Prints That Win: Thunder Waiting for Dakota

One afternoon, Fort Mitchell, Ky.-based photographer Joseph Ruh’s wife suggested they visit a friend’s farm. Upon arrival, they were greeted by Thunder and Dakota, two of the resident horses. They spent the afternoon walking around the farm and photographing both horses. A split-second decision of Ruh’s would land him in the winner’s circle for the Sunset Print Awards.

Thunder was so close, pinning Ruh against the fence. “I almost missed the shot, but then thought to myself this angle could be really neat,” he says. When he and his wife returned home, they looked at the photos. His wife saw the up-close shot and persuaded him to enter it into the competition.

Photography is something that’s always come naturally to Ruh, ever since he was young. Growing up, he had a neighbor who was an artist and worked for Gibson Greeting Cards. He was the one who inspired Ruh to get in touch with his creative side, through both painting and photography. It was photography, however, that stuck with Ruh.

“I wasn’t great at painting, but I could take a photograph,” he says. “My father had cameras around his house, encouraging me to start shooting with an 8mm video camera as early as 9 years old.” Ruh and his father would eventually switch to film cameras.

Even while working in electronics in the military, he still found photography interesting. Stationed in Germany, Ruh learned to work with black and white and grew to love the medium as he developed photos in the photography lab on the fifth floor of his dormitory. Fast forward to the 1970s when Ruh took a 3-month probationary job as a photo-journalist at the Kentucky Post. For five years, he shot everything from editorials to sports. Eventually, he took a job at Northern Kentucky University as a staff photographer in the marketing department.

Ruh would work at the University for over three decades, photographing everything from sports to biology classes (his favorite). “I really loved the science aspect, especially using a 15mm macro lens to shoot dissections in the class and sitting in on the lectures.”

To this day, Ruh won’t travel without his camera. Whether riding his bike or driving his car, he has his camera next to him so he can take pictures of anything from landscapes to flowers to trees. He currently works as a commercial photographer for contractors and builders but also enjoys also taking photos for fun. “I enjoy the freedom of creating self-assignments to take pictures of what I please.”

Ruh appreciates the ability to enter competitions, such as the Sunset Print Awards. “I like receiving feedback from the judges and other competitors,” he says. “I can see what I am doing right and what needs improvement.” He likes the guidelines provided through the PPA’s 12 elements and ensures that his photos encompass each one. He enjoys editing his photos because he feels that is an important part of the competition process, “[editing] helps me see my work from other viewpoints.”

Stating he can’t get enough of photography, Ruh finds inspiration for his work in everything from art magazines to television to his model airplanes. He considers the different angles, frames and focus that he can use to make something ordinary into something extraordinary through an image. Using an EPSON SureColor P800 Printer and Sunset Photo eSatin Paper helps him print award-winning images and gives him complete control over the entire process, from capture to print.

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: 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: Temptress

Temptress by Pete Wright

Pete Wright’s photography is all about capturing and producing the tiniest details, from the initial setting all the way through to print. It was Wright’s attention to detail, in addition to his technical expertise, that made Temptress a Sunset Print Award winner at the recent PPA Southeast District competition.

Wright pulled out all the stops for this photo shoot, which he did for a clothier and a jeweler. Both clients gave him free reign to produce images that would make them shine. Wright chose to render the images in his signature style, Film Noir.

“I went to both of my clients and told them what era I was shooting, so they pulled out vintage clothing and jewelry. We had a hair and makeup artist come in and created the look we wanted for the models. Then I went on a hunt for a location and found a music studio that had created a speakeasy bar authentic to the era with the correct lighting and fixtures,” explains Wright. “My lighting style is different because I still shoot in the way they would have shot in the ’20s and ’30s. I don’t use any kind of modern soft boxes. Instead, I use modifiers like Fresnels, Snoots and Barn-Doors that are more appropriate to the era so that the lighting is very dramatic and the shadows very purposeful. And, when you have someone sitting for a photo, they know they can’t move and you pose them exactly the way you want them to so the light falls just right.”

Wright adds that he also rented vintage furniture and appointments, like a crystal decanter from the era, and had the hair and makeup artist and experts from the clothing and jewelry store on hand to make sure everything about the scene was perfectly in place so that he could concentrate on the lighting and capturing the image.

Wright shot the male and female models together and then separately. For Temptress, Wright directed the female model to sit in the chair, pick up the cigar and to “act like she owned the place.” He says it’s important to set the scene for the models so they exude the attitude needed to tell the story the image is meant to portray.

“A lot of the strength of the image was in how it was lit, the confidence in how she was posed and how she came across, and the research that went into finding the right location. As much as I like to take credit for my images, it was a team effort to make sure that all those little things you might overlook are taken care of so you don’t have to worry about it on the back end,” explains Wright. “It was so different than what people are used to seeing. Most of what the judges see at competition is rendered in color. When you don’t miss anything and every decision you make about the shot was thought out the judges notice that.”

