I'm opening a (physical) photo gallery

[drew.saunders]

Darin,

400 sq ft sounds "cozy" for use as a meeting space, but several meetup groups to which I belong have regular meetings where a presentation is given and/or prints are shared. Perhaps you could either create your own group or work with an existing group(s) to have some of those events at your gallery? There is also a bay area LF meetup.com group. It seems that the Sports Basement in SF and the Apple Store in SF have space and are open to meetings. Unfortunately, most of these are on weekday evenings, so I have yet to make it up out of the 'burbs to attend one, but here are a few that happened:
http://www.meetup.com/Bay-Area-Photo...nts/142652442/
http://www.meetup.com/SF-Bay-Area-Ph...nts/152845472/

You'd have to limit the number, clearly 80+ people couldn't fit in your gallery, but there may be events that are too specialized for a large space that might be a better fit for your gallery.

Drew

[Drew Wiley]

About all you need for a website is a posting of location (map link of how to get there), operating schedule, contact phone and email, and what the current venue is. If it's strictly your own work, just a shot or two of the interior of the space should be sufficient. You could do all that on a single web page and be done with it for awhile. Most realistic sales are likely to be spontaneous anyway. I have personally had repeat customers ask for a representation of specific images on the web to
help them select, but it turned out to be a total waste of time accommodating that kind of thing - they always wanted to see the real thing in person anyway.

[Vaughn]

Congrats on the leap! Best of luck...and I'll drop by some day!

I am doing the same, only on a smaller scale. A live-in gallery only open when the town has events, a darkroom for small workshops, and perhaps even a guestroom for one-on-one workshops. Small town (1300 pop), not much thru-traffic -- but a great location...right next to the only bar in town, Still a lot of work to do -- all I have done is sand and refinished the floor (old stained redwood). The room for the gallery is more like 200 sq feet and is also my living room. Small office off this room for showing work from portfolio boxes. Planning to have my work only, though.

Not really a commercial gallery -- more of a way and place to live immersed in photography.

Vaughn

[Stephen Willard]

On the contrary, you may want to invest in a descent website for several reasons.

First, you may think you are a galleriest, but what you really are is a wall decorator. Sounds insulting right? Many people may like your work, but they need to go back home and think about. Buying art is something that can take a long time for most people. They want to make sure they get just the piece for their wall. They need to know if one of your prints will fit the wall space they have for it, and what photograph of yours will look the best. Having a website that shows all of your photographs and the sizes that each print is available in will go a long ways to helping them make a decision when they are home. I would say that most of my customers have first spent a lot of time on my website going through this process before they buy. Those who come to my studio, in most cases, already know what they want and the size they need because they have spent lots of time on my website.

Second, your website is your virtual store front and should not be marginal statement. Word of mouth is a good seller, and if referred potential customer visit a marginal website, then you may be loosing sales.

Hope this helps....

[Tin Can]

I gotta concur, I don't like it, but I as much as anyone alive, shop everything to death online. If fact it doesn't exist if it's not online.

And I am definitely at odds with myself on this issue!

On the contrary, you may want to invest in a descent website for several reasons.

First, you may think you are a galleriest, but what you really are is a wall decorator. Sounds insulting right? Many people may like your work, but they need to go back home and think about. Buying art is something that can take a long time for most people. They want to make sure they get just the piece for their wall. They need to know if one of your prints will fit the wall space they have for it, and what photograph of yours will look the best. Having a website that shows all of your photographs and the sizes that each print is available in will go a long ways to helping them make a decision when they are home. I would say that most of my customers have first spent a lot of time on my website going through this process before they buy. Those who come to my studio, in most cases, already know what they want and the size they need because they have spent lots of time on my website.

Second, your website is your virtual store front and should not be marginal statement. Word of mouth is a good seller, and if referred potential customer visit a marginal website, then you may be loosing sales.

Hope this helps....

[al olson]

Best wishes, Darin. It is difficult to be successful with any kind of art gallery and photography always seems to be viewed as the poor stepsister to fine art.

I have had chats with the owner of Open Shutter in Durango, Margy Dudley. Open Shutter has featured shows of many well known photographers such as Paul Caponigro, Mitch Dobrowner, each of the members of the Weston family, Edward Curtis, etc. Occasionally she sells a couple of prints.

Open Shutter also has bins of matted photographs of local photographers, photographic greeting cards, and a large selection of photo books for sale. Margy told me in one conversation that if it were not for the sale of the coffee table books she would not be able to keep the doors open.

There is a bit of psychology here in that people come to the gallery to look at an excellent exhibit of world famous photographers. They cannot afford, or maybe justify, the prices for these photographs but feel they should buy something they can afford.

