- What's up everybody?
Peter McKinnon here, and today we're talking about
why you, you need to be printing your shots.
There's so many reason why.
We're gonna get into them now,
so let's roll that intro.
(peppy, energetic music)
You guys remember the dark room,
a little red light in there?
Super cool.
Felt like you were a Navy SEAL on a mission,
all the chemicals that smelled so good.
You'd put the paper in, watch it expose,
and hang it up to dry.
You were in control of the future of your own photos.
It was like the second half of photography.
The first half was going out there and shooting it,
you know find the film, and putting it in your camera,
and doing the thing.
The second half was coming back
and making that image come to life.
I feel like over the years, obviously that's shifted,
now that we're in the digital realm of things.
It's just fire of 1,000 and you boom,
wi-fi them to your computer, and Lightroom that schiz up.
Then boom, air drop to the IG,
and were double tapping all day long.
That process is gone.
Gone are the days, 2017 folks.
However that to me, that sucks.
That's unfortunate.
Where I love Instagram, and I love digital,
and I love where everything's gone.
Some of you watching may even be like
I've never even stepped foot in a dark room,
I've just heard about it before.
It looks cool but they don't even do it
at my school any more, or college maybe,
if you go for photography,
might have experienced that kind of thing.
It kinda got me thinking this weekend.
I thought to myself
you know people don't print their work enough,
and there are so many benefits
that come from printing your stuff out.
Let's run through a few of those benefits.
Benefit number one, understanding,
just by printing your shots,
you understand your photography so much better.
You're gonna see things that you never would have seen
if your photos weren't printed.
It looks completely different when you see a print
in person that you're holding in your hands,
versus that same photo backlit on a 5K monitor
with LEDs behind it, making it look nice and bright,
totally different.
You might be like wow I actually really underexposed this,
or if I was actually to sell this to someone
those blacks need to come way up.
I can't even see the foreground
that I could very easily see on my computer.
Super interesting stuff.
Understanding your own work is beneficial.
You guys know that.
We've talked about that.
You know that understanding shows you
where your camera might lack,
or maybe where your camera excels.
You might get that print back and say
this is exactly everything I need it to be.
This is perfect.
I love the way these look online.
I love the way they look when I post them on Instagram.
I've printed a 13 by 19, 17 by 22, a four by six.
I printed all these different versions.
They look just as good.
I'm just as happy, yes,
or it might be the latter.
You might be like, yeah this stuff looks good on Instagram,
horrible print.
All the points of detail in that photo
that I thought were really, really good
ended up being super muddy
and just not in focus as much as I thought they were.
It also comes down to the printer you're using,
but we'll talk about that in a little bit.
The second point I kinda wanna bring up,
is it's printing your shots, dark room whatever,
it's kind of like the second half of photography.
You know, you used to go out, shoot, come back,
and then process your images in the dark room.
Then you would frame them, or give them away,
or sell them, or whatever,
but that has been replaced now, like I said,
with digital, where we don't really
come back to the dark room now.
That dark room is now Adobe Lightroom,
and then we just upload our shots to social media,
and we carry on.
Half the fun, a lot of the satisfaction
that comes with photography.
You guys know you're out there shooting a landscape.
It's nice and calm, and soothing, and therapeutic,
or sometimes it's hectic,
but you get a rush depending what you're shooting.
You come back, and you're just like
what a great time.
There's a whole other half to that,
that comes with printing your own work,
that's equally as fun and satisfying
as the whole first part of shooting.
You don't get that when you don't print your stuff.
Being able to pick the paper that you want,
or the matte, or glossy, or different thicknesses of paper,
and maybe pick a frame that shoots the frame the best
that matches to the colors of the tones in your photo.
Then printing out a couple samples,
and getting a small version, and a huge version,
and being able to see that print come to life
into something physical that you could hold,
and then put into a frame, and sell to someone,
or give away, or hang in your own office for inspiration,
or hang in someone else's office,
so they could be inspired.
That's a whole second side to photography
that we missed out on by not printing our own shots.
Now the argument is, do we print our shots at home
or do we print them somewhere else?
I mean there's a whole slew of websites
that you can go to.
Just do a quick Google, where do I print my photos?
You're gonna find tons of results,
and those labs do a great job.
You can send your stuff out, pick what size you want,
they'll ship it back.
The turn around time on that stuff's pretty good,
so if you can't afford, or you don't have any interest
in actually doing your own home printing,
those options are still there.
I recommend you try those options though
because it's still the same.
All those principles, all these ideas still apply
to taking those photos out of the package
once they arrive in the mail,
and seeing your own physical work
as something tangible, instead of just a file
that can be deleted, that people were just double tapping
on their iPhones, or Androids, or whatever these days.
