Fred Picker was right.

Most will never see many of their photographs hung on a wall. There are a number of reasons for this. In fact most digital photographs remain on the computer and are only displayed on the Internet. And many who print their analog photographs often consign their work to the boxes that contained the printing paper used to make them. Sad but true!

But let’s say you are printing and mounting your photographs; have you taken the necessary amount of time to really examine them in a contemplative fashion over a period of time to determine if they are good and say what you wanted said? For many the answer is no.

Fred Picker had a great idea. He said it was important to mount a strip of wood on the wall in a place where you could view your mounted prints, lit in a manner they might normally appear in, and at a height they would be normally viewed. He was right; I have one in my workroom, lit by focused eyeballs. This simple setup enables you sit back over a period of time and really decide if your prints are keepers or material for the circular file. This can be painful, but valuable for several reasons: (1) you can actually see your prints on a wall, which is most gratifying if you have never experienced this before; and (2) you can determine if more work needs to be done in the darkroom to make the final print better, or whether it just makes sense to cut your losses and toss it because it really isn’t that good after all.

Think about it, how many hopelessly boring, even if technically sound photographs have you seen on the Internet?

So please consider this deceptively simple device: go to Home Deport or Lowes, get a strip of molding and attach it to the wall. That’s right! Print your photographs, mount them or have them mounted, then stand them up on the strip of molding and study them for a while.

One of two things will happen. Either you will come to the decision that the print you are studying is a statement of what you saw in your minds eye and is deserving, or you will decide that it needs more work or isn’t very good after all. In any case you will have learned a lot and taken a major step to create what speaks to you and is only your best work!