Backstage at Sundance 2008

Hello from Sundance! I have been working most of the week in the HP Printing Studio in the basement of the Sundance House at the Kimball Art Center. The Printing Studio is a hands-on place for credentialed and professional photographers to go to print their photos on several available HP Photosmart Pro B9180 printers. The studio is equipped with a Mac and two PC’s with Photoshop so it’s a great way for photographers to come and print (for free!) the fabulous photos taken around and about on the streets, movies and parties at Sundance. Throughout the week we have printed dozens of beautiful fine art quality photos for the many photographers who come to the event.

As many of our visitors have been members of the press, it really struck me how many beautiful images get taken by them but that never get to see the light of day. I spoke to a photographer from Getty Images who lamented that he might take 3,000 images at a single event and never print a single one of them – only a few get used for professional publication. He commented that he sometimes uses his printer at home (an Epson) to print his photos but frequently gets problems with the ink drying up and having to print several times to get an acceptable print – this means too much wasted time, effort, and money to bother especially when he is constantly out on the road on assignment and he doesn’t have time to mess with it. Many of the photographers we encountered at the HP Printing Studio had never seen the B9180 and were extremely impressed with not only the superb print quality, but even more so with the some of the lesser understood technologies of the printer – for example, this is the only printer on the market that can be calibrated at your command to ensure that the colors in the print match what you see on your monitor – extremely important for fine art and professional prints! People were also very interested in the fact that this printer does a daily check on all of its 8000+ print nozzles to make sure that none of them are clogged or experiencing problems and if they are it fixes them! These kinds of technologies ensure the level of reliability that busy press photographers need. I was thrilled to see the great interest in the product as well as get to see some of the absolutely fabulous photos taken at the festival by the photographers who are out braving the cold and snow patiently waiting for great photo opps!

Tom Hubbard at the HP Printing Studio Photo by Cindy Maestas

I also had the distinct pleasure of sharing “booth duty” with Tom Hubbard who also works for HP doing business development for HP’s line of Photosmart Pro professional photo printers. Tom has been a professional photographer for 35 years and his knowledge and expertise about everything related to photography is amazing! I peppered Tom with all kinds of questions throughout the week and it was like getting a one-on-one photography class! And not only that, I am now ready to buy my first SLR camera – I can’t wait! Tom is a great resource for any photographer --beginner or seasoned -- so stop by the Sundance House and say hello and get some of your photos printed!