Manhattan Canyon

This is how I remember new York City. When you live here for a long time -- more than 60 years in my case -- you get used to the layout of the skyscrapers in Manhattan. They don't feel oppressive, and you sort of like the compactness of the city and being able to get everywhere on foot or with public transportation.

Now we're living in farm country. Very different. The nearest public building with an elevator is the local hospital, about 15 miles from here. The nearest street corner is about 8 miles from here, in a town with a population of less than 1000 people. Quite a ways from Manhattan, with its population in the millions.

This picture was taken on a regular film camera with a very wide angle lens to exaggerate the perspective and create the canyon-like feeling with the buildings closing in on you.

One of the differences between film and digital is that every film image has to be painstakingly scanned into the computer, whereas with digital, every single image can be saved with little effort. (Obviously, only a small percentage of the film-based images make it into the computer.) For the way that I work, wandering through old images looking for interesting things that I might have missed, digital photography yields an additional benefit.

Print Size: 17 x 24 inches

Pinhead decoupage framed

The final piece of the puzzle, in creating prints, is how to display them. The most obvious way is to frame them, behind glass. This offers certain benefits. The print is protected from the elements and from curious hands. It fits in with the currently accepted way of displaying art. And, for some, it gives the print a more expensive look.

But there's a downside as well. The most obvious is the cost, especially if the print is large. In many cases, the cost of the framing will exceed the cost of the print. Another problem is the choice and size of the mat that surrounds the print. This can add greatly to the size of the framed print, making it difficult to place. The mat and the frame add two more distracting borders to the print. The person who is interested in buying the print may not like the frame that the print is offered in. But the most serious problem in framing prints is that the reflective glass surface in front of the print is a distraction that will keep you from appreciating the beauty of the print itself.

So what's the answer? One thing that started me looking for a different solution was the realization that a lot of art is displayed without a glass covering. Paintings, for instance, are displayed framed, but with the canvas exposed, the better to be seen from all angles. Scrolls, from China and Japan, are displayed without glass.

So I have begun an experiment with displaying my prints without frames, much in the way that scrolls are displayed. The print can be made without borders, or with a large border like a scroll. If there's a large border, it can be made in a color that acts like a mat to offset the print. The print is held by two aluminum bars, one at the top and one at the bottom, like a scroll. The first time I put a print in this "scroll mount" up on the wall, it was a revelation. The print seemed to jump off the wall and there was no distracting frame or glass to disturb the view. I could stand anywhere in the room and see the full color of the print from any angle.

Print Size: 17 x 23 inches