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Thread: How do you sell/finance your personal work?

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    White Lake, Ontario.
    Posts
    345

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    I'm curious. So here's a broad question on the financial aspect of personal LF work.

    Outside the worlds of gallery/artist relationships, grants, website, or ebay, what other creative means have some of you taken to finance your personal projects and work?

    I'd be glad to hear your successes and failures. Thanks.

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Posts
    538

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    After decades of commercial photography commissioned by Harvard MBA’s who didn’t know “sh*t from Shinola” about my craft, I am sick to death of being told what to shoot, when to shoot, how to shoot and how much to charge.

    Even lay people today have no idea how much photographic materials cost nor how much handwork is involved. A PhD friend told me just the other day how he was “ripped off” by a local portrait studio who had made a b&w copy negative and 11x14 fibre print of an old photograph of his circa 1900 farmhouse (now worth a cool half million). The bandit had charged him $40. Imagine that?

    The minute I accept money from anyone, no matter how well-meaning, I open myself up to this abuse. And I’m not going to take it any more.

    So I finance my retirement portfolio with my Visa card.

    In another 20 years Medicaid will put me in a nursing home and the State will seize the house and all my assets to recover the cost. I’ll let the State and maxed-out Visa hash it out who gets what after I’m gone.

    Am I sounding like a grumpy old man? ;0)

  3. #3
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Albuquerque, Nuevo Mexico
    Posts
    9,864

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    Commercial work primarily, teaching workshops and at universities, commissions, grants, print sales, stock sales, book royalties, writing magazine articles etc. No tricks just hard work. Its all in the mix, the volume and the years of putting these little pieces together into a whole. Commercially, I am fortunate to not have work for a__holes. I have enough work and rep that I can be very picky. It is all a huge pain sometimes but I am very thankful and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  4. #4

    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    Switzerland
    Posts
    1,330

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    Hi Daniel

    I worked 3 years as a commercial aerial photog for a swiss company and worked for a architectural mag and still do many weddings and portraits wich is my main income for my free work.
    But my real job is not photography I'm a stage manager, but this makes it easy only do work wich I like to do and no young art director is telling me what I should shoot and how.
    I'm really happy as it is. In the todays world working as a commercial photog gives you very soon a heart attack, because everything has to be finished bevore they even really know what they will shoot! It is not my pair of shoes!

  5. #5

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    i get most of my funding from my work as a graphic designer/ art director, but i must admit that i misuse my position to cream off interesting commercial photo projects, but unfortunatly i usually end up loosing money on the interesting photo assignments. what i mean is that photography is expensive and building an personal body of personal work i a huge financial commitment, outwith the gallery world it'll be difficult to make it add up. i mean many many photographers had there best work produced and were still financially unstable, kertesz, evans, sander come to mind.

    but i think i'd rather loose money investing in my personal projects than say in worldcom... some advice would be, cheaper b/w and devoloping/printing yourself, if you are in the unfortunate position like me that it's colour you use then scan the film and make inkjet work prints edit them for a long time, only produce when you are sure that you have a great body of work or project. it takes years, so marry someone sympathetic to the arts!

    adrian

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Feb 1999
    Posts
    1,093

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    I finance my photo hobby right out of my wallet. I'm strictly an amateur. I think I've sold one print in 20-plus years of large format work.

  7. #7

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    I look in my pocket, if I have money, I buy supplies. I don't sell my prints. It's my hobby (addiction). As a disabled vet I can't make an income from it anyway. Visa card took as good hit setting up the 8X10 kit. At least I won't have to upgrade the dorff every 3-5 years. I use photography as a stress reducer, not inducer. Galleries seem to want a series and I've never made more than 3 prints of anything I've ever done. I just got word that out of 1350 entries in a vetrans competition, I won 1st place. My first ever, but then again I've never entered anything for 35 yrs. I get an all expense paid trip to Denver to the national show and that's compensation enough for me. I'm sorry the brag is a little off topic, but this is the crowd that I want to share my excitement with.

  8. #8
    Whatever David A. Goldfarb's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2000
    Location
    Honolulu, Hawai'i
    Posts
    4,658

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    I've got a pretty decent day job, don't need to own a car, not too interested in the newest gear. It's a significant expense, but not excessive, compared to other things people spend money on.

  9. #9
    Scott Davis
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    Washington DC
    Posts
    1,875

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    Entirely self-financed. I do sell work, but with sufficient infrequency that I can't rely on sales to float the hobby. The day job pays well enough that I can keep myself in house, darkroom, and camera toys without having to depend on the hobby for an income. I am working on making the transition though, as I'm getting bored beyond belief with my day job (computer geek for the military-industrial complex). I hope to have my photo tour business up and running full-time within the next two years. We're LF-friendly, so give me a look-see on the web (apologies for the shameless self-promo).

  10. #10
    M Brian Mills's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Sparks, Nevada
    Posts
    37

    How do you sell/finance your personal work?

    I, like many others here, have a day job that allows me time to work on photography. I taught myself how to program software and how to use a camera. Writing software allows me time and money to photograph and create prints as I wish. I have been fortunate enough to sell a few prints a year through small shows, but most of my sales come from people who have purchased a print and their friends see it and want similar work. Word of mouth.

    Lots and lots of work sits in portfolios hidden behind bookcases and in closets around the house. Small work goes to family and friends as gifts (not buying specific gifts saves me considerable amounts of money).

    The credit card helps out a lot and I have a heirarchy to expenditures:

    Photography supplies/gear

    Books (mostly writings about wilderness)

    Gasoline (to get me out of the city)

    House payment

    and if any money is left over...I buy food

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