This is one of their head guys that I captured while they were having a business meeting. They were trying to have a business meeting at least. They were all pretty distracted by me being there and were picking at whoever I seemed to be trying to capture at any given time. They were good sports and had fun with it for sure.

This guy had such a great look to him I thought. And what you see him operating here is an offset CMYK press. There is an art to printing on such a machine and they’re capable of producing beautiful results when the press operator, ad agency / publisher, and photographer are all doing their part to ensure a quality final product. For example, as a photographer, I always ask clients where the work I shoot for them is going to be used. The answer to this question will influence how I process and deliver the files to them. If it’s web use only, then I will process them to look good on my calibrated monitors as sRGB file due to that being the color space that all web imagery is. I often will sharpen photos that are intended for web use a bit more than what is going to be used for print. Files that are going to be used in print and printed on a press like this need to be delivered with the shadows opened up some, because they will block up and show zero detail in those areas when printed on a press like this. Sometimes this may not matter if those areas show detail that is distracting, or if that area looks best going to black anyway. But other times you want to see some detail in those areas – like with black hair for example – so it doesn’t look like a styled black abyss within the image. So, when you deliver files with the shadows opened up like this they’re going to lack punch / contrast and not look as good on a computer monitor as what I process and deliver for web use because they’re not processed with that specific application in mind.

I also prefer to shoot images from the very start in the sRGB color space. Why? Because as a commercial photographer, pretty much everything I deliver is going to be used on the web or be printed on a CMYK press like you see here. I could shoot in a larger color space that would give me more information that may yield a better traditional photographic print or inkjet print – but it can be a real letdown when you have an image looking great on your monitor and then convert it to sRGB to see how it’ll look on the web and all the vibrancy in your colors goes away. So, if you shoot in sRGB and do your processing in that color space you will see very little change when you convert a file to CMYK from sRGB – which is often the first thing an art director or designer is going to do with a file for anything they’re laying out for print. So, this guy you see here isn’t just some guy that’s there to mash buttons and keep the ink full. He’s an artist in his own right – and if he’s not on top of what he’s doing it could cost the print house thousands of dollars by having to totally reprint a job.

And this is Oscar. He’s in charge of their color management there and mixes their ink in batches to match whatever they may run out of while printing a job so it all looks consistent. The same thing applies to him really knowing his stuff and having to be on top of what he’s doing…

This is a great visual example of what Oscar does and his skill at it. What you see is where he took some ink from the batch that was already in the press printing a job for them and smeared a streak of it on some white paper. The other streak is a sample of what he was mixing to match the ink that was already being used but was about to run out. Both the art director and I couldn’t see any difference between the two, but Oscar could and told us what need to be added or subtracted to the new batch to make them match. That impressed me, because look at how close these two look here. Yep. Oscar makes me feel color blind when I know I’m not.

And this is more of a candid shot I got shooting through a shelf of paint at Oscar while he was making certain all his ink was exactly where it’s suppose to be. He was okay with me shifting some of it around for the purposes of my photos, but I imagine inside it was making him twitch. He was good sport though – and just look at the smile on the mans face.

And this is their maintenance man, Kent. He’s not lacking in the skill depart either I don’t think. General Paper Good has machines that looked to be pretty state-of-the-art. And they also had some there that looked to be at least fifty or sxty years old. So Kent here is the guy that keeps them up and running and fixes them if they happen to go down.  Again, he was a super nice guy and pretty easy to work with. Everybody there was.

This gorgeous stack of cardboard boxes may look a bit boring to you at first glance. But I shot it because the art director asked me to capture various texture shots around the place as we were shooting. I don’t think this is one that Tailfin requested for delivery, but never underestimate what kind of cool stuff an art director or designer can do with texture shots like this as far as their overall layout goes, even though as just an image by itself it is somewhat boring.

This is another texture like shot for them that shows the rollers that go in the offset press you see to the left and out of focus in this shot.

And this is one of their older machines that I was catching the texture and detail of. I delivered this shot as a color file since everything I delivered to them was in color, but to me, it begged to be converted to black and white as a stand alone image. So I did, and that’s what you see below.

And finally, this is a behind-the-scenes shot captured by the Tailfin account executive on the project, Suzanne, of yours truly at work. Yes. Sometimes I get in some awkward positions in order to get the perspective / angle I’m going for. In this case it was on top of their largest CMYK press. It was pretty interested photographing the very machines and people that may be printing my work one day – whether it be what I shot for General Paper Goods on this job – or what I may shoot for any number of random clients in the future that may have General Paper Goods do their printing for them. Thank you for the work Tailfin! Both you and General Paper Goods were easy to work with – and I look forward to the next project I shoot for you all.