Artifact Uprising snuck onto my radar sometime in the last 2 years; I can't remember whether it was a result of their partnership with my mobile image-editing suite of choice, VSCO, or of their own accord, but I thought it was a great idea and mentally bookmarked it for later. As a photographer learning my way in the digital age and taking most of my photos with my phone, having images printed just isn't a regular part of the process. I'd love it to be but the expense of quality printing make a regular practice of it quite cost prohibitive. Artifact Uprising has developed a service (complete with an app) that is built with the idea of bringing digital images from mobile devices and computers, into the real physical world - with relative simplicity. From their website:

LEAVE A LEGACY

we believe in the story that is archived for future generations. we believe in moving stories off your device and into your life.

I decided to give the service a spin, using a mix of mobile images and film scans I've compiled over the years. AU has many printing options available, from more gift-oriented sizes and quality to actual art-quality prints (which I'm actually most interested in). They also claim to use 100% environmentally friendly, post-consumer waste for their products, and appear to be very transparent about who they source from. I'm not the most environment-conscious person on the planet by any stretch of the imagination, but when a company is really committed to that end, it's definitely confidence-building.

I placed an order for 25 prints, picking random photographs from my trips to Berlin and Copenhagen, as well as my Lessondary shoot, some random portraits, and a few shots from my two trips to visit my grandparents. The delivery came today and I'm not ashamed to admit that I was geekily excited. For starters, the packaging was clean and well-designed (thanks for the precedent, Apple) so I was already relatively impressed.

Firstly, let me say this - as I described earlier, having physical copies of my work is not something I'm used to, so to see and hold these has a novelty to it that impossible to deny. As great as a photograph can look on a screen, I'm of the school of thought that photographs are best represented in a physical state. And as the photographer, there's absolutely a unique pride in seeing your work in print. It almost makes an honest critique of the materials and print quality hard to do.

I love how almost everything came out. As a caveat, there are all kinds of pre-printing considerations that pros do with their images to really make them look great in print, and I'm not well-versed to that end, so any niggles or issues I might have may have been embedded into the files I sent in. I noticed that blacks/shadows aren't reproduced super faithfully - detail seems like it can get a bit lost, at least with the process used for these 5x5 prints. My expectations weren't extremely high though, for the aforementioned reasons, and also because shadow detail is just a difficult thing to reproduce accurately - even the paper used can affect the results.

I thought for what this particular option offers the average end-user, though, everything looked great. The stock of the paper isn't super thick but feels sturdy enough to be handled. To have the ability to take a picture on your phone, edit it and then send it away to be printed and delivered to your door is pretty amazing.

What a time to be alive.

As I said earlier, I'm really testing out different options for printing because I'm interested in selling editioned prints. I'd love to hear back from anybody that actually reads these posts I put up and see if my work would be something people would be interested in investing in! I have to figure out how all of that would even look, but as I've mentioned in my post about Offscreen - having my work printed is a big deal for a number of reasons, one of which is being able to share with the world.

Lemme know!

Part of my process to keep inspired and driven to create is keeping an eye on the industry around me and the people working in it, the people making great images and building awesome bodies of work, the people fashioning awesome careers for themselves. I do a lot of investigation along these lines, so I figured it'd be a nice addition to the blog to talk about some of these photographers and share their work with my readers. We'll see if I can make this a series.

Today I wanted to talk about Julia Galdo and Cody Cloud, otherwise known as JUCO, an advertorial/fashion photography team located in Los Angeles, who've been killing it for the last few years. Their work's been popping up all over the place - shooting for a wide range of advertising clients and publications, and constantly making new work that has a super distinct style and point of view.

One of my favorite things about their style is their awareness and fearless sense of color, and the way it plays into their images as a compositional element. intentionally invoking color is a daunting ideal for me; I feel like I need 4 years worth of color theory to even approach it comfortably. They are heavy on the use of pastels and it may not be for everybody, but it's definitely their voice and I'd think their clients know what they're getting when they commission them for work, and they desire that specifically.

Another thing I find so impressive about them is that they are constantly making ( and presenting!!! ) new work. I follow their portfolio updates on Behance - they're pretty nonstop with it, and I'm consistently floored with what they're doing. Sometimes it won't be a commissioned shoot, sometimes just personal work, but either way, you get the feeling they're making new work because they thoroughly enjoy shooting ideas they have.

It's super inspiring.

You can follow Julia and Cody's work on their website, Behance portfolio , and their tumblr page. Check 'em out.

Artifact Uprising Unboxing.

Photographer Of The Day - Julia Galdo & Cody Cloud (JUCO).