Ouch! This hurts!

[Merg Ross]

A sale of a few prints should offset material costs if one works wisely...

Steve K

You beat me to it, my thought exactly.

[John Kasaian]

I hear you!

All it does for me is it forcefully encourages me to slow down more and be extra careful and discriminating when to comes to firing the shutter.

[Tin Can]

Starving artist

common

plight

i have lost weight

[Rick A]

Of course, there is this option, it can be opened under a dark red safelight.

https://www.zzmedical.com/x-ray-acce...-ray-film.html

[John Layton]

As for the "the sale of a few prints should offset material costs".... if there were enough eager buyers to match the amount of passion on this forum - then yes, but realistically?

And while I've sold many prints over the years - more than enough to offset costs (although I've never been quite able to subsist solely on that specific income stream, at least as a married human who likes to enjoy other aspects of life)...I'm now, as a "retiree," in the mindset that there are a few creative "itches to scratch" (like finally building an 11x14 enlarger) while I still have some energy, but which might not "pay off" financially...and as my other retirement income becomes a bit less generous, I do need to be more careful. But itches are itches...and scratch them I will!

(and might I dare to guess that many others here are very likely in the same boat?)

[paulbarden]

I find it far more difficult to sell prints now, than it was even five years ago. I suspect the ubiquity of high quality smartphone cameras and inkjet printers has devalued traditional printmaking. Why spend $300-$500 on a hand made print when you can get a nice print with your phone and an online print service for twenty bucks??

[Michael R]

I find it far more difficult to sell prints now, than it was even five years ago. I suspect the ubiquity of high quality smartphone cameras and inkjet printers has devalued traditional printmaking. Why spend $300-$500 on a hand made print when you can get a nice print with your phone and an online print service for twenty bucks??

It’s not easy out there. Every time the film price discussion comes up my mind goes to discussions I’ve had with Mark Citret over the years. A top tier artist in B&W photography with a long, distinguished history and plenty of gallery representation, and some years ago he decided Kodak had priced him out of their sheet films. He started using Ilford but found with the prices creeping upward he’d have to get ready for something else, so he tried Foma but found he was having difficulty tray processing it without scratches. Last I corresponded with him he was thinking he might have to dig out his roll film backs and stop using sheet film.

[Corran]

I find it far more difficult to sell prints now, than it was even five years ago. I suspect the ubiquity of high quality smartphone cameras and inkjet printers has devalued traditional printmaking. Why spend $300-$500 on a hand made print when you can get a nice print with your phone and an online print service for twenty bucks??

I feel like in the last 5 years print sales have varied wildly, but overall trending down. However I've always thought that photography, especially more traditional photography, is very hard to sell as anyone can make basically the same image. Of course we can argue all day about the composition or whatever but ultimately it takes a certain person to find good photography to be of interest, as opposed to other mediums which seem much more difficult to the average person.

Anyway, I've sadly run out of my stash of 4x5 TMX, more or less. Not likely to buy more. I still have many, many rolls of 120 TMX. Generally trending towards smaller formats lately, but also in a bit of a transitionary period so who knows.

[djdister]

As a point of reference, Tillman Crane, longtime large format photographer, has switched entirely to digital capture, digital negatives and then platinum printing.

https://www.tillmancrane.com/about-tillman/darkroom/

[AuditorOne]

Of course, there is this option, it can be opened under a dark red safelight.

https://www.zzmedical.com/x-ray-acce...-ray-film.html

I tried x-ray once as well as some Ortho Litho. Still have some of the Ortho Litho lying around somewhere. I was never able to master them though. To be fair I probably could have tried harder.

I found I had better luck exposing photo paper in the camera.