The biggest argument we have in the industry these days is the state of non-virtual display of images. With so much work published daily on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr – how can you make the end product special?
Well, the answer is WhiteWall.
A professional online photo lab based in Berlin, Germany, WhiteWall has quickly gained a reputation for its photos under acrylic glass, brilliant HD Metal and aluminum prints, and hand-crafted frames. As the exclusive lab for more than 40 LUMAS galleries around the world, all products are produced in Germany, available in custom sizes and shipped worldwide in custom cut packaging for maximum protection.
During Photoplus 2016, WhiteWall opened their first showroom and retail store outside of Germany. This fourth brick and mortar location gives customers an opportunity to see all the WhiteWall options on display and receive professional assistance onsite before placing their online orders directly to WhiteWall.com from kiosks located in the store. It is a beautiful presentation of a myriad of products, a perfect answer to reproducing a virtual products catalog in a non-virtual world. Hey photographers, welcome to the 21st century and the new way of producing fine artm museum-quality displays of your art. And that is exactly what WhiteWall is showcasing in SoHo.
“Our quality and craftsmanship has been recognized around the world but we realize it is important for our customers to be able to see that quality up close and personal,” says Holger Lendner, CEO of WhiteWall.
The new retail store and LUMAS gallery are located in the same new space in New York City at 474 West Broadway in SoHo. By seeing the limited art editions and more than 1,000 product variations side-by-side customers can be assured that their photos are given the same white-glove, professional care as those displayed inside the LUMAS gallery.
Most impressive is the wall showing all the different ways to show your prints. You never realized what a difference a thickness of acrylic can make in giving depth to a landscape image. The different surfaces side by side in the Step 1 display in the showroom really give the photographer a unique way to judge which will make your image stand out the best. Step 2 brings you to shapes. Remember when the only choices were 8×10, 11×14, ad 16×20? Now they are endless. Next you move to Step 3 and choose from over 80 framing styles.
If you want photo books or acrylic blocks, and even the newest prints on wood, WhiteWall has these options as well. They also announced at Photoplus the addition of ultraHD Photo Prints, a newly developed ultraHD technology creating a previously unseen level of definition and detail. With twice the resolution of conventional prints, it sets new standards in terms of realistic image reproduction. It also provides incredibly luminous color and saturation.
The new WhiteWall Ambassador Program includes some of the world’s most distinguished, talented, and influential photographers known for developing styles that are uniquely their own.
Two U.S.-based photographers have been added to the growing international list of photographers participating in the program. Barbara Bordnick is one of the most recognized photographers in portrait photography and her recent collection of flowers have received critical acclaim across the entire fine art community.
“As a fine art printer myself, I look at the overall print process with a very critical eye,“ explains Ms. Bordnick. “I have always printed my own work.”
“I saw a great level of precision and care in the WhiteWall products, including the numerous hand-crafted substrates available to photographers and artists. I am pleased to be associated with WhiteWall as one of their photography Ambassadors.“
Karsten Staiger, a German artist that has been living and working in New York for more than 20 years now, has captured the magnificence and grandeur of the metropolis with cityscapes taken from rooftops and some of the highest points available without the aid of a helicopter. His images look at Manhattan from perspectives never before seen and his work has appeared in numerous galleries and renowned exhibitons.
“WhiteWall produces all the prints in my exhibitions and the quality is consistently superior to anything I have seen produced with my photography,“ says Mr. Staiger. “They are the only lab I work with, which made the decision to become a WhiteWall Ambassador an easy one for me.“
Photographs by both Barbara and Karsten were on display at PhotoPlus Expo and inside the New York showroom.
WhiteWall also created a 24-print exhibit from winning images of the “Your New York Minute” photo contest sponsored by PhotoPlus Expo. The contest was open to all photographers and consumers who had a great photo they took in any of the five boroughs comprising New York City. In addition to the 24 prints representing contest winners and honorable mentions, WhiteWall created a large, 40×60-inch photo mosaic under acrylic glass. The mosaic, which incorporates every photo entered in the contest, was the centrepiece of the exhibit during the annual PhotoPlus Expo Conference + Expo from October 20-22.
“It was really interesting to see the diverse perspectives photographers had on New York and the quality and creativity that went into producing them. We are especially proud of the large photo mosaic we produced under acrylic glass, WhiteWall’s signature product,” said Holger Lendner, CEO of WhiteWall. “The fact that the mosaic was created using every photo entered into the contest gives everyone a level of involvement in the exhibit, which is fantastic.”
The impressive photo mosaic was printed on Fuji Crystal DP II glossy paper and is sealed under acrylic glass. The source image used to create the mosaic was taken by photographer and contest entrant, Tony James. The photo of lower Manhattan clearly shows the new Freedom Tower in all its glory.
![The lunar farside as never seen before! LROC WAC orthographic projection centered at 180° longitude, 0° latitude [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].](https://southbrooklyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/farside.800_0-300x300.jpg)
WhiteWall first came to our attention during Photoville 2016. Barnstorming the Moon, a collection of images never before printed or shown, offered a unique perspective of the Moon captured with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC).
WhiteWall joined with Mark Robinson, a professor at ASU‘s School of Earth and Space Exploration and a Principal Investigator for the imaging system on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, to create the exhibit which featured direct prints on aluminum-dibond that provide an added sense of dimension to the photographs. Two of the images were round prints of the nearside and the farside of the Moon with such incredible detail like nothing we have seen before. And I have to admit, I was stunned by the clarity of the orbital camera and the printing techniques.
I can’t wait to see the results of my own images with their techniques. They have set a new standard.
