A deco shop is a new breed of do-it-yourself art. Creating a masterpiece from digital stills can be done at the touch of a button; all you need is access to the internet, a stockpile of photos and a moment of creative flair. With the assistance of a little bit of nifty software, like the sort of thing that has been in use at Snappy Snaps and the likes for the last few years, your photos can be transformed into a canvas print or a poster. There are settings to crop, cut, paste and distort, and if you are feeling particularly arty, play with colour and contrast too.
Although the package is simple to use and aimed at the basic level of pick a picture and put it on canvass, there is potential for its use in far more arty ways. Think Warhol and multiple art works, think crazy colours and obscure angles. Get inventive with the software and create something more than a photo on fabric. Your creation may not be hung in the Tate Gallery once you've done, but it has the potential to be a great conversation piece at a dinner party, or a fabulous gift for a friend.
However, if you aren't feeling quite so wild about becoming the next Picasso, it is a beautiful way to display a favourite picture. Holiday landscapes and portraits of a loved one can be released from the hard drive where they never get seen and given a new lease of life on the wall. It can also be a novel way to display favourite pictures all together on one wall. We are quite used to a photo wall of gilded frames and glass, with every momentous occasion captured for posterity.
There have been many photographic fads over the years, and just as many art fads too. They all have a place in our hearts though, and they often act as a reminder of the times. Just like the Bay City Rollers souvenir socks that are hidden in a cupboard somewhere. One such 'fad' was in the 1980s with the Athena poster. The aesthetic was black and white or sepia tones of either a supposedly cute or romantic scene; or more often, a down right seedy image of a semi clad man or woman. These posters depicted burly and overly handsome men holding babies, sultry women in faux forties attire waiting in train stations and the infamous tennis player with her bum cheeks showing. Classy.
Another that springs to mind is the fisheye photo being put in a bubble glass frame. All very good fun, and looks great, but only in small, amounts. Having a whole photo wall of fish eyed faces with big noses and skewered landscape shots and the novelty soon wears off. Polaroid photos on the other hand have a special place in my heart, and still do, even with the super slim multi purpose digital photo boxes that we carry at all times. Polaroids have an expectation and a randomness about them. They come ready framed, and so look great when put on a wall en mass. The way the colours degrade over time give feel that is purely stuck in the 1970s, even if it is a picture of the millennium dome.
Polaroid photos have actually made it into the realm of fine art. A guy called Araki has on numerous occasions displayed Polaroid pictures of food, flowers and half naked ladies in a massive montage of around 1000 stills. The advancing technology may well put the photographic canvas on the fine art agenda, rather than demoting it to room 101 with the pop culture posters of the 1980s.
Author Resource:-
Dominic Donaldson is an expert in the photographic printing. Find out more about the deco shop and how to produce your own photographic masterpiece at Cewe Photoworld.
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