Customer wants a 14 x 40 (feet, not inches) print - um, help?

I feel a bit sheepish posting here tonight as it has been a very, very long since I have done so. My apologies for falling out of touch. Landscape photography has taken a backset to other responsibilities in the past year. I am looking forward to once again becoming an active member of this awesome community!

What prompts me to seek the wisdom of this group tonight is a rather unusual request I received from a potential customer the other day. It seems a new building has been built adjacent to her backyard, obstructing her once beautiful view. She is interested in creating her own scenery with one of my photographs, which would be placed on the side of a building 14 feet tall by 40 feet wide, and would presumably occupy most of this space. I have some large panoramas that might theoretically fit the bill, but I don't have the first clue about how to even begin to address her request. Google tells me the "standard" freeway billboard is 14 x 48, so I suppose I could begin by finding companies who deal with billboards and going from there. Before I do, has anyone here ever dealt with, or at least pondered, such a request? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Brett

Sorry I can't help, Brett, but a billboard company is what immediately came to mind.
Congrats on this unique opportunity!

So, can we arrange a group BBQ in her back yard when this project is complete???

Thanks Bill. That sounds great, but no pixel peeping from within 10 feet!

Same here. The first thing that I also thought of was a billboard company. Good luck!

I think thhat george Lepp has done some almost that size. He is a nice guy and has always been very helpful when people have technical questions. He does the Tech Tips coloum for Outdoor Photographer. It wouldn't hurt to try him.

www.georgelepp.com

Don Bartram
Albuquerque, NM

billboard is the first thing that came to me also.

You might contact Brent Doerzman. He works for a new company similar to Qube that might do billboard-size images.

Brent was my first thought as well. I know his old company did some very large prints in the past and he has had one of his prints decorate a street cleaning truck. He might be a good local place to start.

Oh, and congrats!!! That's a great problem to have

Well, that is certainly a fantastic challenge to have, Brett. If someone asked me who could pull it off, you'd be my first suggestion. I already have one of your LF panos gracing the walls of my place; would LOVE to see a 40ft version!

I don't have much to add, unfortunately. I am wondering about color-fastness with the billboard options. They're largely designed for relatively short durations in the elements. From time to time, you'll see very large fabric banners hanging on museums, other buildings, etc. Not sure if that's different from billboard prints, but may be something to consider. Hopefully there are options for greater longevity. On the other hand, maybe you have an opportunity here for recurring revenue!

Good luck!

Rick brought up a great point, what is the exposure of this wall? If it faces south the print is going to fade at a pretty quick rate if it is exposed to the sun all day. I've done some large prints as part of my work designing and building retail stores and have found doing prints on canvas is a relatively inexpensive way of printing large images. I have printed as large as an 8' x 75' canvas print. In fact, we used a light weight material and backlit it with fluorescent strips to create a "lightbox" kind of look. You might have a limitation on who prints it because of the 14' dimension, that should be one of the first questions for a printer. They do use relatively low pixel counts, as low as 50-100 depending on how far away people are viewing from, so you can bump the size up pretty well. I would second giving Brent a call, he did a large amount of the printing we did for a number of years.

Very cool opportunity Brett, and good to hear from you again.

Yup, the new place I work at (called Sign Language) does do a ton of billboard work. It's not the area I work in, but I can definitely find out some more details for you tomorrow, like longevity, etc. I'll let you know what I come up with, and what suggestions they have. Good luck with this!

Wow, this has been incredibly helpful. Thank you! Brent, you are obviously the go-to guy here. Good to hear from you again as well. I'm told the wall is north facing and is "not smooth." Other than that, you know as much as I do. I'd love to find out more about what your company might be able to do. I'll shoot you a private email and we can go from there. Thanks again! What a nice welcome back to this community.

You might contact John Fielder in Denver.