And Now For Something Completely Different...

The advent of the new shop in Murray Street - near the corner of Queen Street and apparently Open All Hours* - has meant some fresh thinking about items to be stocked. I am delighted to see the return of albums and frames.

They once existed in the Stirling Street shop - I remember seeing some in 2008 when I started to work behind the counter there - but the stocks ran down and were never replenished. The business moved to catering for different parts of the market and these humble products were left to other retail shops.

But now they are back - and as a focused offering that might just hit the mark for many city people -particularly with the advent of another new service that you'll see in another weblog column.

Now, let's imagine that you are working in the city and you've got a packet of 6 x 4 pictures of a wedding or birthday that you have just shot. There they are in the paper envelope, but you need to present them to the family in something better...

Think Camera Electronic. We've now got a mini-bar selection of mini albums and frames at the Murray St store that will save the day.

Been travelling? Got the holiday snaps? Got a particularly good one of the landscape where you waited up for hours and captured the last of the sunset? Proud of it? Well, frame it up and put it on the wall and drive your work-mates mad.

How about a travel diary that you make as you go along. How about a travel diary that you can give to your hosts as a thank-you? How about getting your life off your mobile phone and into a book on the shelf - that phone will be tossed in 5 years but your albums will be with you forever.

You've got the camera. You've got the holiday booked. Now plan ahead and make a place for all the good memories to come home to.

Buy a photo album from Camera Electronic. We're Open All Hours*...

Visit the new Camera Electronic store at 2/324 Murray St, Perth
*For opening hours, click here

The Frame Up Job

At the risk of sounding like a Me-Too blogger, I wish to draw attention to a course being run by the Shoot Workshops next door. It is a workshop on Picture Framing and will be run by Aaron McPolin on Sunday, the 4th of September - not that far into the future.

The workshop costs $139, but this is the sort of thing that just does not come along every day. In fact, I would be prepared to say that in Perth this does not come along ANY day. It is the chance of a lifetime for some of us.

We all make files. We all make images. Some of us make pictures. Few of us make pictures that hang on walls. And damned few of us make pictures that deserve to hang on the walls.

Part of this is the files, part of it is the images. After that a great deal of it is the aesthetic that either supports or condemns the image. Here is where Aaron may be able to offer the insight to help us improve our pictures.

The blurb for the workshop speaks of colour theory, printing for longevity, placement, glazing, and matting. Also lighting, placement, exhibition design, and pricing. Even if you are not trying for " Family Of Man " and would settle for the relatives spread out over the lounge room wall in reasonable order, this workshop is going to help.

I freely admit to not being an artist, and have had this firmly attested to by Perth Artists on Facebook, but I think that this sort of thing will help me to improve my taste and present my work better. I have an ambition to be rejected by a better class of gallery than Facebook, and this may help.

Studio 281
281 Guildford Road, Maylands
Sunday, 4th of September
10AM - 4PM

Contact Shannon at Shoot Photography Workshops to make a booking:

T. 08 9228 8232
E. shannon@shootworkshops.com.au
W. www.shootworkshops.com.au

Sticking Together Through Thick And Thin - The Photo Glue Saga

One of the first important responsibilities we encountered as children in kindergarten was the glue pot.

No matter whether you found it in Europe, Britain, Canada, or Australia, it was the same thing - a big glass jar filled with something gelatinous and stoppered with a lid that never fit. Frequently there was a brush thrust through the lid. It was sticky on the inside and sticky on the inside and exuded an odour of strange chemistry.

We all tried to eat it at some stage of the game.  Wise schools invested in non-poisonous types...

As photographers we have also dabbled in glues - from the clear mucilages in bottles that we stuck pictures into albums with through various specialist formulae in tubes and then on to spray cans for bigger prints. Some stuck, some didn't - some ruined the photos and some left them untouched  - it really was a by-guess-and-by-gosh situation for amateur shooters.

Professionals had their hot presses and sheets of varnish tissue that they could use to mount large prints to matte boards. These were reliable if served with good materials and a degree of skill, but could ruin a print in 30 seconds if you got any grit trapped on the platen. Plus they were hot - and big - and expensive. And the materials to mount with them also cost a fair bit.

Which brings us to the subject of the post - the Hahnemuhle Archival glue in a 4 oz. bottle. The stuff is more than just a Bunnings bottle - it is pH neutral and will not come boiling out of the frame to wipe your work off the canvas or paper. Unfortunately you cannot say that about many other products - slather them on and watch in horror over the years as they let go and everything falls apart or start to turn all sorts of colours and shapes.

 As a model diorama builder I am keenly aware of the different reactions that glue and adhesives undergo when they are being used on different materials. I have watched careful work disappear under chemicals exuded by cyano-acrylates  years after assembly. The awful part about this is that the parts may be welded for eternity with the contamination locked inside the structure - short of sawing it apart you can't get in to clean up.

A side issue was the discovery of the effect of humidity and the expansion and contraction under  print display conditions.  This robbed one of my exhibitions of all dignity a few years ago as matted prints twisted themselves into Dorito shapes and fell off the frames that were displaying them. Subsequent years saw different glues and tapes tried , and in the end the best mounting turned out to be pinning unmounted prints to a hanging muslin backdrop.

Any rate, come into the shop and browse in the Hahnemuhle section. You'll find Gallerie Wrap canvas kits and frames as well as the 4 oz. glue and Hahnemuhle mounting spray. It's the spray glue of choice for a number of professional client and they go through a good deal of it.