Outdoor MetalPrints at Scale: Inside a Permanent Botanical Installation
- TeamBay
- 5 minutes ago
- 5 min read
How Laurie Tennent transformed a corporate entrance into a nine-panel botanical landmark at Glaukos Corporation in Laguna Hills, California
Before Laurie Tennent found the right medium, she tried sign companies. She brought her botanical photographs to unconventional surfaces, pushed for quality that matched the work, and came away each time with results that didn't hold up to the standard she needed.
When Bay Photo began printing directly on aluminum, she recognized the answer immediately.
No glass. No frame. The depth, the clarity, and the richness of color she had been working toward -- finally available in a format that could exist outside the gallery entirely. What followed was a body of large-scale outdoor installations now found in botanical gardens worldwide, private residences, and corporate campuses. Outdoor MetalPrints made it possible.
The Photographer
Laurie Tennent's path to botanical photography started with science. The chemistry of the darkroom pulled her in first -- she went on to earn her degree from the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, worked in the art gallery business, and eventually owned her own gallery. Commercial photography supported the art: fashion work, advertising, catalogs. After her daughter was born, she built a wedding photography practice while keeping her artwork in galleries throughout.
The pull toward something larger came gradually. Photographic work, especially when it's detailed and intimate, tends to be confined -- small, framed, displayed behind glass, and presented neatly on the wall. Tennent wanted the work to breathe. She wanted to be in the garden, not just bring it into the gallery. She wanted large, luminous pieces that felt as alive as their subjects.
That desire eventually led her back to where her curiosity started.
Laurie Tennent Botanicals is now a traveling project that takes her to botanical gardens worldwide to work alongside botanists on rare and exquisite species. Decades after the darkroom first drew her in, she describes it as coming full circle -- back to biology, botany, and the roots of what made the work matter in the first place.
How Outdoor MetalPrints Changed the Work
The gap between what Tennent wanted and what was available narrowed when Bay Photo started printing directly on aluminum. Outdoor MetalPrints --- Bay Photo's medium engineered for permanent outdoor display -- gave her botanical work something no prior printing method had delivered: the ability to exist without glass or frame, at architectural scale, with color depth that held up outside gallery lighting conditions.
The image is captured within the coating rather than applied on top of it. For outdoor installations exposed to direct sun, humidity, and seasonal weather, that distinction is the difference between a surface that holds and one that doesn't. Outdoor MetalPrints are rated for five or more years in direct sunlight without noticeable fading -- a specification that matters less for a gallery rotation and enormously for a permanent installation designed to stay.
Tennent prints her work with a Flush Frame, attaches an armature to the frame, and plants the installation in the ground. The work stands.
The Glaukos Installation
The CEO of Glaukos Corporation had encountered Tennent's work prior to their installation discussion. He had seen a custom piece in a private home -- a patio and garden designed entirely around a large botanical work to block the view of a busy road below.
His company had developed an outdoor workspace in Laguna Hills, California -- workstations nestled within a serene, park-like environment. A large electrical box sat directly at the entrance, disrupting the tranquility of the space.
He knew what Tennent could do with a problem like that.
She worked closely with the Glaukos team to design a solution: a nine-panel botanical installation printed on Outdoor MetalPrints that would encase the utility box completely and blend it into the environment around it. The finished installation would be surrounded at the base by live plantings, the printed botanical work and living material occupying the same space.
What had been the first thing visitors noticed at the entrance became something else entirely -- a focal point that harmonized with the natural landscape.
The Production
Bay Photo split the original botanical image across all nine panels, ensuring the composition would come together seamlessly -- a giant, sculptural puzzle where every seam had to be planned, and every panel had to carry its portion of the image without compromise.
The panels arrived at the site packed in four crates.
Meanwhile, Tennent worked with her metal fabricator to develop a custom armature to support the panels. That armature shipped separately to the site, where the full installation -- panels, support structure, and placement -- came together according to the plan she had designed with the Glaukos team.
Outdoor MetalPrints Installation Considerations
Tennent's outdoor installations now span botanical gardens, private homes, and corporate campuses. Across all of them, her guidance to clients is consistent: install Outdoor MetalPrints in shade, where possible, and confirm that sprinklers with hard water won't reach the surface.
Beyond those two factors, Outdoor MetalPrints hold up through every season. She's seen them in climates far beyond Southern California -- and notes that they look remarkable in snow with solar lighting.
For the Glaukos installation, the site conditions had been mapped in advance. The park-like setting, the position of the electrical enclosure, the surrounding landscape -- all of it shaped the installation design before a single panel went into production.
The Finished Space
The outdoor workspace at Glaukos was designed to be a place people could think, work, and be outside, without the environment working against them. The electrical box at the entrance was the one thing that didn't belong.
Tennent's nine-panel installation solved that problem the way her best work tends to solve problems -- not by decorating around the obstacle, but by making the obstacle the focal point. The botanical image fully encases the utility box, while live plantings complete the base. Together, the installation connects the space to the natural world.
As Tennent has described the broader arc of this work: "One of the most rewarding parts of this journey has been seeing how botanical art can transform not just galleries, but also the everyday spaces where people live and work."
What Large-Scale Outdoor Printing Requires
For photographers considering permanent outdoor display for the first time, the Glaukos project is a useful reference. The production decisions it required don't come up in a standard print workflow.
The image split. A single photograph distributed across nine panels requires file preparation where every division point is planned. Bay Photo handled the split for the Glaukos installation -- mapping the composition across nine panels so the image would read as a continuous whole on the wall.
The substrate. Outdoor display demands specifications that indoor printing doesn't. UV resistance, moisture resistance, and a substrate that holds up to years of environmental exposure are baseline requirements for a permanent installation. Outdoor MetalPrints were built to meet those requirements.
The logistics. Large-format outdoor panels at this scale ship in wooden crates. The Glaukos installation required four. A custom armature fabricated separately adds another shipment and another coordination point. Building all of that lead time into the project schedule before the order is placed is how permanent installations stay on track.
The production partnership. On a project of this complexity, having a dedicated team that understands the vision and can carry it through production makes all the difference.
Tennent had worked with Bay Photo long enough to know what each part of the process required. The Glaukos installation shows what can happen when all of those pieces come together.
designed specifically for professional photographers and artists like you in mind.
Bay Photo's Outdoor MetalPrints are available in custom sizes up to 48×96" with a choice of surface finishes designed for permanent outdoor display. Explore Outdoor MetalPrints
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Laurie Tennent