For my first ever blog post on this website I decided to write about a print I had made by WhiteWall (uk.whitewall.com), a print company based in Germany. They make a variety of print-based products and ever since I got some samples from them last year I have wanted to get something made by them.
Last month I decided to enter the Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival and for this I would finally order the type of product I wanted; a print that is sandwiched between aluminium and acrylic. Today I dropped it off for the exhibition which opens on the night of the 3rd of October and runs until the 1st of November at the Pyramid in Warrington if you want to see it. It cost me around £150 so it wasn't cheap, but when I opened up the well-packaged box I was not disappointed in the slightest.
Click on the images to expand.
For a start the print looks brilliant and in measuring 75x50cm it has quite a presence. It's quite tricky to find a place that do true black and white prints. What I mean by that is that often if you get a black and white print made there can be a slight colour tinge of blue or green to the overall print (I recently found somewhere that does good B&W prints online which I will mention in a future blog). Not with this print though. I believe WhiteWall use Ilford B&W paper for their B&W prints, who have been one of the leading brands for photographic supplies for decades. It was spot on.
The overall finish to the product was exactly what I wanted. It was rigid and strong, and I went for a matte acrylic so that reflections were minimized which allows the print to be seen at it's best. I also decided to have acrylic on the front to protect the print for the future (you can get different products that don't use acrylic which does drop the price).
The rigidity and strength is due to the layers that make up the product. As you can see in the below image. The back is made of two sheets of aluminium with plastic in between (aluminium dibond), to which the print is stuck to. The acrylic is then glued on top of the print.
Additionally the product comes as standard with a hanging frame on the back. When hung it will give the impression that it's floating off the wall. Their alternative options are corner columns that run from the front to the back of the print, or you can choose to have no hanging option if you have something else in mind, which again saves money.
I would definitely get something from WhiteWall again. They recently announced a new product at a photography convention (Photokina in Cologne) called the HD Metal Print which sounds interesting. According to them the detail and colours are meant to be great in this type of product, and going by this product I imagine they are correct.
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