Our current travel photos (we have so many more we haven't done anything with)

Photos printed on canvas always look gimmicky to me. The shelves with framed small art looks cluttery to me- I would get them all framed and matted the same size and hang on a grid. Start looking in second hand stores for art- you’d be surprised at what you can get.

Absolutely not weird or tacky! The art we hang on our walls is supposed to be personal to us and contain images we smile when we look at. What a great idea to fill your walls with memories. You don’t have to frame all of the art. Some of the enlarged photos could be wrapped canvas. Costco used to do a great job at this but I’m pretty sure none of the Costcos have photo centers anymore. You could have some photos enlarged for framing for not much $$ at stores that have a photo center. I think you’d need to figure out how much your favorite photos could be enlarged without distorting their images and detail too much. You might have photos that could be cropped to capture specific detail only too. The sky is the limit for creativity with this.

I totally agree with KW PNW Z8. It is such a pleasure to see a home personalized with photos. I have recently been exploring making portraits of family members from old snapshots. This example shows the power of cropping to focus on one individual among a group. The original photo here is a screenshot from clickitupanotch.com. The resulting portrait is from using an app (Instant Toon). There are many similar apps that are so much fun to create with. If you have the image printed on a textured paper, you can frame it without glass to avoid an annoying glare.

Below is a screenshot from foundry.co explaining a textured paper called Photo Rag Paper.

Art isn’t solely divided into million dollar Monet’s or box store mass produced wall decor, there are as many price points in between the two as there are pieces people consider “fine” art. Good art is art you like and want to look at every day. And these pieces can be found from garage sales to artists on Instagram to local art shows to galleries, to the photos you’ve taken of sides of buildings on vacation, and a thousand other places that aren’t box stores. Also, meeting the person that made a piece you love or are drawn to only adds to the appeal of the piece.

I agree with KW and ffpalms. I think it sounds like a great iea.

Experiment by doing one and see how you like it. if you like the look of the ”test”- i would try stick to doing large pieces to avoid the cluttery look.

Another way to be able to look at your travel photos is to have a TV with Art mode, where you can download your photos and display them on a timed rotation.

Look at Samsung The Frame TV for ideas. They can display digital art and photos.

My 75" Frame TV displaying digital art.

What about local artists, photographers, etc? I have an online friend who is an artist, and have a large number of her pieces; some original, some prints. In the kitchen I have 6 pencil drawings of roosters/chickens that make so happy every time I look at them. None of the others are hung yet. Even just looking at pictures friends have posted online of the surrounding area, the light hitting a field, grove, barn, or flower garden have been lovely. If you've got pictures from your travels that make you happy, I'd just blow them up and frame them, rather than turning them into a canvas.

I understand some criticism of picture shelves with smaller photos, but sometimes one wants to change things out over time ( new travels, new favorites) and so not commit everything to a gallery wall ( though I have seen hanging wire setups that might allow changing, but still. )
So if changeability is important to you, you might still use the shelves but use the largest, and some enlarged bigger, photos.

Photos are more aesthetically pleasing to me than “ painted photos” and especially if goal is to be more …. not sure what? But it does seem simple to try one or 2 out.