magazines, etc. for collectors

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

As I am selective about the photographers in which I publish in the Focus Gallery, it is indeed a submission. It's unfortunate that you're so negative about this whole thing. I think you're an excellent photographer and very much enjoy your work. You may not "like" the idea of paying to be inside of a magazine, but how else are you going to reach the attendees of every single major photography auction (excluding sothebey's) this autumn? How else are you going to reach the collectors at Paris Photo? How else are you going to reach the collectors at Photo Miaimi and AIPAD Miami?

My negativity stems from the idea that there is a conflict of interest between being "selective" and accepting the money. Other magazines like VC, Silvershotz and Lenswork are also as selective yet they do not charge or in the case of Lenswork pay a nominal fee to the photographer to publish their work.

You pride yourself and have based your magazine on the idea that you have the knowledge and the inside track on collecting photography, yet I feel you do a disservice to those very same collectors when all you do is feature stablished photographers whose collecting their work is a no brainer and in fact their prices have risen to such levels that for those who collect as an investment besides liking the work it is not such a good deal.

As someone who supposedly has the knowledge and inside track, I would think you would want to recommend to your readers those photographers/artists whom you consider are the future and/or have the artistic skill to see their work appreciate in value and whose prices for their work are very accesible at the moment. If you have the connections with galleries and shows you imply you do, I am sure you hear of photographers whose work is unknown but has exited the gallery owners/curators. If you hear the same name, 2, 3 times, then why not give the person a break and feature him/her without charging them?

You are not going to become a pioneer and a force in the photography collecting world by featuring and doing the same old articles about stablished photographers that every magazine has done for the last 20 years. Jerry Uelsmann, Jock Sturges, Paul Caponigro, Michael Kenna..... pffft...who cares!?! What else can be written about them and many others like them that has not been written before? You want to break the mold, well then take a chance!

I am still not sure if you really like photography or if this is only a money making venture for you. Yet it seems you are following the same formula many other art/photography magazines are using, namely milk the desperate photographer/artist for exposure and get all the money you can from them.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

*snip*

We will have to agree to disagree, but all I will say is that Focus is still too new to be a money making venture. Right now it is just a labor of love. Hopefully one day, when we are done building the magazine to the point where we want it to be, it will be. And there's no "milking" going on. We put a photographer's work in front of collectors and hope that the collectors will buy the work. If they don't, then it could be the portfolio, the images the photographer and I chose of that portfolio, or the photographer him/herself. Not every single photographer is going to sell or pick up representation. But we give the best opportunities and the highest likeleyhood out of any other magazine out there that a photographer will pick up representation.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Not every single photographer is going to sell or pick up representation. But we give the best opportunities and the highest likeleyhood out of any other magazine out there that a photographer will pick up representation.

This used to be true before the internet and e mail. Now a days the simplest way to obtain representation is to actually contact the gallery, ask them if they would look at your web site and/or if they would accept a cd from you to see if your work fits their gallery.

For personal reasons I have lost some opportunities, but you will be surprised how simple this is. Some say yes, some say no, some say they want to see the work in person before making an assesment, etc. For $2500 you charge for your ad, I can approach at least 300 galleries, if only 2% accept my work that is 6 galleries. If none accept your work then you know you are not ready or your work lacks something, I beleive this is a much more profitable approach and the money better spent than taking out an ad and hoping people will contact me, judging form the results I saw when I took and ad out on B&W magazine I think I am in the right track.

If you beleive I am wrong, then the simplest way to prove it to me and everybody else in this forum is to take a poll from your photographer advertisers and let us know how their sales and representation have improved. The best way to do this so that you are not accused of tampering with the poll would be to get an independent web site to conduct the poll. Aren't you curious to see if what you state is true?

[Tim Hyde]

If you beleive I am wrong, then the simplest way to prove it to me and everybody else in this forum is to take a poll from your photographer advertisers and let us know how their sales and representation have improved. The best way to do this so that you are not accused of tampering with the poll would be to get an independent web site to conduct the poll. Aren't you curious to see if what you state is true?

Gosh. I know we live in the age of transparency, but this is asking a lot. As a good businessman, I'm guessing Focus does these surveys all the time, but he's under no obligation to share the results with the public. We are under no obligation to believe his claims either, but I think they are reasonable. You make a good point, Jorge, about approaching multiple galleries, but these tactics are not mutually exclusive.

[paulr]

If you're in New York City, I would recommend making a trip to the Gitterman Gallery. He has such a vast wealth of knowledge about the market and he's very low pressure on the sales end.

Tom Gitterman is a great guy ... one of the NYC gallerists who's happy to talk to you even if he has no commercial use for your work. I can imagine he'd be great to deal with for collectors as well.

