Camera club members - a question on print talks

[viewfromthenorth]

I’ve been doing talks for camera clubs for about 8 years now, and they’ve always been digitally projected (or on zoom more recently). However I’ve been booked to give a print talk soon and I’ve had to create a completely new talk as, although I’ve got lots of prints, they aren’t necessarily the ones from my digital talk. Consequently, I can’t explore the same topics and themes as in the digital talk.

Now, I’ve not been a member of a camera club for a good few years and I can’t even recall the last print talk I saw. So for those who are in camera clubs, when you see a print talk (assuming there are still speakers who do them) do you see much different in the content between the two? Do you expect to see a different type of talk? ie do print talks tend to dwell on individual images longer? Is there less pointing out of parts of the image as people can’t see as much of it compared to a projected one, etc.

The club I’m speaking at only have print talks so I can’t really ask them.

Finally - let’s not turn this into a ‘I tRiEd a CaMERa CLub ONce anD iT wAS Cr@P’ type thread, there will be plenty of opportunity for that in future threads I’m sure, so I would appreciate keeping this one on topic, thanks ever so much.

 

[Nod]

IF I attended a print talk, I'd expect it to be more about the technicalities of getting a good print than about the images - colour balance, screen/printer matching, mounting etc..

 

[Knikki]

You maybe able to incorporate some of your digital talk if you explore/explain how you would turn that into a print.
But like @Nod says, I too would be interesting in the technical side of getting a print, Soft Proof, colour balance, maybe printer set up.
Obviously it would have to be a little generic because there so many combinations of editing software and printers out there.

Good luck.

 

[tijuana taxi]

IF I attended a print talk, I'd expect it to be more about the technicalities of getting a good print than about the images - colour balance, screen/printer matching, mounting etc..

I think you might have the wrong end of the stick or perhaps I have.
My take was the OP wanted to know if a presentation given by displaying prints instead of digital files differed much in the way it was given or received.

I'm not a longstanding member of a club, I only went for about six months spread over two or three years.
One of those meetings was a print presentation and it had if I recall correctly less photos for the want of a better word.
Also I would probably speak more and have fewer prints, if the images are strong and the subject interesting that's all you need.

Think it might get too chaotic with loads of prints, I would talk about one then turn it over.
Maybe turn them all back for viewing at the end of the evening, but having loads on display would become distracting.
After all you don't see all the projected files on screen, sensory overload if you did

 

[viewfromthenorth]

I think you might have the wrong end of the stick or perhaps I have.
My take was the OP wanted to know if a presentation given by displaying prints instead of digital files differed much in the way it was given or received.

Not being a longstanding member of a club went for about six months spread over two or three years.
One of those was a print presentation and it had if I recall correctly less it had less photos for the want of a better word.
Also I would probably speak more and have fewer prints, if the images are strong and the subject interesting that's all you need.

Think it might get too chaotic with loads of prints, think I would talk about one then turn it over.
Maybe turn them all back for viewing at the end of the evening, but having loads on display would become distracting.
After all you don't see all the projected files on screen, sensory overload if you did

No you’ve got the right end of the stick, this is the kind of thing I was after. I’ve got about 70 or so prints, currently writing some notes for each so I have something to say about them. I’ve realised that I’m going to have to speak more about each image rather than use images to illustrate a point, if that makes sense, as I will have fewer of them than a digital one. By comparison, I have probably twice that number in the digital talk. Until I practice that talk I’ve no idea if I will have enough prints of enough to say!

IF I attended a print talk, I'd expect it to be more about the technicalities of getting a good print than about the images - colour balance, screen/printer matching, mounting etc..

You maybe able to incorporate some of your digital talk if you explore/explain how you would turn that into a print.
But like @Nod says, I too would be interesting in the technical side of getting a print, Soft Proof, colour balance, maybe printer set up.
Obviously it would have to be a little generic because there so many combinations of editing software and printers out there.

Good luck.

Thank you for your thoughts guys, the club are probably way more adept at making prints than I am, as they enter all manner of competitions and regularly have print talks so I’d probably embarass myself talking about the way I fumble around trying to coerce my Epson into giving me a good print.

 

[Nod]

In that case, take some big prints! A3+ are handleable and should be big enough to be seen by all.

 

[welshwizard645]

More recently our club has returned to face 2 face meeting coupled with zoom participation. Lots of presenters at our club do display prints - sometimes sponsored by one of the big paper companies.... we have a mega-easel with all the prints on display and the talk goes with the projected images for ease of flow.

There are huge advantages in prints I find: sometimes technology fails, projector does not display colours correctly or the images are not sharp and the prints show you how the photographer wanted you to see them, seeing the prints close up during the break also means you can see them close up and discuss with fellow members about the merits of each photographer. We've invested in a decent projector and screen at our club to avoid criticisms of the projected images, but they are not as good as the actual prints.

 

[viewfromthenorth]

In that case, take some big prints! A3+ are handleable and should be big enough to be seen by all.

Thanks, yes, I'll be taking a load of A3's. I don't mount my prints as they live in portfolio files (except for exhibitions, in which case they go into re-usable mounts for the duration and then back into the files), which is another potential headache in terms of presenting them in the lightbox. I've come up with a makeshift solution which seems to work though. You're right about A3's being handle-able, they're a good size - big enough to be immersive but small enough to be able to pick up and look at. I have a folder of A2 prints which is bloody massive. A2's are great on a wall, but when they're not, they're a pain to store and handle.

More recently our club has returned to face 2 face meeting coupled with zoom participation. Lots of presenters at our club do display prints - sometimes sponsored by one of the big paper companies.... we have a mega-easel with all the prints on display and the talk goes with the projected images for ease of flow.

There are huge advantages in prints I find: sometimes technology fails, projector does not display colours correctly or the images are not sharp and the prints show you how the photographer wanted you to see them, seeing the prints close up during the break also means you can see them close up and discuss with fellow members about the merits of each photographer. We've invested in a decent projector and screen at our club to avoid criticisms of the projected images, but they are not as good as the actual prints.

When I was doing digitally projected talks 'in the room' I always used to take a file of prints for display at the interval and the end. Generally, most projectors have been OK - I've used a couple of the very latest ones and they were superb - but some of the older ones have struggled as my images are high contrast black and white. The only technical issue I've had was one club whose laptop decided to update itself when it was turned on and logged itself onto the wifi before the talk (I don't have my own), which basically rendered it unusable for 45 minutes.