Photography Accessories

Review: WhiteWall Acrylic Mini Prints (a Pretty Unique Way of Showcasing Your Work)

Chris Gampat
No Comments
10/03/2018
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer WhiteWall Mini Prints review product images 1

Last Updated on 10/03/2018 by Mark Beckenbach

If you’re a fan of the way Instagram displays your images, I think you’ll like how the WhiteWall Acrylic Mini process can make them manifest.

Long time readers of the Phoblographer will know about how much I value prints. With the WhiteWall Acrylic Mini I was given the opportunity to try something completely new. WhiteWall is an industry standard when it comes to printing photos. Great customer service and fantastic quality leads lots of photographers to trust them for higher end work. With the WhiteWall Acrylic Mini prints, photographers get the ability to create rectangles or squares–perfect for most photographers. They aren’t the largest prints by any means, but I decided to do something very Instagram-style with the WhiteWall Acrylic Mini prints.

The Process

Let me first explain what I wanted to do. This image, despite its rather plain appearance, is genuinely important to me. Growing up in Queens, NY, it’s a scene looking into Manhattan–which for me was a way that I felt for a paramount portion of my life. I wanted this image printed, but knew that a small print wouldn’t do it justice. So I spoke to WhiteWall about a pretty different idea, taking the image and splitting it up. They were fine with this as long as I did the splitting. And so I set about splitting this photo up into 9 sections to be put together carefully.

WhiteWall’s online interface is a bit dated if you’re trying to print a number of images like this. It’s much better when it comes to printing single images. I’m sure that’s what most photographers doing there are doing anyway. Within a week or so, the images were printed on the WhiteWall Acrylic Mini surfaces and sent over to me. They were carefully wrapped, boxed and even sealed. Opening each sealed package revealed each print along with the according hanging hardware set up on the back. As a photographer who has received lots of metal prints and prints on other surfaces besides paper, I genuinely appreciate having the hardware set up already.

This may sound trivial to you, but let me put it this way: I’ve got a large metal print that I’m ready to hang up but I haven’t yet because I’m searching for the right magnetic hardware to use for it. I want something simple to use that doesn’t require a lot of excessive drilling and balancing. You’d be shocked at how difficult this is. To hang the prints, I hired a gallery tech from MoMA PS.1 to do the hanging job. Excessive? Maybe. But I wanted this carefully set up and arranging 9 images in just the right way requires precision. The way that it is particularly hung will make someone feel like they’re looking through a window.

Image Quality

In the long term, the image quality has really held up. The WhiteWall Acrylic Mini prints have punch to them, are durable, and look nice. Part of this is due to the reflective properties of them. I genuinely wish that they had a matte finish. Most of the photos in my apartment and office are canvas. The reason why is because when it comes to apartments in NYC, I think a canvas’ ability to absorb light and still render the image easily to the human eye is plenty superior to reflective surfaces. This is why I chose to put it further away from a window. In fact, you’d want to do the same, or position a light right above it.

Here is what the final set up looks like. As you can tell, it looks like a carefully put together puzzle.

Conclusions

I think the WhiteWall Acrylic Mini prints are fantastic. The service is great, the durability is great and the overall quality is exceptional. But I also seriously wish they offered a matte finish that doesn’t have reflections. If you’re printing small images and putting them in certain parts of your home or offering them to clients, then fine. But not giving photographers a surface that absorbs light doesn’t do justice to their images unless they have a whole lot of control over the lighting in their home. To make the most of the WhiteWall Acrylic Mini, you’d want to shine a light directly above it. Perhaps place them under a lamp on a couch end table or under LEDs you may have in your home. If you do this, you’re bound to make the most of the printing process.

acrylic apartment gloss images matte photographer photogrpaher prints reflective WhiteWall Acrylic Mini
Shares
Written by

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.