I recently asked the wonderful team at Perfect Exposure Studio and Gallery in Alhambra — including one of my closest artist friends, who works there — to make a fine-art print of my One Stop Mini-Mart image that I finished earlier this month.

This is not my first time working with a shop to print my images, either for myself or as gifts to others. I forgot, however, that Perfect Exposure is very much a fine-art studio and gallery. Their owner Armando is a veteran photojournalist with very high standards for what counts as art and in general what makes a good image.

Accordingly, I quickly learned that the studio’s process of deciding how to make my print was its own artform. The shop gave me a range of recommendations and options for the type of paper, matting, and framing that would do justice to the piece. This was my first time meaningfully considering which physical materials would last for as long as possible, which would best represent the colors and light in my image, and which would support rather than detract from the storytelling in the image.

I ultimately decided on a high-end archival print: 16”x24” with a white border on Canson Infinity paper, with a white mat and black frame. I also asked the shop to make two of these, so I could give one as a gift to the mini-mart’s owner and keep one for myself to hang at home.

When Perfect Exposure sent me a snapshot of the first print (see above), I got goosebumps. Even just through a smartphone photo, one can see the beautiful contrast, tonality, and almost luminous glow in the print.

The shop then asked me to come in and sign the prints.

Sign the prints?!

What do they think I am: an artist?!

When I arrived at the shop, my friend handed me a Pigma Micron pen — because it’s archival ink — to sign the print. (This is made more meaningful by the fact that I met my friend, who does ink drawings, back when I was also heavily into drawing. Back then, Pigma Microns were actually my favorite ink pens to draw with.)

She encouraged me to walk around the gallery to see how other artists had signed their images. That’s when I got goosebumps again: There was something about poring over these precedents — these other stunning and moving images that other photographers had made over the decades — that made me feel like I was part of a lineage and tradition, something grounded in the craft of photography, something far more tangible and real than just posting a tiny, cropped version of my image to an Instagram feed.

This experience made me feel like I was actually doing justice to my photography, rather than trying to force my photography to fit into the diminutive, eye-straining format of a small screen on which someone is also using to doomscroll or shop for underwear.

We then had to wait for the prints, including the black ink that I had just penned, to dry. This would take several more days.

It’s like my art was important enough to breathe, grow, and become its own living being. Like how the things that matter most tend to come to fruition only when surrendering, humbly and completely, to the crucible of time.

When the prints were matted and framed, the shop let me know so I could stop by to pick them up. When I stopped by the shop, one of their staff members Enrique was there to greet me at the door. I hadn’t met him before, but he helped me to find the wrapped and packaged prints.

When we found them, I explained, “This was my barrio market growing up in Pacoima.”

“OH! I live in Pacoima!” he said.

And we clarified which cross-streets we both lived at. Turns out he lives about 3 blocks from me.

Another moment of serendipity.

—

On the way home from Perfect Exposure, I stopped by the mini-mart and parked out front. I grabbed one of the framed prints from my Subaru’s trunk and carried it with me into the shop. The owner and his son were there; I’d been in touch with the owner over DM so he recognized me pretty much immediately when I walked in with the huge-ass framed print. They were effusively grateful and gave me a bunch of free snacks and gifts.

The framed piece is now hanging in the mini-mart itself:

When I saw this, I said to myself:

“We are our own museums.”

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This email hopefully explains a bit why I got off of Instagram recently. As of my writing this, I am now back on Instagram, but I am hoping not to forget the lessons I learned during my short break, such as:

• My art is bigger than an Instagram feed. It is at least as big as the way I see the world. I should find ways to do justice to the largeness of that vision.

• My art is about the real world and can exist again, as a living artifact, in the real world. Not merely in the realm of signs and symbols.

• I cannot make my art alone. It arises out of my love for the community, and it is completed by its traversal through, and return and integration into, that same community.

• I love photography, dude. I love everything it has enabled me to do to connect more deeply with the people and places around me. I am so grateful that I found it in this lifetime.

Much love,

Sam