Pulp & Press

Kristi Sanford and I met through the Green Wedding Alliance – both of us have been there since the beginning, watching it grow and hoping it will keep getting bigger and better. We obviously share similar eco-friendly goals, even though she's a photographer and I'm a letterpress printer. We also share similar aesthetic principles – I've always been a huge fan of "documentary" style photography. When I get married 4 year ago, the photographers we hired did a great job capturing genuine moments instead of forced emotions. Sure we had a few requisite posed photos of the bridal party, but the majority were an unobtrusive look at the event. Almost like what you'd see if you were invisible. From what I've seen of Kristi's work, she takes a very similar approach.







So when Kristi suggested coming over to take some photos of recent Tweedle work, I was totally thrilled! Between designing, printing, and client consultations, I have fallen seriously behind in product photos and her expertise was just the kick in the butt I needed.



Although Kristi spends most of her time photographing people and not "things", her enthusiasm for her craft was evident through careful consideration of frame, lighting, and focus. Even though these letterpress printed items aren't in motion and were most definitely "posed," I could tell that her focus was still on telling some sort of story as she described some of the shots as almost "vignetted." I feel like the reason that term is used for the photographic technique of darkening corners around a subject is because it makes a photo look like it has a narrative somehow. The darkened frame always sort of reminds me that it's just one frozen point in someone or something's adventures.



Before I go any further, I wanted to mention that the above invitation pictured (also at the beginning of this post) was designed by Amanda over at Spilled Ink Press. We've been working together for almost a year now, and are preparing to officially launch our hybrid letterpress & flat printed line of invitations called Entwine. As you can see above, the border and the couple's names are letterpress printed, while the other text as well as the informational cards are flat printed. We can't wait to share more details about this exciting idea!





I've been taking photos of letterpress work for quite a while now, and it's always challenging to achieve just the right lighting to show off the impression into the paper. Kristi and I eventually settled on a really cool lighting method that I then continued to use on some photos I took myself after she left. Another benefit to having a "real" photographer take your pictures is the neat macro lens that shows off the extreme detail of letterpress impression. The registration, or alignment of different colors printed on individual passes through a printing press, was pretty challenging for the job above. I'm so excited to be able to show you a super up close image of it! For reference, those colors are about 1/32″ apart from each other.



I actually have a whole bunch more of Kristi's photos to share, and you'll see them sprinkled throughout future posts and on the Tweedle website. If you're looking for a wedding photographer, I can't recommend her highly enough. She's great fun, extremely talented, and carefully considers how to make her business as sustainable as possible. Thanks Kristi!

Pulp & Press Soundtrack: "Resistance" by Muse.