The Store is Open
After a long time of wanting to do something like this, and after asking for your opinion about what photos to include, I'm happy to say that as of today, the store is open. I'm launching with 20 photographs spanning a broad range of the non-conference work I've done over the last few years. And, I will be adding more to the collection as time allows.
The process of opening up this store has been a very interesting. I've chatted with lots of people about what my approach should be. I've considered building my own store. I've auditioned lots of stores and fulfillment partners. In the end, I've decided to go with Zenfolio as the online storefront. They in turn use Mpix as their print and fulfillment partner. Between Zenfolio's competent e-commerce system and the fabulous prints and fulfillment that Mpix offers, I've been able to just focus most of my attention on honing the images to launch the store with.
While it's possible to just upload photos to Zenfolio and flip the switch to offer prints of them, I didn't take that approach. Instead, I evaluated each potential image on my workstation and printer for color, resolution, and sharpness. There were quite a few photos that I wanted to offer that didn't make the grade after their test prints. There are more in the queue waiting to be worked up so that they're in proper shape for the store. All in all, it's been a lot of work to get to this point. Fun work, mind you, but work nonetheless. There's still a bit more to be done. I'm going to work links and content for the store into this site over the next few days and give it the emphasis it should have.
That said, I'm incredibly glad be at this point. It wouldn't have happened with out a lot of encouragement from friends and family. I'm in debt to everyone who I've consulted with and especially in debt to all of you that chimed in with tags on my Flickr stream and helped me identify what images should be considered. You guys are the best, you humble me, and I hope that you'll keep telling me what you want.
All that said, please check out the photographs and let me know what you think. Thank You.
8 Comments
Congrats! Looks sharp and I'm sure you'll do well with the offerings :)
Now where to hang the Boiler Bay pic? ;)
Reply to this comment
Did you look at smugmug.com? Curious why you chose zenfolio over them.
Reply to this comment
Hi Duncan,
it would be awesome, if you could post how you are dealing with color management before uploading your shots to these printing services. Do you include a certain color profile etc...
Thanks and see you at WWDC (allthough you do not know me ;-)
Stefan
Reply to this comment
Do you recommend turning on the color enhancer during the checkout process? Also, which paper style would you recommend, the traditional or the metallic?
Reply to this comment
Seuj: Thanks! :) I hope so.
Bob: I did indeed look at Smugmug. Smug does somewhat better than Zen on a few things. Zen does better than Smug on some others. To some degree, the e-comm solution on Zen was more to my liking. But most of all, Mpix delivers fantastic prints. That was the final differentiator for me.
Stefan: Indeed, I can post something up about that at some point. The short versions is that I run totally color managed here and check prints on my printers to have a good idea what happens in the translation between transmissive and reflective color and then I ship the photos up to Zen tagged as sRGB, the profile that Zen and Mpix recommend using for the process.
Ben: I have set the default in the Zenfolio cart set to let Mpix do corrections on their side and I'm totally OK with customers leaving it that way. I've done enough prints through Mpix that I can see that they're very competent about making small tweaks to things to make sure that they reproduce well on their equipment while staying true to my intent. It was a bit of a leap of faith on my part to do that, but, Mpix met that leap.
As far as papers, I like both for different purposes. The metallic is quite nice for bold vivid colors and the waves from Boiler Bay look fantastic on it. That said, the normal paper reproduces things quite well and for anything with subtle colors, I prefer it. That said, most of my photos on Zenfolio right now are pretty would do well on the metallic paper.
Reply to this comment
Do you offer any hand printed B&W or is it all inkjet and digital stuff?
Reply to this comment
Mahonri: Right now, I don’t offer any hand printed photos. Just the C41 digital prints.
Reply to this comment
What is the reason not to use MPix directly? What is it that Zenfolio is bringing?
Reply to this comment
Leave a comment