. One of its few downsides though is the fact that your work often remains virtual, it lives on electricity powered devices only. I have made it a habit to regularly print my photographs and have benefitted from it in several ways. Next to having a hardcopy backup it can be of great help to your process, becoming more aware of your own choices and interests, but also gives you new ways of sharing and presenting your work.

Don’t Miss Out: Signed Magnum 6×6 Prints for only $100!

Hey streettogs, pretty cool stuff: Magnum is selling signed 6×6” prints for only $100 at the Magnum Store! You can browse all of the photos here.

Over 50 Magnum photographers have submitted images that fits the theme: “An Image That Changed Everything.” Not only that, but they shared their personal stories related to the images.

The sale is only going on until Friday, June 12th at 8pm. Once the sale is up, they will no longer sell them. So get them while they’re hot!

Why squares? Instagram inspired, of course.

Prints I would love to have:

Martin Parr

“In 1982 I bought the newly released Makina Plaubel 55mm fixed-lens camera. With this shift from 35mm to 6 x 7, I also changed from black and white to colour. Later that year, I started my project on New Brighton called The Last Resort. However, the first project I shot in colour was composed of urban scenes from Liverpool. This image was on the second roll of film. It’s the first good photo I made in this new chapter of my work.”

David Alan Harvey

“This photo, which was the cover of my book (based on a true story), changed the way I worked forever. After this successful book in 2012, I totally changed my methodology. From that point forward, I focused only on my self-published books. I dropped doing assignments, and simply worked on personal projects and artworks. I never plan a change. Things just happen. I think recognizing when something revolutionary is going on in your creative life is the key. One needs to realize when a turning point is right before your eyes. It’s just like photography itself. Fleeting. Carpe diem. Miss it, and you’ve missed it forever.”

Alex Webb

“The sad, vibrant, tragic, beguiling country of Haiti has been key to my photography. After reading Graham Greene’s The Comedians — a novel set in Haiti that both fascinated and scared me — I made my first trip in 1975. But, photographing in black and white, I soon realized that something was missing: I wasn’t capturing a sense of the searing light and the heat — physical and, perhaps, metaphysical — of this country, so different than the grey-brown reticence of New England, where I grew up. I wasn’t dealing with the emotional intensity of my experience of this vivid and troubled land. So, when I returned to Haiti four years later, I decided to work in color. As I wandered through the porticos of downtown Port au Prince in 1979, I remember spotting this man with a bouquet of bulrushes — strikingly outlined against a vibrant red wall — just as a second man, in shadow, rushed by. I took the photograph and slowly began to realize it was time to leave black and white behind.”

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“Mime at St. Pancras” at Tom Kaszuba’s Crib

Tom Kaszuba is a very talented street/architecture/landscape/HDR photographer based in Norwich, Connecticut. He is a photographer that I look up to highly, as he was one of the first people who gave me a ton of support and love when I was starting off my street photography. We originally met at the Black & White Vision forum at Fred Miranda, and our relationship has been solid after that.

Recently on Twitter, I asked why people loved street photography. Out of all the responses I got, I loved Tom’s the best:

@tomkaszuba: My fave thing about street photography is making art out of real life.

To show my gratitude for his guidance through my photography and just having awesome insights into street photography, I sent him one of my favorite prints, “The Mime at St. Pancras.” He was even awesome enough to send me some photos of it hung up in his house! (That lovely lady in shot #1 is his wife btw)

Keep posted to see if you can win more photos from me ;)