A Tale of Two Prints!

I just came from Stephen Hart’s lab and have just seen the two images above printed better than I could have ever imagined possible!!! Stephen Hart has been making prints for a long time.  I had never see his work until I saw some of Jim Begley’s work printed by Stephen. Jim is one of America’s best HDR shooters, and I’m proud to say, my partner in His Light Workshops, and my brother in Christ.  For that matter so is Stephen!  But back to my story…..  When I saw how drop dead gorgeous Stephen’s new print process was, it’s called Acrylic Face Mount prints, I was stunned.  Now take just a minute to realize that I have been exposed to virtually all the high end print makers across our country.   Until this morning the most beautiful thing I had ever seen done from one of my files was an Image Wizards, Metal print by Roger Laudy.  Roger is still the man when it comes to metal prints and I love his work, and still highly recommend him, but for more conventional prints, Jasper Imaging is just sick!!  (I’m 67 so I hope I used that in a good way, his stuff is so good it’s hard to believe you’re looking at your own images!!!)  Stephen’s Acrylic Mount Prints are made with UV Museum Grade Acrylic and are finished out perfectly, and to boot he offers conventional framing for those that do not want stand off mounts.  Stephen does all the “High End” print types, Archival Quality Gallery Wraps with the highest end materials, Ink Jet prints in virtually all the best paper choices, and the Acrylic Face Mount prints.

The best thing about Stephen’s work is it reminds me of the great craftsman of the past, they didn’t do it for the client, they did it to satisfy their own desire to do it as good as it can be done.  Stephen has realized that goal!  The best part for me is that I can drive a few miles from my office to see how the prints are looking.  I can say this right now, I’ve never had better prints made of my work in 43 years of seeking the perfect printer, I’m not looking any longer, I’ve found him, thanks Stephen!!

But what about the tale of two prints???  Sorry about that, got kinda wound up over the spectacular prints I saw this morning.  So the two image above were blown up to 32×46 inches in super high gloss Acrylic Mounts.  If you viewed them at normal viewing distance both are simply stunning, sorry it is two nice images, but when you put your nose right in the print, it is hard to tell which print was made with which camera!!!  One was made with a D800 and the Micro Nikkor 105mm Micro, the other with a D2x and 200mm Micro Nikkor.  The D800 is a whopping FX sensor with 36 mega pixels, the D2x was a DX sensor with 12 mega pixels.  Care to guess which is which. trust me even in the huge prints it’s hard!  The top is D2x bottom D800.

If you would like to learn more about Stephen’s company, Jasper Imaging (named after his young son, Jasper), give him a another week or two and then his website  www.jasperimaging.com will be live.  I will alert you when it is up and will add it to my blog roll!

If you need large, presentation grade prints of any kind, you owe it to yourself to check his work out….  One thing is for sure, you’ll never see your print until Stephen is happy with it!!!!

Blessings,

the pilgrim