Taku’s Art Show at Crafted for the Month of April
Crafted | 135 Ossington Ave.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on selecting, editing, and printing some of my photos for showing at Crafted, a local coffee shop at Queen and Ossington. It’s been a fun process, but also a learning one, as preparing photos for print can be very taxing at times. Viewing photos online is great, but because of the limited amount of pixels, you wont be able to see the finer details of the photo. That means you can be a little more carefree with your editing—a little editing crossing the line won’t stand out as much as it would if you did it on a print.
I’ve also been experimenting with my desktop editing techniques for my photos, attempting to give a more dramatic yet realistic look by manually blending in multiple exposures together. This technique is often called digital blending, and involves various Photoshop techniques that I’ve been testing out the last few months.
I hope to be able to show you more of these photos—especially in print—sometime in the future.
iPhoneography Gallery
For the Art Show at Crafted, I’ve selected four iPhone photographs that I felt looked great enlarged to 12″ x 12″. Printed on lustre (gloss) photo paper, it’s really hard to believe these were taken on my iPhone 5s—I’m very happy with the end result.
Metallic Print Gallery
The next section at Crafted shows off the brilliance of printing on metallic paper. I hinted at this a couple posts ago but in order to see the effects it has on your print, you should definitely see this up close with your eyes. I printed out three images that I thought may take advantage of this special paper.
Golden Strideby was taken at the National Art Center, Tokyo. During sunset the wall glows a yellow-orange gradient as passerbys walk by. This orange is heightened by the metallic paper giving it an added texture and depth to the image.
A Fijian Sunset is a photo I edited using the digital blending technique I talked about earlier. The colours pop out at you while the lighter areas of the photo bring out the metallic texture beneath. It really brings more life to the photo.
Our Toronto is the only one that I did not frame like the others. Instead, I opted for a print on metallic paper and chose an acrylic facemount to it to really bring out the true beauty of the print. This one really needs to be seen up close to be appreciated. I love the colours being brought out by the metallic paper, and the mood heightened by the acrylic.
Canvas Gallery
The final area within Crafted is a canvas print that I thought would be more suited for the Spring. It’s a photo of the cherry blossoms at High Park, printed as a triptych on an extra deep 1.5″ canvas. The three panels make this one look great on any wall.
If you’re ever in the area of Queen Street and Ossington Ave.—135 Ossington Ave.—stop by and take a look at my prints. They will be up for the month of April. And if you ever go, say hello to the baristas there too. They are all very friendly people who enjoy everybody’s company!