If you can’t print it well, print it big, or The Fool’s Guide to Success

Years ago, when I was a photo student at RIT, there was a sort of underground dictum that went something like, “if you can’t make it good, make it big.” This was typically a sort of misguided approach to trying to salvage a bad print or image. You can’t argue with the idea that big prints are impressive when done well, however a big print of an image that lacks power, drama, interest or insight is just a big print. On the other hand, a big print of a powerful image can be all that much more powerful, captivating and interesting. Size does matter but not nearly as much as content or quality. Smaller prints used to be much more common in galleries, museums and other venues. The emergence of inkjet has allowed us to create high quality small and big images at reasonable prices on both “desktop” and large format professional printers.

While many audiences have responded to greenphotoprint.com’s green approach, the artists and photographers we work with remind us every day that while “green is nice, quality is paramount.” That’s why I strive every day to be the best printer I can be. Quality, whether small or large, in ideas and prints, is paramount. Green is growing in importance every day. And as more images get bigger and bigger, the green aspect grows in importance. However, we will never sacrifice quality to be green in fine art, photographic or commercial applications, small or large. Fact is, museum, gallery, photographer, artist or business, you can have both.