The Big Picture

Last month I received a rather unique request and opportunity, unique for me at least. A large and well known Boise car dealership, Bronco Motors, requested the use of one of my photos for the entrance lobby of their new Infiniti dealership. The uniqueness of the order lay in the size to which they wished to reproduce the image, a whopping 4'x6'! Now, I realize that for many photographers this is a regularly repeated exercise; for me however, it was a new one. My first concern was if the 12.2 MP image would successfully blow up to that size. The design consultant for Bronco Motors, Wendy Mitchell,was a bit concerned as well and wanted me to allay her fears if I could, before she officially submitted the image to the top brass in Japan for approval.  Since we had agreed to use a local business, Idaho Blue Print, for the enlargement I asked them to run a test on the image for me and then sent them the file they would use.

After a few days passed I visited their store front and picked up a test strip of elephantine proportions.  I was very pleased with the color and didn't see any pixelation but I just couldn't judge how sharp it would appear from say, six feet away.  I had Carollen, my wife, hold it up from across the room and, from that impression, gave the go-ahead to print.

When the print was finished and it was delivered to the framer for mounting on a floater within a frame, I still had not seen it.  The holidays came and went and I was growing more and more excited (and a bit nervous) about seeing this first time for me epic sized print of one of my photos.  The few people who had seen it were very happy with it so I was somewhat reassured, but I had to see it myself.

That opportunity finally came last Friday when Wendy told me should would be visiting the frame shop, Prints Plus and invited me over to see it.  (The picture would be hanging out there until the show room was finished.)  She, Bill Sommars, the master framer and owner of the shop, and the framed and mounted print were all there waiting for us when we arrived:

L to R:  Me, Photo, Wendy

What a relief!  I'm very grateful to Idaho Blue Print, Prints Plus, and of course Bronco Motors and look forward to finally seeing the print hung.  It will be accompanied by another photo taken at the Idaho Statehouse, but this one will "only" be 24" by 36".  Piece of cake!

The second print chosen (only 2x3')