Hallway Photo Composition

I have a confession to make: I have thousands upon thousands of unprinted photos. I also have several blank and stark white (minus the dirty handprints here and there) walls. Sounds like a great time to create a wall composition of some of my favorite photos!

One of the largest expanses of my house that remains undecorated is the hallway near the open staircase. I hate walking up the stairs and seeing nothing but a broad expanse of white. Since we're renters here in Germany I can't paint the stairwell, so instead I've created a photo collage.

I think it fills the space nicely. It has a nice movement to it (following the climb of the stairs) and provides a nice bit of interest to an otherwise boring space. It's actually one of my favorite walls now. I love looking back at old photos of all my favorite people: my parents, my boys, my stepdaughter, and my niece to name a few.

Here's my tips for creating a nice collage wall:

I think a composition works best like this if you have something to pull it all together. You can do all black and white photos for instance, or all black frames (like I've done here). Whatever it is, you'll need a unifying element. I've used a myriad of sizes of frames as well to showcase my photos.

You'll also want to use both portrait and landscape oriented photos. I also find that it helps to do a trial run of how you'll lay out your photos. You can lay them out on the floor and re-arrange them a lot easier than doing so on the walls.

Once you find a layout that you're pleased with, start with the middle of the composition and work outwards in both directions. To hang your photos, I recommend turning your frame backwards (the photo itself is actually facing the wall and can't be seen) so that you can tell exactly where that little nail should go in your wall. This will should save you a ton of extranneous divots in your wall. A pencil to mark on the wall is also helpful and easily erased. I've also heard of people putting a dab of toothpaste on the hanger part of their frame then pushing it against the wall where you want it placed, then nailing in the nail exactly where the dab of toothpaste remains on your wall. Easy peasy!

The middle of my layout is a family rules type of subway art print that I created. It's 11x17 (printed on two sheets of standard US paper heavy cardstock) and outlines some of our family values, like "always tell the truth" and "mind your manners."

You'll also want to be careful about your spacing between your frames. Too close and your items will look cluttered and too far apart and you lose that collage feel. Again I recommend doing a trial run on the floor before committing yourself to anything on the wall.

And my last tip: to keep your frames nice and level (there's nothing like a crooked frame to throw off a composition) you might want to invest in double-sided sticky tape squares (like scrapbooking squares). You can place these on the corners of the back of the frames to keep them from moving due to vibrations or, in my case, little hands.