About Mohua Print

Mohua Print is a fine-art photo printing studio in Golden Bay (Mōhua), New Zealand. Archival papers, pigment inks, prints from A5 to A2.

Getting a photo you love printed properly should not mean shipping it off to a city lab or settling for a quick basic print. That was pretty much the choice: expensive and fiddly online, or fast and basic. You juggle formats and forms, and even then you never quite know what comes out of the machine. The moment you want real quality or a larger size, it gets tedious. I figured there had to be a simpler way, here in Golden Bay.

I am Christoph. I started Mohua Print from my home here in the Bay, because getting a good print of a photo you love should be easy. I work from home, so there is no shop and no rent to pay, and that keeps it affordable. I use a professional pigment printer and two papers that I trust, a silky pearl and a matte cotton rag, and I take real care over how each print comes out.

I print A5 and up. The small, quick snapshots are done cheaply and well by the big chains, so there is no need to go there. What I care about is the picture you love, printed properly and large enough for the wall.

What I watch for are the small things that almost nobody notices but that make the picture better. A green cast in the sky. A horizon that is not quite straight. A photo that comes off the camera a touch too dark, or a scene that could use a gentle lift. I quietly fix things like that before I print. If I spot something bigger that could be done, I ask first instead of just going ahead. It bothers me when something is done in a rush. I still see the flaw when other people say it looks fine already.

Why Golden Bay hangs on our own walls

This landscape has everything. Heavy with cloud, rough and wild, and the next moment soft and warm. What you photograph here you simply have to print, because on paper it carries a weight it never has on a display. And a few pictures you truly love on the wall are worth more than a hundred average ones you keep scrolling past. Less really is more here.