Are you struggling to get people to interact with your photographs? Maybe a portfolio of miniature prints is the answer. By Peter Eastway.

How do you share photographs with others? Most of us enjoy showing our photos, especially when the recipients are suitably impressed. Unfortunately, finding such recipients can be difficult, especially since everyone with a phone or computer has access to an unlimited supply of bright and attractive imagery.

Our challenge is to present our photos in a manner that is different to what people see every day. Sure, there’s still a place for Instagram and our websites, but is it the old printed photograph that has now become the new ‘surprise package’ in the 21st century? Photo books are great for this purpose. So are framed prints, but there are only so many walls our photographs can find. What other options are there?

On trips to Iran and the Silk Road, I was intrigued by the hand-painted miniatures on small, irregularly shaped fragments of bone and parchment. The artists used ultra-fine brushes and had extremely good eyesight to masterfully create scenes and portraits in small formats. Some works are only the size of a large coin, many the size of a mobile phone, perhaps slightly bigger.

The difference between these artworks and a phone screen is that the miniatures were ‘real’. They were objects in their own right, not temporary collections of colour pixels. How could photographers create a similar experience for their viewers?

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