A year later than originally planned, I’ll be putting on my first photo-exhibition next weekend. Nothing too grand; just a dozen images.
It all started in July 2015, when Jeff from Caught by the River emailed to say he would be visiting Hebden Bridge the following week, and could we meet for a beer? It turned out he’d spotted a passing tweet about my project to photograph the bridges in the local area—Hebden’s non-eponymous Bridges, so to speak. Jeff was amused by the idea and wondered whether I’d like to put on some sort of exhibition as part of a Caught by the River event in Hebden Bridge the following January. Of course I said yes.
Then came the disastrous Boxing Day floods that devastated much of the Calder Valley, and the event was postponed. A couple of months back, Jeff contacted me again to say there was to be a Caught by the River poetry and prose event in Hebden Bridge on 21st January, and would I still like to show some photos? Of course I said yes again.
Then the dithering began. How best to display twelve decent-sized photos at a reasonable price? Getting them framed would be too expensive for such a brief event, and would would mean damaging the venue’s walls to hang them. After faffing about for a couple of weeks, not sure what to do, I eventually hit upon the obvious idea of asking my local photographic printers if they had any suggestions.
Like many other businesses in Hebden Bridge, Print Bureau was badly flooded at the end of 2015, but has now recovered—and, indeed, expanded. They suggested a number of different solutions to my problem, and I quickly identified a winner: my prints would be mounted on a semi-rigid foam backing, then laminated. A cheap, light-weight, and durable solution. I have to admit, I was wary of having my prints laminated, but lamination technology seems to have moved on in leaps and bounds, the matt laminate they use being practically invisible.
I should also admit that I geeked-out over all of Print Bureau’s high-tech print-production apparatus. So much so that I asked Jamie Flear to take some photos as my prints were being processed and mounted:
I picked up my finished prints last week, and am very pleased with the results:
