Hanging beautiful artwork in your home is a wonderful way to express your individuality and the aesthetic of your personal space. However, nothing expresses this like a great family photograph.
While most people have framed family photos scattered here and there around the home, it is rare to find as definitive a statement as a beautifully styled, blown-up family photo. This photo by Calgary designer and photographer, Lori Andrews, exhibits an artistic approach to a family portrait session and creates a whimsical tone in the room. High resolution photos such as this can be enlarged, mounted, and hung as art pieces in the home. Take a look below for steps on how to create your own personalized portrait.
1. Take your photo! Most digital cameras will work for this process, as long as the camera is able to obtain a resolution of 150ppi minimum. OR if you want a more professional quality guarantee, hire a photographer who can ensure high resolution photos.
2. Unless you have a large-scale printer at home or want to piece your photo together like a puzzle, you'll have to leave this one to the professionals. Bring or email your digital file to a local print shop (or even Kinkos) to have the photo enlarged into a poster format. The shop will be able to tell you what sizes are available with their printers.
3. Mount the poster. Archival, acid-free foam core is available at most office supply stores. Most print shops can also do this for you, for a minimal charge.
4. There you have it! Find an empty wall in a room that needs a bit more vibrancy and hang.
Lots more of Lori's work: The 10 Cent Designer
Image: Lori Andrews
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LOVE this idea! If it weren't so darn expensive to blow up a photograph this large...but I think it's worth it!
I've seen this done with vintage black and white pictures too - the quality is a little fuzzier obviously, but a really beautiful result!
oh - try colorlab inc - they do great work moderately priced. relatively speaking.
i totally love it!
I do this all the time. Working as a signmaker sure has its advantages.
For those who consider bying this i would recommend to stay away from foam core boards with carton layers as they over time will bend (due to moisture etc.) and bubbles will appear underneath the print. Instead buy a sandwich foam core board which has two layers of super-thin aluminium on both sides. This solution is unbendable, lightweight and lowcost.
I find framing large photographic art to be especially cost prohibitive. For smaller pieces, I go to americanframe.com and buy, mount, mat and frame my won art.
But americanframe.com has a maximum mat size of around 30 by 36 inches. So, I'm trying to find online options (reasonably priced) for framing photographic art that is 36 by 36 or large (e.g., 30 by 40). I did come across lamiframe.com but not sure about quality.
I do like family photo in this post - I like the texture of the fuzzines or graininess of hte image.
How much does doing this usually cost? For example, the size/quality featured in the photo above + the framing?
That example photo in the post...it's art, but it's not a "family portrait". Headless figures-hello!
As an "on the side, second-shooter for weddings" photographer, I never understood the headless photo. The bride and groom without heads...I just feel like it looses a timelessness. Grandkids are not going to care about a picture of your chest.
I'm not sure I agree with the statement above. One of my favorite pictures from my parents' wedding (pretty wedding, horrible marriage) is a close up of their hands in silhouette, clasped together in the car as they drove away. It says so much about who they were at the time - their hopes for the future. It shows an optimism I didn't know my mom had, and a tender side of my dad I never saw.
Ack! The headless family!
I'm with KelK...
I think part of the point of this post is that you can do something more artistic than a traditional "portrait" when using family photos as large format art... I've never had personal photos on the walls, because I feel like it's a bit tacky to display your own faces all over the house, but this slightly abstracted shot takes it to the level of "art"...
Obviously this particular family wanted to make a statement about their quirky/whimsical side, in which case the photo is perfect!
We did this a few months ago with some vacation photos. We blew them up and mounted them using acrylic and Swiss Clips. They turned out great, and it made for a large piece of personalized art for not a lot of money. We paid about $50 apiece for everything.
http://www.ourmidcentury.com/2010/12/oh-places-youll-go.html
P.S. I love this photo. What's wrong with family photos also being art? I think the clothes and styling probably say a lot about this family. Nice work.
Also groupon and living social are always running promos on photo and framing services
My dad did this about 40 years ago. Of course the picture wasn't of his wife and 3 awesome children. No, the picture was of the family dog. But in Hammie's defense, he was a great dog!
Nice. I also feel weird about displaying trad'l family photos in my house. My brother is a great photographer, and gave me a large family portrait recently. It's beautiful, but I keep it in a drawer to look at often because there's no way I could hang it on a wall. I do want to include some family shots somewhere that are a little quirkier and I like this idea a lot.
drug stores have send out services and some have machines on site to do this stuff reasonably. canvas prints are nice too..
I have a friend who has done this with great success...
http://www.decordemon.com/2010/06/02/loft-in-translation/
If I were to visit someone's home and see this on the wall, I'd find it A LOT less pretentious than having "traditional" family portraits (i.e., faces) all over the place. To each their own, of course. Our photographer gave us some beautiful 8X10 shots of us from our wedding. The only one we even considered framing was a shot of us walking down the sidewalk with our backs to the camera.
Art is so personal - some interesting comments here! I love the idea and agree it's much more fun than the traditional family portrait - which has it's place too no doubt.
Make your own posters!
posterazor.sourceforge.net/
It looks like slightly creepy Mary Poppins, or maybe that's just me
Love the poster. Why people are so quick to say they don't like sthg? Keep your dislikes to yourself, they're pointless in these kind of posts... and bad karma, dudes :)
And as if one would only shoot (or print) headless photos of an event... he he... If you read the negative comments here it almost sounds as if this post was about headless photos as a replacement for regular portraits :)
Kinko's is expensive, plenty of online cheap alternatives, prints on canvas-like paper as well. Just google poster printing and you'll find lots of options. And also check cut-outs, real nice.
Ikea frames are cheap, great mounting solutions. But also note that because there are cheap printing options out there, you don't have to find a long-lasting mounting solution. If it deteriorates after a couple of years, just print more headless photos ;)
I was at Staples and the Print store inside charged $9.99 special on ours =D
a very good one indeed!!!
My in-laws did a similar blow up - they took hi-res digital photos to office depot and asked them to be blown up into "architectural prints". These are b&w 24"x36" posters on a thin paper that they then spray adhesives to pink insulating sheets from home depot (that they spray painted black). Not the most time tested method, but it means each print only cost about $5.
I'd like to know how you hang this? If you're simply gluing it to board, how do you attached a hanging wire? Or, if you don't use wire, how do you get it on the wall?
Thanks!
I am so copying this but with pics of my dogs!
We had a large canvas wrapped print done at Costco for $70-$75 and it turned out great.