Epson provides pictures for Northern Europe’s leading photo festival

Nordic Light is an annual international photo festival, held in Kristiansund, Norway, that attracts the world's best photographers and speakers alongside thousands of visitors.

The festival has established itself as Northern Europe's leading photo festival, and visitors can attend talks, exhibitions, workshops, debates, films and concerts. This year's festival was held between 6-10 May for the ninth successive year. Epson has been a leader among enthusiasts and professional photographers all over the world for years, thanks to its photo printers, ink technology and photo paper. Epson is the general sponsor of Nordic Light, a position it has held since 2009.

As the general sponsor, Epson not only supports the festival financially by providing equipment and materials, but also acts as a key partner and consultant for exhibitions and talks.

Both national and international photographers cannot take the photos they have produced themselves to the festival. They are printed out on site, and world-famous photographers naturally set high standards for print quality, such as colour reproduction, details, transitions and depth.

According to the festival organisers, Epson plays a vital role because print quality is very important for attracting the world's best photographers year after year.

"Without the confidence from photographers that we can provide perfect prints on-site, the festival could not survive. That's why it's so important that we have a partner who is an expert on printing. Epson has the expertise and product range that we are completely dependent on," says Nordic Light's Festival Manager Charles Williamsen.

Epson therefore aims to provide its best products. In 2013, the company used the Stylus Pro 9890 to print out photos at the exhibition. This is a top-class 44-inch large format printer with TFP printer heads, making prints that exceed laboratory quality. The UltraChrome K3 ink with Vivid Magenta has three density values for black, and provides a wide spectrum of natural grey tones.

The more compact Stylus Pro 4900 17-inch production printer was used for printing at the many workshops within the festival area. It provides colour consistency and precise colour adjustment. Epson's 11-colour UltraChrome HDR ink and the printer's advanced TFP printer heads ensure top-quality prints.

Workshops were also held in the area around Kristiansund, where the more portable large format Stylus Pro 3880 printer was used. UltraChrome K3 Ink with Vivid Magenta has nine pigment inks to give prints a very broad colour scale and exceptional fade resistance. Three levels of black ensure perfectly balanced grey tones and smooth tone transitions, and automatic switching between optimised photo black and matt black gives the best results on the medium used.

Three of the talks also featured photos projected by Epson using the EB-G5950 projector, which has been specially developed for projecting perfect images with natural colours in large rooms. The light strength is 5200 lumen for white and coloured light, based on Epson's 3LCD technology. It also guarantees excellent images, even in daylight.

"Most of the photographers invited to the event use Epson printers for their work, and we keep hearing that they expect us to provide our products at the festival. That's a fantastic declaration of faith which illustrates just how important and relevant Nordic Light is as a venue for us. As always, we look forward to next year's festival," states Kai Olsen of Epson Norge.