Over the years we have printed many of the photographs as canvases. Recently I have seen a lot of my friends have these "split panel" canvas. They look great and have a natural shadowning effect and your eye is drawn to it.
Except for one friend who printed his own picture, most of them get stock photos printed. Then Facebook suggested (why I do not know) a split photograph of Ganesha and Buddha to be purchased from a nichecanvas company. Both me and San went through some of those designs and were amazed by the quality of the images.
Then I told San "I like this, but would rather have one of my own photographs printed like this". She said "show it to me on how it will look before we order".
That is a challenge to put it in perspective because the image size and how big it is on the wall, the image color and how it goes the paint on your wall and the effect of the fixed lighting (we are not going to repaint or redo lighting for this canvas!) are not easy to visualize for everyone.
Kept searching for split canvas prints and could not find anything for a few days where you could take your own photograph and do a 5 panel split. Costco does a 4 panel as do at least three other companies. Most folks do rectangular shapes split with the perfect rectangle. Some do a 4 panel stagger (two up and two down, but all four panels are the same size).
Elephantstock gave me an option to customize it and clinch the deal with the family because I could show them how it would actually look on the wall. I could upload different photos and show which one would look great. Fortunately the background wall color on their default was close to our wall and they had it above a dining table too!
The trial photo as visualized on Elephantstock website..
and the real deal on our wall..
Everyone in the house has given it a two thumbs up as it adds a lot of vibrant color to the room.
Someday we would be able to upload a picture of our own living room into a software, add the photograph and visualize it as a split panel with different sizes and then order it. That day will also come soon. At the end of the day there are many families where the photographer does not have the only or final say in the printing process.. especially when he lives with three women. so the burden is on the canvas printing company to "help" sell the idea!
ps. the original photograph was from Joshua National park visit during Labor day 2012. It was 3 photographs merged to create a HDR image.
