I am really delighted to be having an exhibition of my 100 portraits project from last year in “offshore” cafe and exhibition space during March. What I had not anticipated was the difficulty of printing and hanging pictures on a budget. If I print myself at A4 size, then the cost and sheer hassle of getting 100 prints done might turn my remaining dark hairs grey. Eventually I have settled on a local camera store, Deaytons in paisley which did 100 12 inch by 8 inch prints for £65 UK pounds; I don’t think I could match that at home and I certainly couldn’t drop off a usb memory stick (why has there never been one agreed name for those?) one day and pick up a bag of finished prints one day later.
Then there is framing. The cheapest frame I can find is at least 3 or more pounds and the nicer ones are about 5 pounds each. That’s at the very least I would spend. That’s £300 UK pounds plus prints for a one off exhibition that may never be repeated. My wife has kindly taken an interest as an occasional painter and between us we have ordered 100 card mounts cut to size for the 100 prints from a specialist web business in England which should arrive on Monday. I would prefer full frames, but this keeps the framing costs to something like £1 UK pound a frame. This will keep the total exhibition cost to less than £200 UK pounds which seems reasonable for a non commercial, vanity event.
No doubt in a few weks I’ll post a photo of the cafe exhibition itself and report on the success of the cardboard mounts in lieu of actual frames. 100 is a big number!
