To start off, this is not a blog post to try and sell and make money from you, my clients. Sure we are headed into a seriously rough time for photographers, but this post is coming from a photographer stand point, not a business person.

I will say that after reading this post, if you feel you should support your photographer, call or email them and order a print. Have a look at your gallery, pick a photo that stands out and order. This will support a small business that is about to struggle hard and also support the printers, another small business.

I’m not really in the print selling business these days, I do a little but this post is more about other photographers that rely on prints to survive, this post is for other photographers and also for you. The individual that loves photography.

In my last blog I talked about the importance of making prints of our work, clients of ours need to have prints. What is the use of a digital image on a screen, we want clients to have prints in their homes for all to see. The work we create for them needs a place to be admired. From a business perspective this is how photographers make a living, well…how we did make a living. Times have changed.

Traditionally, you hire a photographer, pay a session fee and then view and purchase the prints that you would like to have. That is the process. You pay the photographer for your session, they take hours from their day to shoot, edit and prepare your photos, and then you reward them by purchasing prints or files or albums. Photographer makes money, feeds their family, supports their household, invests in their business and you get some amazing photos. Everyone wins.

If you take the business aspect of it out of the way, the print is what matters, the image. I see this now more clearly than ever. I see this from a clients perspective. It is the final piece of the process of art. I personally shoot photos every day, I try my best to make a great photo daily. If you follow me on Instagram you will see loads of photos of my son Ben, like this one…

This print was waiting for me after I returned from Costa Rica. I don’t plan to hang it up, or even frame it. I made a plan weeks ago that instead of just shooting photos and uploading them to Instagram or my personal website www.scottymackphoto.com, which is a work in progress, I vowed to myself to print any photo that stands out to me in 16X20 with a 1” border on fine art paper.

Why? It completes the process. Everything else is unfinished and lazy. Looking at this photo, which was shot on a medium format camera, on a screen is amazing. Holding this photo in my hands and looking at it in person, is so, so, so much better. It becomes real in a way that no digital file on a screen can. It becomes valuable.

All these years of being a professional photographer and things like this are hitting me now more than ever. My home is covered in photos, canvases and prints on all walls, but still I learn more about what photography needs and prints are a big part of the process.

So, do yourself a favour and order a print. If you are a photographer that doesn’t do this, order a print today and see for yourself how much better your work is when you can hold it in your hands. If you are a client, put some value on your photos, pay for a print and enjoy it for years to come.

This is the next photo being printed, from my recent trip to Costa Rica, which was a shit show because of this stupid virus, but more on that later. I kept coming back to this one, maybe because it represents isolation and that is exactly where I am for 14 days.