About a month ago we shuffled some people around at work and I ended up having to change offices. I wasn't too tickled about this, because I liked my old office a lot, but the new one is bigger, a lot nicer, and is right next door to the company president's office in the 'executive' area - which apparently has some sort of deep, significant meaning to people who pay attention to that kind of crap, so I didn't complain about it. Much.

The only real downside to the move is that with a nicer office in a nicer part of the building, the sort of stuff I generally like to cover my walls with (tacked-up maps, posters, and whiteboards, mostly) is frowned upon. Apparently even when I'm not in there (which I rarely am) guests and things going to visit The Big Guy will walk by my office, and therefore it would be unseemly for it to look like the tactical operations center for some kind of archeological excavation.

*shrug*

At any rate, this put me in a little bit of a situation. The only actual work of art I own is an original watercolor painting of a stag I got from Fury about a year ago (which is gorgeous, by the way - and to this day still gets a ton of comments) so I hung that up, and then was left with three bare walls that really needed something.

Now, the other thing the office lacks is a window. None of the offices in our building have windows. The place is built like a bomb shelter. Bugs the hell out of me. That's where I kind of got this idea.

I started with a photograph I took last summer of a place near my hometown in West Virginia called Cathedral Falls:



Gorgeous, isn't it? It doesn't come across too well in that pic, but the falls are about 60 feet high, and over time have carved out a huge round chamber in the mountainside - which is where the 'cathedral' part comes from.

Then I cropped that picture a bit to get the right shape, and blew it up to 30" wide and 24" tall. Fortunately I had a good high-rez digital version to work with. It pixelated a little bit, but not too bad. Then I divided that large image up into 9 10"x8" sections, as you can see here:



Then I printed each section on 8.5"x11" glossy photo paper, trimmed off the white edges, and placed them in these frameless clip-frames, which are really nothing but a piece of glass, and a back board, with four little metal clips to hold it together. Last but not least, I measured out a grid on the wall allowing for one inch of space between each frame, and hung them up.



Pretty cool, eh? I like it, anyway. Gives me kind of a window effect, without actually having a window hanging on the wall. (I considered that, but didn't think it would look right)



Here's how the office looks now. Much improved.



...and here you can see my new addition and the painting I got from Fury. Two more walls to go and I might actually be able to fool people into thinking I'm a Bigwig around this joint.

Ha! I really like that idea..... I should make one too!

That's beautiful!

Great idea and a 10 for execution!


Ivy

Pretty

Really nice, 'Card.

Very cool!

Thanks, gang. Glad you like it. I thought it came out pretty well. Now that I've got it up there though, I think it could probably stand to be a little wider, so I'm going to get three more of those frames and add a fourth column over on the right side.

Another thing I really like about this is that the clip frames are really simple to take apart and put together, so if I want to change the picture around on a regular basis it will be really simple - and since I print the 10x8 sections on my own printer, it won't cost me much to make new ones to put in there at all.

So one of my projects this year is going to be getting a shot of Cathedral Falls during all four seasons. That way I can change the picture in the frames to match the season outside. I'm also tinkering with making prints of these images:


This is one I took of the pool below Upper Raliroad rapid on the New River in West Virginia.


This is another I took a few years ago of the Coggins low-water bridge on the Uwharrie River in North Carolina.

Of course, judging from how things are normally going at work, I think this would be pretty appropriate on my wall.


This is an abandoned house the local fire department was using for a training burn one day about a year or so ago.

Nicely done, sir!

Just curious as to what kind of job you do?

Also, there are places near where my mom lives in Virginia that look very much like what's in those pictures...makes me miss her all the more.

Now then, if you really want to blow someone's mind, Photoshop a couple of mechs battling it out in the river--or, one with a flamer torching that house!

webshots.com my friend, webshots.com


oh and that's a cool look. I've seen it done once or twice but not by a person who did it on their own.

I havnt taken much look in the forums lately and am ashamed at what i have missed

I have some similiar pics that i have taken and hung on my walls but not quite in the saem ways you have.

This one i took on a trail through Mt Rainier,thisone hangs in my dad's office (i shrunk res to save space)

This ones in my room on my door

3rd

I actually used this pic in one of my older sig files

Very nice. I happen to be a minimalist myself, so I'd have done it *ahem* differently but it looks very nice.

Hahah, very nice work around.