Lots of Little Prints

I live on the Flathead Reservation, with the town of Pablo, Montana, being the government seat of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT, aka "the tribes"). In honor of International Migratory Bird Day, which was a couple of weeks ago, the tribes are hosting a bird festival this week in Pablo. A couple of months ago I was invited to display some photos. As this is the first of these festivals to be held here, I've no way to know in advance what sort of venue this might be for fine-art photography. While I suspected it would have more of a craft fair sort of atmosphere as opposed to a true art show, I decided rather than participate as a vendor, I'd simply attend, have a look around, and then decide if it was something I'd like to do next year.

Then the local Audubon chapter (Mission Mountain Audubon Society, or MMAS) invited me to share booth space with them. Sharing a space would somewhat reduce the work involved in setting up, so I agreed to participate.

I plan to set up a couple of bins for small, matted pieces. My bird photos in this inexpensive format have been very popular in local galleries. I ordered two dozen mats and mounts (foam core), selected the photos, and made the prints. These will supplement the inventory of small matted prints I have on-hand.

As I've mentioned several times in this blog, I didn't buy the 7900 to make small prints. But they sell quite well; my cost to produce them is low, so they're profitable. I often print them on luster paper, which I sometimes salvage from the "scrap" paper cut off the 24-inch roll when I print wide panorama work for clients. I cut these remainder strips into letter-size sheets and store them until needed.

This photo shows the first of two groups of prints I made for this show. These are attached to my magnetic viewing board, lit by 5000° K LED lights. The board is large and the lights don't quite provide full coverage, hence the darkened areas. I printed the second group yesterday.

I set up for printing as usual. The nozzle check was fine, and since I'd printed only a couple of days before, I didn't see the need to wait and print a second nozzle check (see my previous post for an explanation of that issue). I optimized the image files in a large group, so printing was quick and painless. The 7900 prints one of these small images in well under a minute. No problems at all with either of these print jobs.

Whether anyone stops for a look during the festival, and whether any of these sell remain to be seen. But I have the summer show season coming up, for which I'd have printed many of these photos anyway. If nothing else, I'll also have a good time with my MMAS friends during the festival!

  --Jay