Displaying your portraits in your home
Choosing the best Wall Display for your portraits
Now that your session is over, it’s time to decide how and where you are going to display your photos and what will look best in your home. One of the struggles a lot of clients have is deciding how they want to display their photos and which ones they are going to choose. There are a variety of ways you can go about displaying your photos in your home. Today I am going to focus on 2 of the biggest ways that clients can display their photos, because both ways take up the most amount of real estate in the home. I am speaking about Canvases or large prints for your walls.
• Canvas – A canvas print is the result of an image printed onto canvas which is often stretched, or gallery-wrapped, over varying thicknesses of wood to make it stand out more or less depending on your preference. These photos are free-floating and do not require a frame. Because they don’t need a frame, canvases offer a variety of nonstandard sizes that can be used to create display blocks of different images. Canvas prints are often used in interior design customized with personal photographs. Canvas prints are intended to reproduce the look of original oil or acrylic paintings on stretched canvas. These tend to be more expensive because of the amount of materials and work that goes into making a canvas print.
• Framed Prints – Usually larger size photo prints, printed on high quality photo paper often matted and put into various styles of frames. These tend to be less expensive than canvases although can be quite pricey depending on the size and frame quality, as well as mattes being used.
When hanging photos on your wall (framed or canvas) you can choose to hang a single photo, or a group of photos in a collage to change it up. Depending on the size of the wall space you can be very creative with your canvases or prints. Shutterfly has a great article on wall art size guidelines and how to select sizes based on your wall space or where in your home you choose to display your images. Check out the link for to see their thoughts on sizing and displaying images. The Ultimate Wall Art Size Guide Shutterfly
The images below can give you a quick overall look at various sizes that wall art can be to help give perspective when choosing what size you have printed by your photographer or an outside lab.
Wall Display Examples:
As part of my client’s gallery, more so for family sessions, I like to give them examples of what their images would be like displayed on the wall as both canvases and framed prints. I feel this gives them help in trying to figure out what type of display they might want and what sizes to order. I use stock wall images that I’ve purchased to insert their images into, and I create a folder within their gallery for them to see these display examples. I try to do both canvases and prints. Below are some examples that I’ve put together for recent sessions I have had.
I had a client who had a very large wall space in her living room and created canvas blocks in different sizes to fill her space. She added a metal wall saying to go above the photos to tie in with the canvases. I also created a wall in my room of some canvases I had made of our trip to Maui. I got a custom metal sign from Etsy to display above my canvas blocks.
There are some additional ways to display your home, especially if you are hesitant to put things on the wall. These are just a few ideas to get you started.
• Framed on Shelves, Desks, Tables – If you are renting or don’t want to put holes in your walls from prints or canvases, you can also frame your prints and place them on shelves, desks, or tables around your home. (You can also do this in addition to the wall hangings if you’d like.)
• Photo Boxes – Customized photo boxes are totally in! These are very popular. This is a great way to display your photos, and you can keep more prints inside or use them as a keepsake box to house your precious memories.
• Wall Calendars – Enjoy your photos all year long with beautiful wall calendars!
• Albums/Coffee Table Books – If you just can’t pick out a few photos to display in your home and you need more space, you can always get an album or coffee table book printed up and place it on your coffee table or bookshelf. Pull it out and look through it to remember how fun your session was, and how much your family loves each other.
• Computer Screensaver – Take your digital images and use them as screensavers so you can enjoy your photos while your computer gets some rest.
No matter how you display your images in your home, the most important part is to display them. If you have any questions about displaying your images or are a past client and need help ordering through your gallery or help creating a wall display design, please email me. I would love to help you!
