Creating Wall Size Photo Collage.

I have amassed quite a large photo collection over the last few years and wanted to make some of my photo's more tangible and on display than stuck on my Laptops hard drive.

I have made one photo book before and whilst it is great I like the idea of printing off hundreds of 6x4" photos and sticking them nicely on my wall.

To add to this idea I have decided to purchase a 12" digital photo frame that plays photos and videos as I also have several videos that I have made over the years.

Here is a picture of the wall that I aim to convert. Excuse the mess, this was just before I moved back to London. I will move everyone from the wall apart from the bed.



I am looking to buy some sort of material with the same thickness as the photo frame so that I can cover the rest of the wall in it and have it as though the frame is recessed into the wall. This will also allow me to hide the cable down the wall to the plug.

Based on some guestimations I reckon I will need about 460+ 4x6" photo's and since I am quite trigger happy this is achievable.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of way to improve my idea or any suggestions that they have learnt from previous experiences.

Does anyone know what is the best material to use to stick the photo's onto and to add thickness so I can recess the frame and hide the cable?

Thanks.

Designer Dale said:

Great idea. I'm going to guess that the curvature of the back wall is a wide angle lens effect before I go any further. You could build a false wall using 1x2 or 2x2 lumber and wallboard. It's called plasterboard or Sheetrock in the States. That would give you a finished surface that would be easy to mound frames to and deep enough for you to cut holes in and flush mount the video frames and hide the wiring. If you rent, you would need to clear this kind of work with the landlord.

Good luck and keep up posted.

Dale

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Thanks for the help, I was racking my head trying to think of the terminology for the sort of materials that I would be using.

Yes the photo is a rough panorama done on my iPhone, lucky for me all the lines are actually straight.

Fortunately it's my room in my parents house and I've got my dads approval!

Macman45 said:

+1 I look forward to seeing the end result...Might motivate me...1000's of photo's archived and sitting on hdd's!

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That's the same thought process as me. My Dad used to be a photographer and has some great prints around the house and in books. I have some photo's that I really like and show some great moments of me and my friends but they are stuck on the HDD which isn't a great talking point when people come round which I hope that this "wall" will be.

initialsBB said:

Maybe you should measure the wall good and proper ? You could use Photoshop or illustrator to make a scaled version.

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I have measured it to be: 300cm x 230cm and since a 6x4" is = 15x10cm I would need 460 to cover the 69,000cm^2 area of the wall and I have taken a good hundred out for the door and the area around the bed.

I have been thinking since then if there is some way I can stick them on the door and still get it to work as a door and not scuff the pictures too much. It opens inwards so wouldn't be a huge problem but it would mean that all the overlapping pictures would have to be stuck to the wall.

I don't mind overshooting with the prints because it may turn out that there are too many inside shots, outside shots, summer shots, winter shots, family shots etc. so having more to choose from should be useful!

Thanks for all the positive feedback guys.

Papanate said:

I wouldn't bother with the Video Frames...I would get 50" LCD Monitors and matrix each panel on the wall. A lot less complicated, and easy to switch around should you get tired of the current crop of photos or video. Samsung has a new 50" LCD that allows you to lock them together to create a Video wall...it also has the software that allows you to zone each of the LCD's.

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Whilst this is a great idea I think you might have misinterpreted what I aim to do.

I have quite a low budget on this being a student and therefore my idea is to fill the wall with normal printed 6x4 images and then have a moderately large digital photo frame in the middle (12") this should probably all cost under £200. If you can fill my wall with LCD's for that price then I am definitely interested!

Papanate said:

In your case mounting the photo's on basic cardboard would accomplish the thickness you want. I would also build a latticed frame to affix everything too, rather than attach the photos to the wall.

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Can you explain what yo mean by latticed frame? Do you have any picture examples?

I wan't the pictures to be flush to the wall and I think something like a layer of plasterboard would allow me to have enough thickness to set the frame into the wall.

The way I see your lattice frame idea would mean that I am hanging the photo's off of it. Is this correct?

Forgot about this thread.

I now have roughly 200 pictures on my wall and it is coming along nicely. I had to give up on the digital photo frame idea because most of them worked off archaic technology and were too expensive and not feature packed enough to make it worthwhile!



As you can see the pattern has worked out well and by fluke it seems to be flush to the edges on both sides!

I will hopefully be taking more pictures over the summer to add to a blank wall to the right.

Has anyone else bothered to print out a load of there shots?