I recently received the wonderful opportunity to display my work in a gallery at the new showroom and museum at Canon's headquarters in Shimomaruko here in Tokyo, and today I'm going to share details including the creation of my prints, how they were treated in preparation for the show,...
Thank you for visiting!
Martin Bailey has been releasing weekly podcasts and blog posts since 2005! Almost all of the 760+ posts here contain a full text article with photographs and illustations, and take at least one day, sometimes three to four days to produce.
You are welcome to listen to the Podcast with the audio player and follow along with the images discussed below.
If you value what we do, please consider a Patreon contribution of $3 or more to unlock the full text of more than 760 posts and gain access to the exclusive MBP Community. There are also higher tiers with various benefits, some including one-to-one Mentorship.
Please visit our Patreon site for full details, and take your photography to a whole new level! | Become a Patron! |
![]() | Existing Patrons please login to access posts and benefits. Thanks for being awesome! |
Image Gallery
Degassing a 44x66-inch Print
ON1 Perfect Resize
Canon Print Studio Pro
Prints in Individual Boxes
A Red Line!
Back of Alpolic Panel
The England "Roots" Wall
The "Namibia" Wall
The "Iceland" Wall
The Japan "New Roots" Wall
Canon Showroom
Canon Camera Historical Collection
Canon's First KWANON Camera
Canon's Tunnel of Lenses
17 Comments
Mark V'Soske
Posted at 21:18h, 06 AprilCongratulations on a beautiful exhibit!
Martin Bailey
Posted at 23:34h, 06 AprilThanks, Mark!
Ron Gates
Posted at 07:17h, 07 AprilMartin, I found this blog post extremely interesting. I’ve followed you for a number of years now and enjoy each and every post. I wish I could be in Tokyo to see your images in person but that’s not possible. I also own all three of your ebooks that I purchased through Craft and Vision. I was disappointed to see it discontinue offering books and also for the end of PHOTOGRAPH Magazine. Thanks for your efforts.
Martin Bailey
Posted at 12:22h, 07 AprilHi Ron,
Thanks so much for the lovely comment! I really appreciate you following my antics over the years.
Thanks also for picking up my ebooks through Craft & Vision. It’s a shame that they decided to discontinue the majority of their services, but I hugely applaud their decision to give the right to sell these books back to the authors. This was hugely generous of them.
Sorry you can’t see the prints in person, but I’m pleased you enjoyed the post. Hopefully, someday we’ll figure out a way to get these or similar prints to your part of the world.
Regards,
Martin.
Greg Bee
Posted at 18:38h, 07 AprilHi Martin
So does ON1 Perfect Resize do a better job of resizing than Capture One’s own resizing output?
Thanks,
Martin Bailey
Posted at 22:07h, 07 AprilHi Greg,
Capture One and Photoshop don’t really do anything to help the image look good when enlarged. ON1 Resize contains the Genuine Fractals algorithm that in my opinion does a great job of actually increasing the resolution.
Regards,
Martin.
Janet Webster
Posted at 23:41h, 07 AprilHello Martin and thank you for a very interesting (as usual) post. First off, congratulations on your exhibit. I bet it is stunning.and wish I was able to visit Tokyo to see it. It was interesting to read about how you made the prints. (Your ebook – Making the Print – really helped me as I started learning to print). I am just starting to have some work printed on aluminum and would like to know more about the panels your prints were affixed to – the process involved etc and how this differs from printing directly on metal.. Any chance you could do a blog post on this?
Hope your exhibition is a great success. And thanks for all your work.
Cheers, Janet
Martin Bailey
Posted at 09:56h, 08 AprilHi Janet,
Thanks very much for your lovely comment and congrats!
The process of creating the Alpolic panels is a little bit of a grey box. I tried to get access to the actual process and was refused. As it is not a process that cannot be carried out without space consuming equipment, not to mention very expensive, it’s always going to be something that we outsource.
If I can get more information on what actually happens to the prints, I’ll certainly post that, but the head of Frameman seems to always be too busy to spend much time explaining this stuff. I’ll see what I can do though.
Cheers,
Martin.
Janet Webster
Posted at 15:54h, 08 AprilThanks Martin. I have had some images printed on aluminum dibond and was very pleased. Then I became aware that there are other processes of placing images on metal. Am hoping to learn more about this. As I live in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, I don’t have the opportunity to pop out and explore this stuff in galleries or printing places! I think any information you can dig up would be very useful not only for me but for other photographers. Thanks, Janet
David Ramsey
Posted at 04:08h, 08 AprilMartin – Well deserved recognition to be displayed at Canon HQ! The images look wonderful and I think you made the right decision to print large, even if it limited the number of photographs you could display. Images such as you chose are, IMO, more impactful when printed large. And where in Japan could you otherwise display 10 photographs as large?! LOL. Hope all is well with you.
Regards,
David
Martin Bailey
Posted at 09:59h, 08 AprilThanks, Dave!
It’s nice to have my decision affirmed. I love large immersive prints, so I wanted to do something like this anyway, and this was a great chance to do that. As you say, there aren’t many places here in Japan that I could hang such large prints.
All’s well here, thanks! I hope all is well with you too!
Regards,
Martin.
Christian Meermann
Posted at 06:53h, 08 AprilThis was an immensely interesting read. Congratulations on your exhibition and good luck!
Cheers,
C.
Martin Bailey
Posted at 10:01h, 08 AprilThanks, Christian!
I’m pleased you enjoyed the read!
Cheers,
Martin.
Andy Bartlett
Posted at 04:39h, 09 AprilCongratulations Martin! Canon made a great decision in choosing to use your art and printing expertise.
Fascinating article taking us through your process. I imagine picking just 10 images must have been challenging. I hope your tours of the exhibition go well. I’m sure it will be fascinating to see the Canon equipment as well awesome to see your big prints.
Martin Bailey
Posted at 19:37h, 09 AprilThanks Andy!
I’m pleased you found this interesting.
I’m looking forward to visiting on the 16th with some guests. It should be fun.
I hope all is well!
Regards,
Martin.
Paul Henman
Posted at 04:32h, 11 MayCongratulations – looks fantastic!
Martin Bailey
Posted at 09:01h, 11 MayThanks Paul!