From Photo to Fine Art

“I enjoy traveling and sharing those experiences. Making photos is a great way to do that.” Brett Kosmider always held an interest in creating images; photography was his first love and he dreamed of being a National Geographic photographer. Fifteen years ago, he dabbled in fine art photography using film, but his career pulled him toward videography, where his worked ranged from time intensive freelance to contract work through HGTV. It wasn’t until the past couple years that he rekindled his artistry and found Artmill to be the perfect partner for printing and mounting his fine art photography, turning them into Acrylic Facemounts.

Despite making a technological leap, Brett welcomed the shift to digital in his work. “My photographic work has always been influenced by motion. I was doing long exposure on film. When I got back into fine art photo work again, there was digital technology on par with what I was working with in film years before.”

Since the technological transition, Brett considers how to honor darkroom techniques in spite of shooting digitally. “I like to evoke contrasts of warmth and cold. I’m drawn to water as a subject. I’m very much compelled by the power of the horizon.”

His intention is to stay faithful to the photo that was shot by not removing or hiding elements of the image. Instead he heavily stylizes his photos beyond what you would see in traditional landscape photography. Standing as an example of his aesthetic style, the photos we printed play with duality through visual contrasts of tone and use colors to evoke emotion against ingrained geometric elements. “You’re taught to use a rule of thirds. There’s power in placing the horizon in certain places or placing the subject at a certain axis. I love to blow that up and put the horizon smack in the middle. It creates a power struggled between the sky and the water or land. I enjoy that struggle.”

“I did a lot of research to find Artmill.” This past winter, glass artist Deanna Clayton convinced him to display his work for others to view. Looking for a company that had experience executing fine art quality photo prints while also calling the Midwest home, Artmill was his first choice. Since he travels frequently it was convenient for him to stop into our base of production in Chicago. While Brett was on the road and had questions about prepping his images for printing and about the mounting options of those prints, he was happy to turn to our support team via chat.

After submitting his most recent works, they were all accepted to the James May Gallery’s thematic show The Art of Water III and one into The Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, WI. When showing his photos, he wanted the mounting to be contemporary and after seeing similar styles at SOFA, he worked with Artmill to create his own Gallery Acrylic Facemounts using non-glare TruLife Acrylic. “That’s my first choice when presenting. The Acrylic Facemount is absolutely stunning.”