Wright adds that the final touch is choosing the right paper to print on, and printing it with master photographer and printer Jeff Bowman. Wright used Sunset Photo eSatin Paper for the final print, and says the paper is especially crucial for his black-and-white prints as it renders true, deep, rich blacks that he can’t get elsewhere.

“Because we do so much black-and-white photography it’s so important for us to use a paper that shows the true black. I see a lot of prints where the blacks are not true black; they’re a little muddy and don’t have the depth and contrast,” says Wright. “Jeff Bowman introduced me to eSatin. I always noticed his images looked so great on that paper. We’ve been printing our competition images together on that paper for six or seven years, and we’ve always had great success. When an image is put under the lights and you use something with a high gloss, it becomes too reflective and almost milky under the lights. If you’re using an art matte paper, especially with black-and-white images, it can come off the printer looking great, but after a few hours, because the ink is still soaking into the fiber of the paper it looks more grey and muted. They’re great for a watercolor or pastel image, but not for the majority of my competition prints.”

Wright adds that another important differentiator for his competition work is that he and Bowman prints it themselves. The ability to control the output, and to re-do the print if necessary, is crucial to his success at competition, he says.

To find out more about the Sunset Print Awardcompetitions where the award is being presented, a portfolio of past winners, and the Sunset inkjet media product line, go to www.sunsetprint.com.

The World’s Largest Photo Portfolio?

Stanley Smith Portfolio by The Image Collective
R. Mac Holbert, owner of The Image Collective in Ashland, Ore., turns the pages of the giant portfolio he built with professional photographer Stanley Smith, printed on Sunset Photo eSatin Paper. Smith’s images require this scale for accurate representation.

It may not be the world’s largest portfolio of photography, but it’s certainly one of the most unique portfolios we’ve run across, and it had to be that way. The work of veteran pro photographer Stanley Smith, who is also the Head of Collection Information and Access at The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, requires a grand presentation to accurately display his photography in print.

Stanley Smith Portfolio by The Image CollectiveThat’s why Smith approached R. Mac Holbert, owner of The Image Collective in Ashland, Ore., to produce a giant portfolio. Holbert is a pioneer in the art of photographic and fine art reproduction. A founder of Nash Editions, Holbert is one of the most trusted sources in the nation for accurate image interpretation.

“I was hired by the Getty years ago to do some color management consulting and met Stanley there, and I’ve maintained a friendship with him all these years. About six months ago he started talking about putting together a very large portfolio because his images really need scale, and he wanted to put enough images together in one portfolio that he could take around to various galleries in the Los Angeles area,” explains Holbert. “We settled on Presidents’ Day weekend for him to come up spend three or four days here putting it together. I had been given all his files a month prior to that weekend, and was able to do the optimization on all of them and print them before he arrived.”

Stanley Smith Portfolio by The Image CollectiveThe scale of the finished piece is truly immense: 35 42″ x 60″ prints bound in canvas for a total weight of 68 pounds. The most difficult aspect of the project, according to Holbert, was binding it.

“When he arrived we had 35 prints done and spent those three days putting them together in a portfolio, and that was quite difficult. We had to attach two pieces of three-inch fabric tape on the end of each print so it would be part of the hinge and get them all lined up perfectly,” recalls Holbert. “We used a couple of rosewood strips to bind it, and a canvas cover on top and back that covered up the spine area. We finished it about two hours before his plane left. It was an enjoyable time, but a lot of work.”

Smith adds: “It was three intense days at The Image Collective working with R. Mac Holbert to, finally, complete the production of my new portfolio, and all the prints expertly enhanced by Mac, who is absolutely the best person I’ve ever met at converting an artist’s vision into pixels. Then, the daunting task of binding the book together for a final product that is really beautiful.”

Stanley Smith Portfolio by The Image CollectiveHolbert used an Epson Stylus Pro 11880 and Sunset Photo eSatin Paper for the 42″ x 60″ prints. He was looking for a thicker, more durable paper that could withstand the repeated use of leafing through the giant portfolio. Moreover, says Holbert, he wanted to maximize the color gamut and Dmax of each print.

“We were very happy with the paper; it had the Dmax and color gamut we were looking for, which can be a problem. The eSatin was spectacular,” says Holbert.

In addition to scale, Smith’s work demands the right combination of printer, paper and the eye of a seasoned print reproduction specialist like Holbert. The images Smith creates are typically built from various images shot at one scene and merge them together.

“He’ll set up his tripod and take 40-50 shots, and blend certain aspects of each image into one scene. He’s essentially compacting time into one image,” explains Holbert.

The complex nature of the Smith’s images required Holbert’s expert eye, which goes beyond simply color management techniques.

“When you’re creating world-class prints, you’re dealing in the last 2 to 3 percent of perfection. You can remove 1 percent of Cyan from an image, for instance, and suddenly it comes alive,” says Holbert.

For sharpening an image, Holbert uses a Photoshop plug-in called PhotoKit Sharpener that he says allows extremely precise sharpening, as opposed to just low, medium and high. “Those are the kinds of tools I migrate to, because anything that can give me even a 1 percent edge will make a big difference.”