Photo: Jennifer Forward-Hayter.
From the rush of a live performance to the stillness of a gallery wall, Scarlet Page’s photographs hold on to moments that music fans remember long after the sound has faded. For her exhibition HELD: Three Decades of Artists and Their Gibson Guitars, Fotospeed supported Scarlet with the paper and printing, producing the work on Platinum Baryta 300 so visitors could experience the images as physical prints. The result brings more than 30 years of music photography into one room at Gibson Garage London.
We visited the exhibition to see the finished photographs in the space and to celebrate the stories behind them.
Three decades, one exhibition
Scarlet’s archive stretches from the 1990s to today. Among the artists featured in HELD are Jeff Buckley, Dave Grohl, Angus Young, Alex Turner, Robert Smith, Jack White, Paul Weller and Wolf Alice. Her photographs move between the energy of the stage and quieter moments away from it.
Seen together, the images reveal how much can happen in a fraction of a second: a gesture, a glance, a musician caught in the light. Printing them gives visitors the space to take in the whole frame, then move closer to discover the details.
From the archive to the gallery wall
Why Platinum Baryta 300 for HELD?
The exhibition brings together photographs made in very different light: bright stage colour, deep shadows, subtle portraits and black and white images. Fotospeed printed every image on the Epson SureColor SC-P7500 using Platinum Baryta 300, a 300gsm fine art paper with a natural white base and a smooth, unglazed gloss surface. This combination gives the collection a consistent presentation while letting the character of each photograph come through.
Depth in the shadows
The paper’s high D-MAX of 2.99 supports rich blacks and separation in darker tones. That matters when a stage photograph contains both a performer under a spotlight and detail in the surrounding darkness.
Colour with nuance
Its wide colour gamut suits the saturated lighting of live music, while smooth tonal transitions help preserve gentler shifts in skin, light and background. The same paper works across Scarlet’s colour and monochrome images.
A considered finish
The natural white base and unglazed gloss surface give the photographs a distinctive physical presence. At 300gsm and 100% acid free, it is made for fine art prints intended to be handled, framed and displayed.
Paper choice is part of the final edit. Here, Platinum Baryta helps carry Scarlet’s photographs from screen and archive to prints that reward a closer look. Explore Platinum Baryta 300.
Platinum Baryta 300 was complemented by the Epson SureColor SC-P7500, which we used to make every print in HELD. Together, the printer and paper helped us bring out the colour, tonal depth and fine detail in Scarlet’s photographs on the gallery wall.
Walk through the exhibition with us
Our film from the visit moves through the Gibson Garage, taking in the framed prints, the guitars around them and the visitors gathering to see the collection. It offers a feel for the size and setting of the photographs that a single gallery image cannot capture.
The stories behind the frames
The opening gave visitors another perspective on the work as Scarlet spoke about the images and the experiences behind them.
