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Click hereSee this? Yeah, I posted it before during the Summer, just click on the keyword "sailing" below to see the series. That's not the point. Fun is the point.
Steve wasn't posing here. I was standing in the gangway to below decks, taking picture for so long that I became invisible. Now I like it that this mid-afternoon picture is something that we can do today that used to take me a bank of lights to create back in the day. But that's not the point either.
The point is that Steve's just had a major birthday. So I took the image over to Dave at Poppit Studios and he blew it up for me to a size that would get big-time attention. The idea was that Rita and I would invite Steve and Maria to dinner at a top of the line restaurant. And we'd arrange to get a table off to the side last Saturday night where we could prop the image against the wall behind a covering. And of course we'd rip away the cover during the meal, and well... embarrass the hell out of him... heh heh heh...(Okay, women won't get this... but to men it resonates, right guys?) Think of it as a really big Birthday card.
So Dave, he blows it up... and up... and up... to FOUR feet by SEVEN FEET!!!!
SEVEN FRIGGIN FEET! You should see it. It is tack sharp (where it is supposed to be tack sharp) and the colors ROCK! And I invited my buddy and partner Steven and his wife Julie so we could carry the thing and.. and...
Well Dave doesn't own a truck at Poppit Studios. And we couldn't get the print into any of our cars. Or into our station wagon. And well, what the hell to do? The practical joke careened back on me! How to give it to him when I couldn't take it out of the printer's studio?
Meantime Dave was so proud of it that he set it up right by the door of his place (the guy owns massive printers, and cameras, and even a large device that will computer-cut images out). In fact he offered to have it cut Steve out of the big image as a stand-alone figure. Have you noticed, or imagined, that he's life size in the image? I took it with my old Canon 20D and you can count the hairs in his mustache... it's that detailed. Imagine what my new 40D will do... but I digress.
So what to do? Well finally my colleague Tammy, the layout artist at my magazines brought her huge RV over to Poppit and last Friday we got it to my house. So.. we changed plans and had a dinner party for the six of us.
During cocktails my partner and I went upstairs and hefted the thing down the steps et voilá .... we swung the thing around to reveal... "Heroic Steve At The Helm".
Great reactions... Everyone loved it. Super fun... BUT.. BUT!!!!!! He couldn't get it home. The BILLBOARD is sitting in our living room. YIPES... Didn't see that coming.
Steve's first reaction was, "Holy S**T, that thing will cost a grand to frame!" Um, well, yeah. It's printed on a fairly solid substrate so it stands up by itself. But what do you do with this .. object the size of Romania?
I suggested he take it to his plant, frame it in busy golden gilt, and put a tiny plaque engraved... "Our Founder". Mount it right behind the receptionist, right? Get her a tiny sailor uniform.... Somehow Steve isn't crazy about my suggestion. Particularly my plans for installation of track lighting. Pity.... Some folks don't have enough imagination, huh?
What do you do with a 24 foot square heroic image? Steve told me that "It ain't my problem!" He's right. It was fun, but I'll probably throw it away tonight.
The moral to all of this? A four by seven foot portrait might not be the best idea. Bummer.