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Thread: Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

  1. #11

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    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    Which issue, Ambrose? I moved last year and don't get to B&N very ofter and sometimes miss magazines before the nex issue is out.
    Wilhelm (Sarasota)

  2. #12
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    My recent show was primarily archival ink prints. Some earlier collectors of my work were leary of them. However, the museum director, the museum's curator of art and the museum itself all bought ink prints at the same price I was selling silver at before.
    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"

  3. #13

    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    Unless one just wants to get ones work out on other people's walls selling a 16 x 24 print (no frame or mat) for less than $300 is silly ... and that's a lowball figure. The one exception I can see to this is Dave's situation above .... IF they were inkjets and you owned the printer AND there was no middleman involved. And maybe you needed the money real bad.

  4. #14

    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    Bill, its in the Jan-Feb 2006 issue, the one currently on the stands.

  5. #15
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    "I have wondered how many people there are who buy big expensive Epsons and actually make money with them."

    i've wondered that too. i assume it's people who already have a big market for their work, and know in advance they can sell a lot. the large format printers are way expensive, and so are all the materials that go into each print.

  6. #16

    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    For a push-the-button-and-out-pops-an-8x10 print shot on a digital camera, $20 may be about right. Next year Jensen might be selling I-pod downloads of his images for 99 cents, so people can just print their own. For an archival, fiber-based overmatted silver contact print, that's something else. What Jensen sells is fairly equivalent of a reproduction poster, in which case one can get a large Moonrise, Hernandez for $30.

    But when high-end gallery shopping for originals, one also pays for the artist's pedigree (education, publication and exhibition record, critical reviews), exclusivity of a one-of-a-kind or limited edition run, the prestige of owning something by a known artist represented by a known gallery, and some possibility of investment return. Affluent collectors also appreciate supporting the artist, the gallery, the arts in general, and their own status in the ranking of art collectors.

    Not being familiar with the current art world, I don't know whether $3700 is a fair price for the work Jensen cited, or whether the photographer was, in fact, unknown. Then again, by some standards, $3700 is quite reasonable for a large color photograph: http://www.artcritical.com/appel/BAPrinceRecord.htm

  7. #17
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    to put it in perspective, $3700 is cheap art. a photography collector would consider that in the middle of the range for a well known (but not immortal) photographer. it's well below the price of entry for paintings by known painters.

    none of the pricing has ANYTHING to do with whether it's a fiber based print, overmatted, signed in gold pen, or any other craft fair kinds of selling points. the prints going for $10,000 in big galleries are often machine made c-print murals or inkjets, pinned to the wall with thumbtacks.

  8. #18

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    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    I did a 50x90 inch print for an exhibit last year... it cost me 1200 euros to print and frame. if I sell it for 2400 I cover my costs and the gallery gets its cut. If I want to make 500 euros on it I have to sell it for 3.4k... etc etc

  9. #19

    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    Before Mark beat me to it above, I was going to say that I was formatting my prints for iPod and had already sold a million and a half at $.99 each! Seriously though, I thought Brooks Jensen's article was well thought out and absolutely correct from an economics perspective. Consider this, Ansel Adams work only gets about $20 for an extremely high quality reproduction of 12 prints (the calenders put out every year). The silver prints of his work that are available at the AA Gallery in Yosemite and by mail order (I think?) and printed by Alan Ross are every bit as good as Ansel's prints and are still no more than $200 for an 8x10, I believe. What this proves to me is that if we want good photography, even printed on silver rather than with ink, we can get the best of the most famous photographer of all time for about $200, and I'm pretty sure they're not flying out the door even at that price. I'm not saying that everyone likes AA's work or that nobody likes the fuzzy leaf photo that Brooks used as his example, but I'll bet a lot more people like AA's work. I think that when the fuzzy leaf or an original AA print sells for multiple thousands of dollars, what is being purchased is more than just photography, it is the investment value of the piece. In the case of the AA print, it is well proven investment value and in the case of the fuzzy leaf, it is more speculative (certainly more than I would be willing to speculate on!).

  10. #20

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    Brooks Jensen on print pricing in Lenswork

    A point that Brook's made and is being skipped over is the sucess of other artists. There are a lot of writers out there making money on $7 paperbacks. Or bands with $15 CD's.

    This past weekend I went to a Michael Smith exhibit at the Michener Art Musumn in Doylestown PA. Now Mr. Smith is unknown except among L/F or ULF photographers. At $2,000 each he's not selling any to me. Nor to anyone I know.

    Mr. Michener on the other hand was a very well known writer. I have a shelf full of his books in hard cover. None more than $15. When he died he had left more than 117 million dollars to various schools, colleges and museums.

    What is the cost of printing a book vs poping out a inkjet. Yes I think a FB silver or Pt/Pd print is more valuable than a inkjet or a book. But at what price point?

    All of the greatest photographers that ever lived never made or spent as much money as Mr. Michener gave away to the arts. That is a point worth considering.

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