Prints That Win: Homestead

Veteran Michigan photographer, Kari Douma, has paid many visits to the winner’s circle at print competitions. Ever since her first competition in 2007, she has been capturing numerous show-stopping photographs that catch the judge’s eyes.

Her photograph, “Homestead,” is no exception. She won the Sunset Print Award at the PPA Northeast District in the spring, and was named the third-place winner at the National Sunset Print Awards in November. Coming across the scene captured in “Homestead” happened almost by chance.

An unseasonal spring snow in Montana inspired her to go for a ride in search of the perfect landscape. “We were driving on two track roads out in the middle of nowhere when I saw the scene and captured it,” she says. “I loved it so much that I wanted to come back at sunrise the next morning but I still liked the original one better from the day before.” After some slight editing in Photoshop, “Homestead” was primed to be a winner.

The Portrait Print That Wouldn’t Burn

Sunset Photo eSatin Paper
Shelley Bigelow and her daughter, Blakely, with the print that survived the fire that destoyed the family’s home near Manton, Mich.

A high-school senior portrait of Shelley Bigelow’s daughter, Blakely, rose from the ashes to greet her as she surveyed the scene of her home just devastated by a raging five-alarm fire near Manton, Mich. It was just about the only item that survived the fire. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

The print of her daughter was the lone ray of light in a black mess of soot, water and ashes that marked the spot where her home once stood.

Sunset Photo Paper“The picture was hanging on my office wall on the second floor and it went down through everything to the basement, and there she was looking at me,” recalls Bigelow. “We never found traces of the frame or the glass; just the picture. With seven hours of burning and five departments, the picture still smiled at us after all we went through.”

Judy Gilde photographed Blakely’s senior portrait session about three years ago. The 16×20 wall portrait found in the fire was printed by Gilde on Sunset Photo eSatin Paper, mounted on a dense mount board, framed and placed behind glass. Gilde does just about every type of photography imaginable in this rural area of northern Michigan, and prints her own work with an Epson Stylus Pro 7900.

“Sunset eSatin is our standard paper. When people pick up their photos they think there are three prints stuck together, and it’s just one print; that’s how thick it is,” says Gilde. “I always try to use the best photo papers and products for my work, but I never expected this kind of performance. She does need to have it replaced because the bottom half of it has smoke damage.”

Bigelow plans to keep the print, however, as a memento of a difficult time made somewhat less difficult with the miracle of photography and the print that wouldn’t burn.

“We’ll keep it forever, and we’re happy it survived. Judy told us it would withstand so much, but I didn’t realize how much it would withstand. She stressed how much quality was in the work, and she was right; the color is still brilliant even through the soot,” says Bigelow.

Prints that Win: The Bike Builder

The Bike Builder by Michael Timmons

Michael and Tina Timmons are Sunset Print Award regulars, in one way or another. Both are past Sunset Print Award-winners for their outstanding photography, but have also printed award-winning images for other photographers across the country.

The Timmons’ most recent Sunset Print Award was earned by Michael at the Professional Photographers of Michigan competition for this slice-of-work image entitled The Bike Builder. It is a stellar example of capturing the essence of the subject and the environment in which that subject works.

The Bike Builder owns Arizona Thunder in Bisbee, Ariz. Michael stumbled upon the motorcycle repair and restoration shop during a road trip in the area following the Imaging USA show in Phoenix this past year.

“Being a motorcycle enthusiast, I noticed a big Harley-Davidson sign outside his shop. We were taking photos in town and stopped in to find out more. I asked him if I could take some photos and he agreed,” Michael recalls. “As soon as I saw the environment I knew I wanted to do something for competition, because of the clutter, the old parts and his character. At the time I got the capture we were having a conversation about his business. I had a tripod set up at the counter, so this scene is what you see from behind the counter when you walk into his shop. He had parts from all different makes, models and years in the shop with two or three bikes he was working on at the time.”

The image you see here is essentially what Michael captured with his Canon 5D Mark II with a 16-35mm lens on a tripod. The lighting is all natural light streaming through the window opposite the subject. The image was then converted in Photoshop with nik Silver Efex Pro 2 to black and white with some minor touchup with Silver Efex.

“When you’re working with someone in their environment, the key is to pull everything together and tell a story inside their everyday workspace. He’s real easygoing and laid back; this is what he does every day, so the story tells itself,” Michael says.

For the presentation at competition, Michael printed The Bike Builder on Sunset Photo eSatin Paper 300g, an inkjet photo paper he uses almost exclusively for competition printing.

“We’ve tested a lot of papers and found that the image quality on Sunset Photo eSatin surpasses other papers we’ve tested. We print competition images for people all over the country and everything that goes out is typically on Sunset Photo eSatin and Sunset Fibre Elite,” Michael explains. “The details, highlights and shadows print a lot better and the white point is a lot higher. We also like the weight and thickness of the paper; it’s easier to handle and it’s a lot more durable than other papers.”

Prints that Win: As Long as One Man Believes

Photo by Amy Feick

An expert portrait photographer – primarily weddings and seniors – Amy Feick won a Sunset Print Award at the PPA Northeast District competition for an image outside her expertise.