I wish you a long and successful endeavor!

[Drew Wiley]

The Bay Area is definitely different. There's no lack of big money, but otherwise, it's not a particularly great area for art sales of any kind. Lots of established local
artists market elsewhere entirely. But there is seemingly "enough" to make a go of it as long as overhead is held in rein. I won't go into my own schemes about how
to get back in the game, but having to support only 400 sq ft in Half Moon Bay might be entirely realistic for Darin. But the nature of the venue might be entirely
different if oriented to pass-thru tourist versus local micro-tourism (daytrippers or weekenders). Tastes differ. Size of images tend to be different. I've never gone after the tourist dollar whatsoever, even when I did gigs in addresses on the same streets as those kind of venues. There's a sufficiently strong sense of continuity around here with the glory days of the West Coast school, to the point where a lot of people actually appreciate fine printing skills and classic black and white work. But the risk any gallery takes is getting an initial spike of interest and overestimating how much will keep coming over the long haul. It's all about a realistic
pace, unless someone just happens to have too much money to begin with, and is looking for a tax writeoff, which is the case more often than not in the swanker
venues. But let's see what happens, and I certainly hope Darin becomes reasonably rewarded for this venture.

[Darin Boville]

I hope to post photo laster in the week. Lots of little things to attend to.

A few responses:

--Cozy--yes. When I looked at larger spaces I could see that they would be great for holding meetings, even corporate retreats. Could be a big money maker in my area--there is a Ritz carlton just down the road, after all. Remember when they had the big ta-do about the AIG retreat during the bailouts? The retreat was here. So there are visitors with money here--and, quite frankly, not a lot to spend it on in the area. Half Moon Bay is not Carmel (and very much doesn't want to be, which si great). Bt in the current space I think my group possibilities are limited, although I'm situated in such a way that larger groups can spill out into the parking area sp larger parties/opening would work.

--Website. Still going back and forth. But I suspect that buying art--especially in the price range I'm aiming at, will be highly impulse oriented.

--Vaughn, I would LOVE to have a gallery like yours. I actually looked at real estate in various small towns with something like that I mind. But then I figured, duh, I live in a popular tourist place, might as well take advantage of it.

--No prints in bins! Never! No postcards, no knick-knacks. If I had wanted to be a lawyer, I'd have been a lawyer. If I had wanted to go to Wall Street I'd have done that. If i wanted to sell knick-knacks... POne of the benfits of having affordable rent is the lack of financial pressure. I aim to take advantage of that freedom. Prints in bins make the photos look cheap. I have what i hope is a better plan (to be revealed!)

--Darin

[Jim collum]

Have to disagree on the bins. Just got back from Photo LA, and the top galleries in the US/World, had prints in bins there. I'd say half of the sales in the booth I was in came from prints in bins (one of mine included). There are still people who are traveling, and would like to buy the print, but do not want to haul frame & everything along with them. The alternative is to have flat files where you store just mounted/matted prints (i'll have to go back thru this thread to see if you were going to have flat files..)

I'm looking forward to visiting your gallery! Living in Santa Cruz (Felton), you're a very short drive up the coast for me. Good luck with the venture.. we don't have enough Photography Galleries around!


jim

I hope to post photo laster in the week. Lots of little things to attend to.

A few responses:

--Cozy--yes. When I looked at larger spaces I could see that they would be great for holding meetings, even corporate retreats. Could be a big money maker in my area--there is a Ritz carlton just down the road, after all. Remember when they had the big ta-do about the AIG retreat during the bailouts? The retreat was here. So there are visitors with money here--and, quite frankly, not a lot to spend it on in the area. Half Moon Bay is not Carmel (and very much doesn't want to be, which si great). Bt in the current space I think my group possibilities are limited, although I'm situated in such a way that larger groups can spill out into the parking area sp larger parties/opening would work.

--Website. Still going back and forth. But I suspect that buying art--especially in the price range I'm aiming at, will be highly impulse oriented.

--Vaughn, I would LOVE to have a gallery like yours. I actually looked at real estate in various small towns with something like that I mind. But then I figured, duh, I live in a popular tourist place, might as well take advantage of it.

--No prints in bins! Never! No postcards, no knick-knacks. If I had wanted to be a lawyer, I'd have been a lawyer. If I had wanted to go to Wall Street I'd have done that. If i wanted to sell knick-knacks... POne of the benfits of having affordable rent is the lack of financial pressure. I aim to take advantage of that freedom. Prints in bins make the photos look cheap. I have what i hope is a better plan (to be revealed!)

--Darin

[tgtaylor]

It's looking like Maverick will go down there this Friday (50 foot waves!) Get out there with your camera for future tourists passing thru.

Thomas