Just picture this.
Like you go out, your take the photo that you love,
that you're super proud of.
You come back, you edit it in the Lightroom.
It looks phenomenal.
You just love it.
It ends there for the most part.
You put it up on Instagram and you're done.
You store it away on your hard drive
in the cloud, wherever, you're done.
You move on.
Two months down the line,
you haven't looked at that photo for weeks,
and weeks, and weeks.
It hasn't benefited anybody.
It hasn't benefited you.
Everyone has liked it.
It's come and gone on Instagram, on Facebook,
on Twitter, whatever.
It's essentially a part of your digital past now.
Instead of doing that, imagine you also uploaded it,
but now you've printed it out.
You've taken that extra time to find the right paper,
find the right inks, find the right printer,
or find the right lab.
You get it back, or you home print it.
You're holding it in your hands now.
You sign it, you number it, you put it in that frame.
You wrap it up and give it to someone else.
It's incredible.
Not only is it incredible,
that other people now have your artwork
hanging in your home, but having other people's artwork
hanging in your home.
Why not hang your own artwork in your home.
So many people just go to IKEA
and buy whatever photos that they've decided
to sell and print onto canvas.
I see so many people when I'm at IKEA
flipping through the canvases.
Oh look, another picture of New York.
It's all black and white, an ah, the cabs are yellow.
They're the only colorful thing in the photo.
I love it and they buy that print.
If we're buying prints,
and I say we as like the collective of people.
If we are buying prints from IKEA to hang in our homes,
why not hang your own artwork that you're proud of,
that went out into the world to shoot an create.
Why not?
It has become a digital world,
but we still have the ability to create physical
and tangible goods from our digital art.
The main point of this video
is that I urge you to try it.
Even if it's a printer that you already own,
if it's a printer that you want to buy,
if it's a lab that you're gonna send your stuff to,
I urge you to try it out, because it really helps
not only round you out as a better photographer,
it just helps you understand photography better,
and yourself better.
It's just part of the process
that's a little bit lost these days.
I really think that you guys would have a great time
trying it out, and exploring that side of photography
that not many people do any more.
This weighs 80 pounds.
I did this the wrong way.
I should have left this on the floor,
lifted it onto the desk.
(objects banging on table)
Oh my goodness.
Need a break, need a break.
(can tab snaps)
That's a big printer.
That's a very big printer.
Look at the amount of ink cartridges that go in here.
In the spirit of practicing what I preach,
and kinda connecting with you know what I used to do
in photography, I'm actually going to give away a print
in this episode.
I'm gonna set up this printer that I just got,
that I'm super pumped about.
It prints beautiful huge, large scale format prints.
I'm gonna print one on video with you guys.
I'm gonna sign and number it.
I'm gonna give that print away.
All you gotta do is just comment below why you want it
and where you would hang it.
Then I'm just gonna pick someone in the next episode.
I will let you know.
I'm gonna roll that up, stick it in a tube.
I'm gonna throw it into the air,
and an eagle is gonna swoop down
and grab it with it's talons, and it's gonna fly.
I got a little carried away there.
What I meant to say is I'm going to mail it to you,
and you can have a little original
one of one print that I'm gonna do for you guys.
Just my way of saying thanks for watching.
I appreciate you guys.
The community that we have built here
in the amount of time that we've built it,
is something that I am just incredibly proud of
and grateful for each and every one of you.
I think that we can continue inspiring each other.
I read the comments, and coming up with ways
to just be better photographers, better artists,
better story tellers and just enjoy this whole process,
this whole art form that is the visual medium of photography
that we all love so much.
I said that with way too many words.
I could of just said photography that we all love so much.
Also I wanted to say, I'm gonna start doing print drops
every now and then.
I'm gonna print some of my favorite photos
because it's something I have been wanting to do
for a long time.
Making this video, I had so much fun,
and it really brought back a sense of nostalgia
and urgency to print my work
because I want it to be out there.
Maybe I'll take five of my favorite photos
and print three each of them,
sign and number them.
The link will be below.
I'm gonna try and get that rolling out soon,
and I'll try to keep it updated as much as I can.
Okay you guys, so that is it for me.
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode.
I mean I had a lot of fun making it.
It brought back a lot of good memories,
and it's some stuff that I really think
needs to be taken into account.
I 100% believe you guys will enjoy the process
of printing your own stuff.
Comment below.
I want to send this print off to somebody.
Thank you so much for watching.
Like this video if you enjoyed it.
Hit that thumbs up button.
Smash it if you so desire.
Subscribe if you aren't already,
and, and I will see you guys in the next episode.
(fast paced, rhythmic rock music)