The Bit Where I Made Christmas Cards…

I’ve wanted to see my work in print for a long time. My intro­duc­tion to pho­to­graphy began 7 years ago at col­lege in the stand­ard tra­di­tion of mono­chrome 35mm film, silver-coated paper, a tiny dark­room and heady chem­ic­als that make throat dry and my hands burn just think­ing about them. My work was always some­thing tan­gible, some­thing I could pick up, feel, smell. I’ve never for­got­ten the smell of that fix tank; I miss it sometimes.

I lost access to a dark­room dur­ing the midst of 2003 and with it, my pho­to­graphy in a tan­gible, phys­ical form. Film became far too expens­ive to have pro­cessed in a lab and the idea of a home-darkroom was noth­ing short of a wild fantasy and so there came the inev­it­able switch to digital.

Maybe it’s some­thing to do with the easy-come, easy-go nature of digital images, but with the excep­tion of cre­at­ing hard­back books of my family’s hol­i­day snaps, I’ve never actu­ally bothered to have any of my digital images prin­ted, let alone have any of my pho­to­graphy work com­mit­ted to paper.

It was some­thing I always wanted to do, but dangled it like a car­rot in front of myself: I’d get some­thing prin­ted when I pro­duced some­thing worth print­ing, when I got­ten bet­ter at it, when they weren’t just prac­tise shots or throwaway experiments.

Now I’m not sug­gest­ing that these can’t be improved upon, but they are a series of images I am pleased with and are I believe, a worthy first attempt:

My Work in Print: Christmas Cards 2008

Christmas Card Design #1 Christmas Card Design #2 Christmas Card Design #4 Christmas Card Design #3

My Work in Print: Christ­mas Cards 2008
Click the image to view the full-size ver­sions at Flickr.

Thankies in bundles to the fantabulous MOO for cre­at­ing such faith­ful, vibrant and punchy rendi­tions of my work. I ran sev­eral test prints with other vendors and these were the ones that came out on top in terms of qual­ity card stock and col­our reproduction.

I’ve tried to pho­to­graph the cards as accur­ately as pos­sible to cap­ture the vibrancy and depth of the col­ours, but des­pite my efforts, they still look much bet­ter in real life.

Before any­one starts jump­ing up and down that it’s too early to think of Christ­mas cards, it’s also worth not­ing that I fin­ished my Christ­mas shop­ping weeks ago. I’m annoy­ing like that.

To all of you that fol­low me via RSS feeds: Due to tech­nical dif­fi­culties, my Flickr/Photo updates no longer appear in the usual feed and instead, have a feed of their own.
November 21, 2008 – 11:24 am | By Claire | Posted in Good Days, Photography | Comments (13) | Printer-Friendy Version

13 Comments

  • Charlie wrote:
    Nov 21, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    Those are awe­some Claire! They look really pro­fes­sional too. The third from the left is my favourite.

    I had a couple of presents bought in Octo­ber, I bought for my mate and sis­ter and both told me I was nuts. Now both are try­ing to find time to do their own shopping.

  • Vixx wrote:
    Nov 22, 2008 at 6:30 pm

    Not annoy­ing … just awe­some. :)

    They look amaz­ing. You deserve to be proud! (There’d bet­ter be one com­ing MY way, btw …)

    V xx

  • Veronica wrote:
    Nov 23, 2008 at 10:08 am

    OMG I haven’t even star­ted my Christ­mas shop­ping. Thanks for remind­ing me. Those cards look amaz­ing. You have a won­der­ful talent.

  • starrynite wrote:
    Nov 23, 2008 at 10:50 am

    Those cards are amaz­ing. And you are waaaaay ahead of me — I have yet to give Christ­mas any ser­i­ous thought! xx

  • Claire wrote:
    Nov 24, 2008 at 12:39 pm

    Thank you so much, every­one! I’m so pleased to have such great feed­back, espe­cially regard­ing how pro­fes­sional they look — that’s really what I was try­ing to go for: some­thing that was quite com­mer­cial and that didn’t look “home made” or “van­ity prin­ted”. :jumps:

  • Teesee wrote:
    Nov 26, 2008 at 12:15 am

    Wow, wow, wow. What beau­ti­ful col­ours. My per­sonal favour­ite is the first one. They don’t need any other enhance­ments or bor­ders, less is more.

    You *must* write the inside mes­sages in gold ink.

    Take some cup­cake pho­tos, please? :D

  • Claire wrote:
    Nov 26, 2008 at 6:49 pm

    Tee­see: :blush: Thank you, though it must be said that without your pre­vi­ous com­ments, I may never have got my arse in gear and got these prin­ted — your sug­ges­tion spurred me on. :D

    They don’t need any other enhance­ments or bor­ders, less is more.

    :nods: Thats what I thought (K tried to get me to do bor­ders etc), glad I made the right decision.

    Take some cup­cake pho­tos, please?

    When K next bakes some, I’ll get the cam­era out just for you. ;)

  • Jem wrote:
    Nov 26, 2008 at 10:56 pm

    So when will these be in the shops? :jumps:

  • Claire wrote:
    Nov 27, 2008 at 10:04 am

    Jem:

    So when will these be in the shops?

    I wish :P

  • Jem wrote:
    Nov 27, 2008 at 5:31 pm

    Ser­i­ously though, are these some­thing that we could buy through MOO or whatever? I would love to be giv­ing out totally unique Christ­mas cards this year. :)

  • Claire wrote:
    Nov 27, 2008 at 5:42 pm

    Jem: My designs aren’t for sale on cards this year (as I think it would be a bit frantic for me to try and organ­ise lar­ger batches/sales with only 3 weeks left until the end of the Christ­mas Post dead­line). But, there are bits and pieces in the pipeline for 2009. :dances:

  • Jem wrote:
    Nov 27, 2008 at 7:46 pm

    Groovy :D Now all you need to do is release some good birth­day cards too, and I don’t ever have to go out shop­ping in a real shop ever again. :giggle:

  • Claire wrote:
    Nov 27, 2008 at 7:52 pm

    Jem: It’s a deal! :bounces:

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