Limited edition, not really that limited ?

[Oren Grad]

Of course this all points up how artificial it is to make limited editions of digital prints. It is ridiculous enough to do this with traditional prints, though one could argue that over time a color neg/transparency might fade, or a neg might be damaged, genuinely limiting the edition. For a digital file, as long as it's backed up and profiles are revised for new print technologies, there really is no sense to limiting the edition except as a marketing ploy.

Well said. And the more elaborate and contrived the edition and pricing structure is, the more it becomes a parody of the whole art game.

I think that the ability to churn out additional identical prints at the push of a button runs a substantial risk of changing people's perceptions of what a photograph is and should be worth, and of undermining pricing power over the long run, particularly for photographers whose work is hard to distinguish from other work already out there - which is to say, most of us.

Speaking for myself, if I were ever to find an inkjet or other digital printing method that produces output I like, I'd happily sell prints for $100-200, rather than $750-1000. I know I would never make big bucks at it anyway, and as far as the ego gratification is concerned, I would gain much more satisfaction from knowing that 100 people bought my picture because they like the way it looks than I would from knowing that 10 well-heeled snobs bought it under the delusion that they were displaying their superior connoisseurship or were going to make a killing on a limited edition.

As for the purely tactical question of whether "reproduction prints" are likely to work as a marketing strategy, I can only speak for myself as one buyer among millions. If the $150 "reproduction print" from a contemporary photographer were indistinguishable from the "original", I'd buy it in preference to the original. And if it were clearly inferior, I wouldn't buy it at all - I'd go shopping for someone else's $50 poster instead.

[Brian Ellis]

"For a digital file, as long as it's backed up and profiles are revised for new print technologies, there really is no sense to limiting the edition except as a marketing ploy."

"Limited edition" is a marketing ploy with most forms of printing including lithography, gravure, wood block, and etching. When an artist limits a lithograph for example to 25 or 100 or whatever number (within reason) they're engaging in a marketing ploy. While the plate would eventually wear out so that there's a finite number of prints that could be made even without the limitation (unlike photography), that number is typically much greater than the typical edition number, which is why the plate is supposed to be struck after the edition number is reached. But I agree that the practice of artificially limiting editions is particuarly artificial with photography, where the number of potential prints that could theoretically be made without limitation is probably in the hundreds of thousands or more with digital. Still, it's an accepted practice and I don't begrudge any photographer trying to make a decent living in whatever ethical way he or she can.

[Aaron van de Sande]

Picasso lithographs are now worth a decent amount of money. They aren't the originals but have their own merits.

[Oren Grad]

Still, it's an accepted practice and I don't begrudge any photographer trying to make a decent living in whatever ethical way he or she can.

There's nothing immoral or unethical about a limited edition per se, even if the tactics used in selling them are often silly and sometimes downright sleazy. I do wonder how much pricing power such artificial limitation will achieve over the long run as people come to understand how these new types of prints are produced.

How much are people willing to pay for a machine-manufactured book, no matter how much skilled craft and esthetic judgment went into designing the book and setting up the production run? It's not obvious to me why an inkjet or LightJet print should be different - skilled craft and sensitive judgment are required to arrive at the preferred rendering, but then it's just a matter of tending the machine - the "press" - as it churns out as many as you want. For my own taste, I'd actually pay more for a good tri- or quadtone gravure book than I would for any inkjet print I've seen, but in neither case would I be willing to spend many hundreds of dollars.

[John_4185]

In a few years I will be selling the negative along with the best print. Why not?

[paulr]

"For my own taste, I'd actually pay more for a good tri- or quadtone gravure book than I would for any inkjet print I've seen, but in neither case would I be willing to spend many hundreds of dollars."

there are evidently quite a few people who agree with you ... and there are plenty of options for things to buy that were made from more traditional processes.

the growing majority, though, seems to care more about the image and hardly at all about the process. i was just at the photo new york expo last weekend, and spoke with a number of gallery exhibitors who were selling a mix of inkjet and traditional prints. they said the marked just doesn't care. if they like the image, they want the print. Rixon Reed from photo-eye, who is hardly a radical, said that he's been selling nick brandt's black and white ink prints for over $2000 a piece. the issue of the materials just doesn't come up for him. his clients range from serious collectors to walk-ins.

personally, i limit my inkjet prints editions for two reasons: the market demands it, and i don't want an unlimited number of them floating around out there. enough is enough. i do take advantage of the process by printing larger editions than i'm willing to in silver. this lets me sell them for less, but not for dirt cheap. my edition size is about three times as big in ink as in silver, and my price is a little over a third. in the end i get paid about the same for the same amount of work (at least in a magic world where i sell out my editions). the price is still in the many hundreds, and i am not willing, for many reasons, to go cheaper than that.

[Brian Ellis]

"Picasso lithographs are now worth a decent amount of money. They aren't the originals but have their own merits."

I don't know what you mean by this. A lithograph is an original print. Do you mean Picasso made a painting and then copied it by making a lithographic plate? Maybe so, I'm not a Picasso expert, but I've not heard of copying paintings by making a lithographic plate and then running off copies. Lithographs are themselves normally the original print even though there may be 100 or 500 or whatever prints made, each is considered an original if made from the original plate.

[Brian Ellis]

"There's nothing immoral or unethical about a limited edition per se . . . "

I didn't suggest that there was. I said it was an accepted practice.

[Oren Grad]

i was just at the photo new york expo last weekend, and spoke with a number of gallery exhibitors who were selling a mix of inkjet and traditional prints. they said the marked just doesn't care. if they like the image, they want the print. Rixon Reed from photo-eye, who is hardly a radical, said that he's been selling nick brandt's black and white ink prints for over $2000 a piece.

OK, I guess that if commercial success is the objective, probably the best strategy will be to do the exact opposite of anything I recommend. ;-)

Seriously, here's a question about which you're likely to know much more than I do - do you have a sense of what the going rate is these days for lithographs or other limited edition non-photographic prints from artists who are generally respected but not considered superstars? Or are market conditions too variable to generalize about this?

[Oren Grad]

Brian - Understood; I didn't mean to imply that and am sorry if it came across that way. I thought that people might read it into my own cranky observations and wanted to draw the distinction.