Photography’s ever-expanding uses due to the advent of digital photography with computer photo editing increased once again last week as Vista, California unveiled a train with a mural on the body.

Because digital photography is well suited to photo enlargement and output technologies are growing, new ways of visualizing images are being developed. Photographs can now be applied as wall murals to bathroom or kitchen tiles using dye sublimation, cars and trucks using vehicle wrap techniques, and now trains and buses. What’s next, jumbo airplanes and entire buildings?

Having a mural is really like living with a mural — you don’t ‘hang’ a mural as you do a painting or a poster — a wall mural is a living thing that takes over its immediate environment making surrounding objects fade into the visual background. It warms the room, removing your mind and your subconscious into the image, transporting you to another place.  Mural size is all important — can you imagine the lack of effect a muralist would have if their creations were the size of average paintings? Large images send stronger, louder messages than images the size of photos, posters or paintings.

Increasingly technology is enhancing what can be done with digital photos. Wallpaper and various other home decorating stores are growing their product lines of mural-type wallpapers, or photo mural products. Photo murals were rare just a few short years ago but are increasing in popularity and affordability. High tech mural products create amazing interiors that bring the outdoors inside or magnify images for intense artistic effect. Adding size to images goes beyond changing the ambience of a room; large images alter the mood of occupants entirely.

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