Art from your Photos -- Hassle Free

You've probably noticed that your photos look better without glass on them. But of course formal framing practically requires glass for photos. This comes from a long tradition of needing to protect original photographs from handling and from UV radiation. With digital though, we can decide that's okay and that we'll take our chances and reprint the image in 10, 20 or 50 years when the archival inks finally start to fade. But it took me awhile to figure out a way to take advantage of that while still having my photos look good...Then I heard about Canvas On Demand. Since paintings on canvas are usually not put behind glass, and since photos are often printed on canvas (the trendy sometimes call this giclee) it was natural to think about whether the combination would be a good way to display my work. I'd used canvas to print very large hanging banners of my photographs for my shows before, but I'd never thought about it as a primary tool.

One reason I hadn't is the work of stretching and mounting the canvas. Canvas On Demand makes this easy since they do it for you. The other reason is that images printed on canvas really don't look like straight photographic prints. I'd always been biased against the idea. That is until I saw the large format photos Mike Myers had printed on cloth for the new Wilderness Safaris headquarters in Johannesburg. They looked great. 

So I bit the bullet and sent a couple images in to Canvas On Demand. I was very impressed by the resulting lightweight and ready to hang artwork. You need to realize that canvas will not have the same resolution or color saturation of your prints on photo paper. But they will have some additional interest because of the texture. I strongly recommend trying out small versions of an image or two before ordering anything expensive. You may love the effect or it may turn you off completely. Or like me you'll decide there are a select group of images that look better this way and use it for those images. In my case I also let them put a dustcover and hanging hardware on for a few extra dollars.

Venice Canvas: A Canvas made from a photo I took in Venice. Now that I see how well it turned out I wish I had ordered a larger version for the space I have.

Another great feature of Canvas on Demand is that if you are a pro you can register with them and get studio samples for a great discount. Even if not they do provide a great discount to all NANPA members. So the next time you're looking for an alternative to expensive framing of your prints, Canvas on Demand is worth considering (and of course you can still frame the canvas they send you). [Note: I don't have any connection with COD or get any money from them. I'm just a satisfied customer--David]