Re-Discovering a 25 year old print

Shrine of Remembrance- 2000

Ilford Film

Prints matter, prints last

A few weeks ago I found a framed print tucked away in a narrow alcove between a small chest of drawers and the wall of my closet. I vaguely remembered putting it there a few years ago with the intention of rehanging it one day. Instead, it sat forgotten for what must have been six or seven years

When I turned it over, I found a date written on the back: December 2000. That makes the print about twenty-five years old. The print was likely made at either Michaels or Vanbar in Melbourne, back when printing was still something you handed over to a lab rather than something you fully controlled yourself.

The print itself is relatively small, around A4 size, and was professionally framed. The frame has picked up a few dents and marks from years of storage, but what surprised me most was how well the print has held up. There is no obvious fading, colour shift or deterioration. After a quarter of a century hidden away in a cupboard, it still looks remarkably good.

The photograph is of Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance. I've always been drawn to the building, not only because of its significance as a memorial, but because of its architecture. The classical columns, its commanding position on the hill, and the way it sits in relation to the city skyline have always appealed to me. Even today, it's one of Melbourne's most striking landmarks.

Looking at the print also transported me back to where I was as a photographer at the time. I had only been back in Australia for about a year after studying in Savannah, Georgia. My art history classes were still relatively fresh in my mind, and even thenI was increasingly interested in photographing architecture and the built environment.

The image was made on a Nikon N4004s, a camera that had been given to me by a neighbour in Grand Rapids, Michigan, sometime around 1994. That camera travelled with me to New York in 1995 and later accompanied me on my trip to Europe in 2003, a journey that would become a major turning point in my photographic life.

This photograph predates my first digital SLR by about five years. It was made during a period when every frame cost money and every decision mattered a little more. I wasn't editing images on a computer and I certainly wasn't spending hours refining files. What came out of the camera was largely what ended up in the print.

The print was probably made at Vanbar or Michaels Camera. At the time I knew very little about printing. It was even before Image Science existed, where I've had much of my printing done over the years. I'd completed a photography class at art school, but I was still years away from developing a deeper understanding of photographic papers, printing processes and archival materials.

What surprised me most when rediscovering the print was how well both the photograph and the print itself have survived.

If I were making the image today, I would probably crop out the partial lamp visible on the left side of the frame. Beyond that, however, I wouldn't change much. The composition still works for me. The photograph reflects many of the interests that continue to shape my work today: architecture, place, memory and the way photographs can preserve a particular moment in time.

Finding this print reminded me that photographs are more than images. They are physical objects. While digital files can disappear with failed hard drives, obsolete formats or forgotten passwords, a print can quietly exist on a shelf, in a drawer or, in this case, hidden in a cupboard for decades.

The photograph itself hasn't changed in twenty-five years. What has changed is my relationship to it.

Most of all, it reminded me why prints matter. Twenty-five years after it was made, this small photograph is still here, still holding its own, and still telling its story.

Continue exploring related work:

Melbourne photography and place-based work:
https://www.wurstercreative.com/melbourne-victoria/melbourne

Fine art prints (archival photographic works):
https://www.wurstercreative.com/melbourne-fine-art-prints