There’s web galleries, there’s your mum’s photo printer, and then there is this…

One of the most beautiful ways of presenting photographs has to be getting your photos transferred onto canvas. The cool thing is that you can get quite creative what you do on a canvas – just ask Rembrandt & co!

There are a lot of companies out there who are offering the service these days, but I recently stumbled across one that stands out from the crowd with its snazzy Web 2.0 interface and its glorious prints.

I’ve done canvas printing a few times before, but I figured I’d give it another go in order to create a present for someone who’s got a birthday coming up (so if you are my sister, stop reading now. If you know my sister, don’t tell her, because that’d just be cheating).

The photo I had printed was one of my long-time fave photos I took in a safari park a few years ago – in fact, my sister was there when I took the photo (I’ve written about that trip before, on my private site, in an article titled The Lions might have a thing for Minis, but the monkeys destroyed my car. Don’t ask.), which is one of the reasons why I figured it might make a good gift.

Enfin, I was shopping around for a decent printing site when I came across Full Size Posters, and instantly fell in love.

Finally, someone who understood that I didn’t really want to faff about with a load of tickboxes and suchlike, just a simple, smooth way of printing a canvas print. Even better; they offer the option of not having it mounted on a wooden frame, which allows you far greater flexibility with how you put the photo on the wall.

The canvas print took about a week to arrive (and then another week for me to be able to get my act together and pick it up from the post-office, but that’s a different matter altogether), and I was rather impressed when I had a look at it.

I should tell you this though: Canvas prints aren’t for everyone; they’re a trade-off. What you lose in sharpness, you gain in character. There’s no doubt that regular prints have better colours, more detail, better sharpness and a high impact, but canvas prints have a beauty about them that you just can’t show off otherwise.

My initial idea was to go to town on the print with thick, translucent lacquer. By adding a layer of brush strokes, I figured, the photograph could turn into a half-painting.

Then again, my sister is quite a good painter herself, and I changed my mind: it would make an even better present if I turn it into a collaborative effort: I give her a canvas with a photograph on it, and I challenge her to paint on top of the canvas to turn it into a true artwork.

And thus, the true magnificence of canvas printing came to light: they’re great on their own, but even better as a basis for further artistic expression. Fabulous.

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