One thing I haven’t done at all really is play around with different ink jet papers.  My thinking is simple – there is so much to master in all the tools I use – Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. – and so many techniques to learn that adding one more variable is something I just wasn’t interested in doing.

I made the decision right at the start to go with matte papers.  The paper I chose was Epson Enhanced Matte, now renamed to Premium Presentation Paper – Matte.  The decision was based on my desire to produce photographs that look more like paintings.  A glossy or even luster surface shouts “photograph!”  But people don’t expect to see photographs on matte surfaces.  At shows, people frequently ask if my works are paintings.

So Epson Enhanced Matte paper has worked out very well for me and I still stand by my original decision.  It’s my paper of choice.  But I had no idea what I was getting into.

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The 2008 Encinitas Street Faire this past weekend (4/26 & 4/27) was very successful.  We’ve added note cards to our product line and they sold really well.  But more importantly we were able to talk with hundreds of wonderful people who enjoyed our photographs.  We got some very fine complements.

While over 21 different photographs sold in one form or another, two were the most popular – Spirit Bear and Bristlecone Pine.  Here they are.

Spirit Bear, Upper Antelope Canyon, Arizona (2008)

Can you see the bear in this photograph.  Here’s a hint.  He’s standing up on his hind legs.

Bristlecone Pine, White Mountains, California (2006)

Boy, it worked out just fine, the Christmas cards I mean.  I got the card stock from Red River Paper and worked through the issues of my printer recognizing the odd paper size - 7X10.  And got the right ICC profile for the paper.  We ended up selecting their premium matte paper.  It is two-sided so I can print both the outside and inside.  Here’s how it turned out.

The idea of creating note cards is taking shape.  Tonight I printed a series of Christmas cards on sampler set from Red River Paper in Dallas, TX.  For a first cut, they turned out very well – after I figured out how to get my Epson 4800 to accept such small paper (7×10).  That only took about an hour of fumbling and stumbling around.

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It’s become clear after the first year of shows that one needs to have more than large photographs to offer.  The small 8X10 photographs have been reasonably popular.  I’ve had it in my mind to offer 11X14 photographs also.  But I think the next thing I’ll work on is note cards.  In fact,  Christmas will be the dry dry run, sending Christmas cards on the note card technology I plan to use.