Feick, owner of Twin Shutterbug Studios in Port Huron, Mich., successfully translated her eye for the human portrait to a portrait of the interior of an abandoned church in Detroit. The title of her image of the crumbling edifice, As Long as One Man Believes, references the lone chair set in a cavernous background; a reminder that this once beautiful church housed hundreds of worshippers.

“I think it’s the emotion of a place falling apart that should be sacred, but it’s not. I looked online after the photo shoot and saw what the church looked like prior to its abandonment, and in less than five years it had been scavenged and stripped out. In general, that’s what’s happened in much of Detroit,” explains Feick. “I was there with a group of photographers, one of whom is an urban explorer, and there happened to be an opening at a door that someone had broken down, so we went in. I liked the angle of the inside of the church and shot on a tripod I lowered to the floor, using a wide-angle lens to capture both the floor and the ceiling.”

Feick used only natural light coming through the windows and processed it using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro and did some dodging and burning to bring some areas out and dampen down others. “It was sort of monochromatic anyway, but in black-and-white it’s very simple and pulls you toward the lone chair in the middle, which kind of got lost in the color,” says Feick.

The final touch was the presentation on Sunset Photo eSatin Paper, printed with Feick’s nearly brand-new Canon iPF6400S inkjet printer. Since it was printed on Sunset inkjet media, Feick receives an iPad Air, in addition to the Sunset Print Award trophy, pin and gift certificate.

“I’ve been printing my own work for about two months. I was against doing my own printing for years because I didn’t feel like I could create the right color and look. A friend convinced me to try it, and I like it better: I like the saturation, color and detail I get printing my own work,” explains Feick. “I love it; I can send it to the printer and someone can pick up their print in five minutes.”

Prints that Win: Curves of Iris

Award Winning Print by The Portrait StudioMichael and Tina Timmons, owners of The Portrait Gallery, Vassar, Mich., have been featured here before for Prints that Win, but for their printing expertise. Sterling photographers in their own right, they also know how to print for competition, and print winners.

This time around, Tina is being honored for her capture of an Iris from her garden called Curves of Iris. Michael had quadruple bypass surgery (!) last year following a heart attack. We’re pleased to report that he’s recovering nicely, and the Timmons are back to their frenetic pace.

“Needless to say, we were home a lot more than we normally are, so I had more chances to enjoy my flowers. This year I didn’t get to see them at all,” says Tina. “I shot every day through the Iris season, and picked my favorite to enter in competition.”

The result was this beautiful rendition, which won a LexJet Sunset Award at the Professional Photographers of Michigan print competition. Tina says that her typical method for capturing flowers is to use a tripod and a macro lens, followed by some enhancement with Nik filters and some additional cleanup in Photoshop.

“Sometimes we’ll add a reflector fill outdoors, or we’ll do subtractive lighting if the flower is in open sun. We’ll use those tactics to control what lighting is available in nature,” Tina explains. “The Iris has a poetic motion about it with the leaves and the way everything blends together. When I work with any flower I’m very cautious about what’s in the background so there’s nothing distracting, including other flowers.”

The standard print medium for competition and the couple’s interior décor work is LexJet Sunset Photo eSatin, printed on an Epson Stylus Pro 9880 wide-format inkjet printer, which is then laminated. Though Curves of Iris was printed in the usual way, it was printed for this competition on a Hahnemuhle watercolor paper to provide a more fine-art look to the image.

Trade Show Displays Built for the Long Haul by Graphicolor Exhibits

Durable trade show exhibits
Graphicolor Exhibits (www.graphicolor.com), Livonia, Mich., produced this colorful, durable trade show pop-up display with LexJet Matte Light Block Polyester (12 Mil) and LexJet Elite Textured Coex Laminate (5 Mil).

The secret to creating successful trade show displays that bring customers back for more is durability. After all, as Glenn Braasch, production manager for Graphicolor Exhibits in Livonia, Mich., points out, you can’t control what happens to a display once it leaves your shop.

“We were always looking for something to help ensure that our customers weren’t coming back to replace panels that failed,” says Braasch.

The combination Braasch found to work with the company’s Mutoh mild solvent printer was LexJet Matte Light Block Polyester (12 Mil) laminated with LexJet Elite Textured Coex Laminate (5 Mil).

“We love this stuff. One of the benefits is the white point, which contributes to better color reproduction, but mainly it’s the durability of the 12-mil film with the overlaminate,” explains Braasch. “This combination helped us realize the goal of reducing the amount of re-prints.”

The display pictured here has six center panels and two end caps. For the end caps, Braasch used LexJet Matte Light Block Polyester (7 Mil) with the 5-mil laminate. The thinner material makes it easier to wrap the tight curves of the end caps.

“On any kind of pop up we use the 12-mil polyester with the 5-mil overlam; that seems to be a good thickness for roll-able pop-up panels. When we produce other displays, like retractable banner stands, we use the 7-mil printable material,” says Braasch.

These combinations strike a nice balance: not too thick, not too thin. Braasch uses a standard panel trimmer on a 4×8 table that has a clamping system. “It’s not anything special or secret; it just seems to trim nice, which may also have to do with the fact that we keep the total thickness of panel down so we don’t have to cut it with more than one pass.”