About the Prints

Every print in this shop is made to order by WhiteWall in Berlin, who have been doing this properly for long enough that I stopped worrying about it. Nothing sits in a drawer here waiting to be sold. You choose a finish, they make that one, and it comes to you.

There are four ways to buy a photograph as a print, and the difference between them is worth two minutes of your time — it is the difference between €70 and €280.

Just the print

The photograph on Fuji Crystal DP II, a genuine silver-halide photographic paper exposed by laser and developed wet. Not an inkjet. It has the depth in the blacks that photographic paper has always had and inkjet still argues about. It arrives unmounted and unframed, rolled or flat depending on size, ready for you to take to a framer or put behind glass yourself.

Choose this if you have a framer you like, or a frame already, or you simply want the photograph and not the furniture.

Acrylic glass

The same photographic print, face-mounted behind 2mm of clear acrylic. The acrylic bonds directly to the surface, which removes the air gap you get with ordinary glazing and takes the image with it — blacks go deeper, the surface goes glossy and seamless, and the whole thing reads as one solid object rather than a picture in a box. It hangs off a subframe on the back, so it floats a centimetre or so off the wall with no visible fixings.

Choose this for a modern room, or for a photograph where the tonal range is doing the work. It is the finish that flatters the long exposures most.

Framed

The print, a white mat board, glazing and a wooden moulding, assembled and delivered ready to hang. Conventional, and conventional for good reasons — the mat gives the photograph a margin to breathe in, and a black frame around a black and white photograph has never once looked wrong.

Choose this if it is going somewhere with other pictures, or if you want to open one box and be finished.

Floater frame

The print mounted on a rigid backing and set inside a frame with a deliberate gap around it, so the photograph appears to hover rather than sit behind a window. No mat, no glazing over the image. You see the edge of the print itself.

It is the most expensive finish and the one I would choose. Gallery hang, without the gallery.

Sizes

Each photograph is offered at the size that suits its own proportions rather than a house standard — some are wide, some tall, one or two nearly square. The size is shown on every product page and is the size of the printed image.

Digital downloads

Every photograph is also available as a high-resolution file for €39.99, to print yourself at whatever size your printer and paper will carry. These live in Books & Downloads alongside the eBooks, one product per photograph, with a link back to the print on each.

The file is licensed for your own private use — print it, hang it, keep it. Not licensed for resale or commercial use.

How long it takes

Nothing here is held in stock. When your order comes in I pass it to the lab in Berlin, and production only begins once they have been paid for the job — usually within a day of your order, and I do it as quickly as I see it.

So the clock runs: your order, then a short handover, then production, then shipping. A bare print is quick. Acrylic mounting and framing take longer, because someone is assembling the thing by hand. If you need a piece for a particular date, write to me before you order and I will tell you honestly whether it will make it.

Shipping and returns

Prints ship directly from Berlin. Delivery times and costs are WhiteWall's, and are shown at checkout.

If a print arrives damaged or wrong, write to ian@ijmphotography.net and I will sort it out. Full terms are in the refund policy.

A note for readers in Britain

I cannot sell to the United Kingdom at the moment. Since Brexit an overseas seller has to be registered for UK VAT to send even a modest parcel across, and for a shop this size the paperwork currently outweighs the trade.

Which is a pity, given how much of this work was made in Northumberland. If you are in Britain and would have bought something, tell me — I would rather know than not. If there is real interest I will register and open it properly.

Why it costs what it costs

The bare print carries the margin that funds the film, the chemistry and the six years of writing that sits behind this shop. The framed and mounted finishes are priced close to what they cost me to have made — I would rather you had the good frame than that I made money on the moulding.

If you are choosing between two of these and cannot decide, write to me. I will tell you what I would put on my own wall.