Printing your work helps you understand your photography in personal vs your 5k display. This is a part of your photography process. A process that has been forgotten and replaced by smartphone and computer digital display nowadays.
Printing can give you the same amount of fun, great time and satisfaction versus the satisfaction of a photo taken in a lifetime vacation in my opinion. It packs with new knowledge and technique in your output phase, from selecting the type of printer for printing, ink and paper, each of this would give you a different look, you can alter all of this at your preferences on the print.
You can also verify and improve your skill, such as the composition, lighting and post-editing. Any defects in your camera or errors such as slightly out of focus on the subject will be magnified on the print. Yes, you can zoom in to see it up close on the display, but it is not easy to spot them. You may need to move your mouse and scroll the screen back-and-forth many times to find it. There could be other constraints too, such as low resolution and colour inaccurate display you may own will affect your self-critic analysis, simply because you can’t see them.
Please print big. The purpose of attending photo galleries from your favourite photographers are not just to hang out with friends or to meet the photographer. You should also appreciate the visual impact that the photographer was trying to deliver to you. They tend to present their work in large print, starting from A3 in general, the bigger the better visual impact on the audience. An example of a normal head-on passport photo could have a profound visual impact when printed in human size, examples of Richard Avedon and Shirin Neshat.
Richard Avedon
Shirin Neshat
I print my work at school (Canon Pro 4000) not just for my project portfolio. There are some other things too, anything from favourite photos, test shots, as well as photos taken from the iPhone. I send prints to my model as a thank you gift.
You can order prints from a print lab online, the cost effective option, or getting a professional photographic printer where you can further tune it and your digital file for maximum quality. A3 is easy to keep, if you have bigger than that and don’t have space to hang them, you can give print to your friends and your online social followers to have them hang your print in their house, other than having them to pick what IKEA offers. You can use print to encourage friends and followers to start their photography. So, don’t let your work become the digital past.
