The Format Journal-Assignment 2 Dodge-Chrome

 The Format Journal-Assignment 2

Date: September 16, 2026

Photo Professional: Dodge-Chrome, Inc.

Specialty: Full service digital print service, specializing in large format applications

Location: 11941-L Bournefield Way, Silver Spring, MD 20904

Objective:

In 2009 two separate companies, Dodge and Chrome, oft times sharing the same clients since 1982 decided to merge as one. Each company had similar photo printing services and with other photo services unique to each. They decided to combine their companies’ names since they both had established a client base in the Washington D.C. area and felt this would be a good way to continue the name recognition.

Expanding in the digital world of graphic printing, they offered a wide range of interior/exterior printing, design, fabrication & finishing services.

I was impressed with the printing on metal and glass especially.

And equally impressed with their wide-ranging knowledge of both traditional and non-traditional surfaces, the adhesives to bold them, and solutions to maintain flatness of the base materials with types of wall hanging methods. Each client with an odd request served to expand the company’s knowledge of products on the market and provided another avenue of expertise.  

For installation projects, blueprints from clients are provided for project review, estimated install dates and working up the bids for securing the contract. 

The company not just works with a team of 12 to 14 employees in the digital photography area but employs 3 to 4 individuals’ specificity to install onsite projects.

For large-scale exterior projects, they have a connection to a construction firm that can supply everything from scaffolding to canes with their own installation crews.

 For the class discussion Ann used part verbal discussion and part video presentations. Offering both in-house videos of client based promotional films to showing produced YouTube videos that also served to reinforce the social media importance for product and company visibility. 

 Ann made a poignant statement that rang true with all the companies I trusted to be a part of over my long employment history and my own eight years of owning a cabinet company.

“Clients sometimes bring us a photographic project with unfamiliar requests for materials, surfaces, and install; we consider the type of project, and our challenge is to figure out how it can be solved.”

All photos shown in Objective text are images downloaded from Dodge-Chrome's website. Photo layout and text by me in DaVinci Resolve. 

Subjective: While subjective it includes objective text

Given my years of past experience with construction, installation, scanning, lamination, and framing, the technical processes at Dodge Chrome became more of interest for this visit than the photographic content provided to them.

I was impressed with the layout of the rooms, that even though they were square/rectangle, they seemed to remind me of a half circle. The hallway with the conference room represented the straight-line base of the semicircle. As we started to the right of the conference room, we saw the client and sales-based rooms, then to the scanning areas. 

From camera scanning and computer/s final image processing and proofing we moved to a large sweeping room housing a vast array of printers of various sizes. Small box printers for passport photos to large scale printers to accommodate various materials for each type of job requirement. Of these, some were top fed for the pliable materials and others with stationary with flat beds (for use with printing on glass, wood and metal) with movable belt driven print-jet arms.

From there, we moved to the laser cutting room where braille signage was being cut on an encased laser router and another long bed table with open laser cutter sat to the other side of the room. Included with laser cutter was paired with a secondary metal blade traveling on movable beams. Both pieces of equipment used a vacuum suction system to keep the material flat and/or in place.

Finally, the framing area with trays of prints and papers. Frames were being unwrapped while a laser mat cutter was creating the mats for each job. As we left there, we ended up at the opposite side of the conference room that we started from. Box rooms that I felt had circular motion. 

It was one of the most efficient layouts I have seen, not to discount my wow-effect of the machinery. I loved this business, their commitment, and philosophy.

All photos and layout in Subjective text by me.

Notes:

Note 1. Without the means to produce and install a large format image as Dodge-Chrome has the ability to do, I again turned my sights to creating/building a setting as an example of my work as seen in a large format setting.

The four photos that are included in the 'Baltimore Zoo' signage are mine. They are from a grouping of photos taken at the Baltimore Zoo during my Spring semester Intro to Digital Photograph/Photoshop course, though not included within the assignment's critique. 

Signage: Animal photos uploaded into my DaVinci editing program to lay out the images side by side and added text. Downloaded and converted to a TIFF file to email to Archival Arts, a digital scanning business I work with. Jeff created a print to my size specifications. 3 x 8 1/2 inches. 

Note 2: Since Dodge-Chrome worked with smaller scale signage also, such as ads for windows and interior walls/alcoves, I worked on one more photo as a museum poster

This caterpillar photo was taken in the last week of August just as class started at a friend’s flower garden.

Bricks, Google stock photo. Bottom green section with text, Google stock photo. All other text plus some additional text in 'green section' (AT, The National Small World Museum)by me. 

All layout and composite work to create this as one photo completed by me in DaVinci Resolve editing.

Note 3: For those interested in having their art or photography displayed in a large-scale setting I recommend Baltimore LED Billboard down by Penn Station on Charles Street, ledbaltimore.com. as a free way to have your work displayed.

 The billboard itself is 50 ft high.  

I have had 4 to 5 works (on a rotating display mixed with Ads) shown once a year over the past four years. Those were oil paintings and I submitted photography last month for this, my fifth year. It has been accepted and just await notice on when it will show in the future.

These are three examples of past displays: 

The billboard is in fact vertical and not tilted, it was just hard to get a 'pure vertical' photo by standing on the ground below looking up even with Pitch and Yaw in the editing settings. The LED light display is also a sharp image and those circular lines picked up in the photo, similar to taking a picture of a TV screen creating the moiré effect.

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