Displaying your photographs

You have a photo session. You order some prints. The next thing to decide is: “what do I do with all these prints?” Displaying your photographs can be a challenging prospect.

The traditional way to display your photos, particularly when you have a lot of them, is putting them in photo albums. I know I have a bookshelf full of photo albums, but how often do I look at them? Rarely. How many people do you know who just put their photos in a box and don’t bother with the album? I suspect there are quite a few.
Picture frames are always popular ways to display photos, but it seems like more people these days are looking for something more. They want wall art, and photographers love to sell wall art.

When it comes to displaying your photographs, you have lots of options for wall art. The old standby is the canvas gallery wrap. Photos, if they’re good, can look great on canvas. Gallery wraps are your photos blown up big, put on canvas and wrapped around a wooden frame. You have different options for the edges. Often the photo itself is wrapped around the edge to create a very cool look. Or, you can have a solid border of just about any color. When it comes to deciding whether to do the wrap or the solid border, consider the photograph. If there is a lot of extra room on the edges you can do a wrap and not harm the photo. If someone’s face is too close to the border avoid the wrap or you could have part of the face wrapped around the edge.

Newer ways of displaying your photographs include metal art. Photos are replicated on a piece of metal that is hung on the wall. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the material is actually metal until you look close or touch it. These metal art pieces can be very impressive, and the cost often is not much more than a canvas gallery print.
If you want something really unusual, you can use wood. There actually are companies that will print your image on a block of wood to serve as a wall hanging. Because different pieces of wood are used, two photos printed on wood could look different because the grain of the wood is different.

Float wraps put your photos on padded masonite with a block backing that allows the image to be hung so that it is extended away from the wall. It is called a float wrap because it gives the appearance that the image is floating in front of the wall.

Whatever you do when displaying your photographs, just make sure you do it in a way that will bring you enjoyment from those images.