1. The pooch pix in the link: the best I’ve seen in a helluva long time if not ever; they have a huge sense of fun and not a jot of silly quasi-human portraiture applied to them. Love ‘em. So it takes time, lots of shots and a touch of Dame Fortune – tried shooting women in rolling surf?
2. Large prints. I can only do A3+ max. which is 13”x19” and quite small, all things considered. So clearly, I do have a current preference for something that fits within the available (to me) format and leaves a reasonable white border.
But the thing is, for whom are the prints intended? If for my personal consumption, then large enough, all things considered, because I haven’t the space for anything much more grand; if for anyone else, then I would think that the galleries have it right: they’re selling an impression, a statement, which may, or may not also be termed art. There is also the concept of value for money, rapport prix/qualité as the French would have it, when thinking of eating out somewhere. Bigger often equates with better, as arguments within LuLa itself regularly demonstrate, so why deny the outer world its own take on this format/price/value notion? Obviously, had I a larger printer and a market for my smudges, then I’m fairy sure that I, too, would advocate larger prints at higher prices!
Indeed, some great snapper don’t print large; some are dead and contact prints are all that exist of the right marketing provenance. Some simply never printed anything at all for a market beyond the fashion mags and so their old work lingering in locked/forgotten Vogue or Harper’s office drawers will never be any larger than originally required for reproduction.
There’s a final (that I can think of at the moment) point: some images simply look better smaller than large and, clearly, I believe vice versa holds as true.
Rob C