I’m a tech guy. Always have been and will continue to be one as long as I’m doing photography. I’m not one of those camera geeks that debates the relative merits of the smallest details of camera design, lives and dies by bokeh or tests the variations in camera stabilization, but technical photographic challenges have rarely been a problem. I’ve photographed with all formats of cameras, made silver prints of many sizes and pursued alternative printing methods for over a decade. But, this past week I had an almost insurmountable printing problem.
I’m started to make prints for my September exhibition, “After the Memories,” and ran into a huge problem. My new Epson 800 printer was making prints off center. Not millimeters, but three or four inches off center. I went berserk trying to figure out what was wrong with my process. I did lots of experiments trying to isolate the cause of the misalignment, making a lot of bad prints and using up a bunch of expensive Epson ink. I could not for the life of me pinpoint the cause of the problem. I was facing the specter of impending project failure.
I ran out of 13x19 paper and was reaching for the next big box of paper. It was at this point that I achieved enlightenment. I realized the exhibition prints were 17x22 and I had been trying to print them full size on 13x19 paper. As the character in Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
I guess I forgot that if you want to print on 17x22 paper you have to load 17x22 paper in the printer. I will have to remember that from now on.
There are no problems with this manifestation of automotive perfection in the form of this DelaHaye Roadster exhibited at the North Carolina Museum of Art in 2016. The Rolling Sculpture exhibit showed their perfection is in the perfect melding of function and form. The NCMA allowed photography at this exhibit and my photographs are located here.
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