[paulr]

Now a days the simplest way to obtain representation is to actually contact the gallery, ask them if they would look at your web site and/or if they would accept a cd from you to see if your work fits their gallery.

this is what i've done most of the time. it still requires me to somehow choose the best galleries to approach, out of the thousands or tens of thousands out there. i've made my choices based on some combination of recommendation, experience, educated guess, and convenience. but there are lots of ways to miss the best choices.

i have virtually no experience with advertising (besides my personal site, and a handful of gallery sites that are of dubious worth). but i see how it could potentially get my work in front of someone that i wouldn't have considered contacting, or maybe wouldn't even have known about.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

This used to be true before the internet and e mail. Now a days the simplest way to obtain representation is to actually contact the gallery, ask them if they would look at your web site and/or if they would accept a cd from you to see if your work fits their gallery.

Oh you could absolutely try that, Jorge. Of course you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning, bitten by a shark and winning the lottery on the same day than actually having that work out for you. You think you're the only photographer calling galleries all of the time trying to get them to look at your work? No knocks against your work at all, Jorge, as I said it's quite good. But how many other photographers out there have quite good work? The market of art photographers seeking representation is literally made up over 200,000 photographers and that is a VERY conservative number. I believe an estimate used by BG in an old issue of LW is more accurate when he put the number close to 1 million. You're a gallery that's busy with a million and one shows, trying to make ends meet, trying to do this, trying to do that, etc. and you really think you're going to talk to the decision maker of the gallery in one phone call AND get them to look at your website AND get them to call you back AND get them to invite you into their gallery to talk and get to know each other better AND obtain representation from them? Galleries just don't have that kind of time on their hands and they're busy with a billion other things to do. This is sort of the reason that Focus, B&W, Art of Excellence and Masters of Today are doing as well as we are... because galleries can take the time that they have and browse through the pages of any of our respective magazines and if they see something they like, they can contact the photographer and go from there. I know of at least 3 or 4 photographers who've been exhibited in my pagee in which that's worked for and that's a pretty good number considering we've only really been seriously looked at for a little over a year.

For personal reasons I have lost some opportunities, but you will be surprised how simple this is. Some say yes, some say no, some say they want to see the work in person before making an assesment, etc. For $2500 you charge for your ad, I can approach at least 300 galleries, if only 2% accept my work that is 6 galleries. If none accept your work then you know you are not ready or your work lacks something, I beleive this is a much more profitable approach and the money better spent than taking out an ad and hoping people will contact me, judging form the results I saw when I took and ad out on B&W magazine I think I am in the right track.

Jorge, I'm definitely not one to ever suck up to you, but your "marketing campaign" sucked. First of all, you shared your campaign with another photographer. Second of all, the reproduction of your images was also terrible. Your work isn't grayscale or nuetral toned, yet it was reproduced that way. You only bought half pages that were thrown in the middle of nowhere with terrible placement. My theory is, if you're going to do an ad campaign, do it right.

For the same price you paid for a half page in B&W, you could've bought a full page in Focus and actually had your work reproduced in the way it's meant to be seen and you would've been placed in an area of the magazine that is designated for photographers only.

If you beleive I am wrong, then the simplest way to prove it to me and everybody else in this forum is to take a poll from your photographer advertisers and let us know how their sales and representation have improved. The best way to do this so that you are not accused of tampering with the poll would be to get an independent web site to conduct the poll. Aren't you curious to see if what you state is true?

A: I don't have to do that. I think the mark of a magazine that has advertisers that are successful are the ones that repeat their ads. Over 25% of the photographers that have advertised with me have taken out either second Focus Gallery's or full page ads. That rate obliterates the national average of recurring advertisers for niche magazines which is around 8-10%. B: I have nothing to prove to you. We could have a contest on this website whose work is the best work of everyone here and I could give them a year's woth of a marketing campaign inside of the magazine for free and they wouldn't sell a thing. I can also put the guy who won last place in the contest in the magazine for one issue and he'll sell 10 prints. Unfortunately, I have no idea what my readers like and what they don't like. I know what I think is good. Beyond that, there is no way to measure how many photographers will be successful or unsuccessful. As I said, I put your photography in front of the people who are in the market to buy new photography. I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make them drink.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Gosh. I know we live in the age of transparency, but this is asking a lot. As a good businessman, I'm guessing Focus does these surveys all the time, but he's under no obligation to share the results with the public. We are under no obligation to believe his claims either, but I think they are reasonable. You make a good point, Jorge, about approaching multiple galleries, but these tactics are not mutually exclusive.

There is absolutely no science to this whatsoever. Let's take a photographer who does AMAZING still life photography. I mean, you look at it and you're absolutley blown away. The shadows and the usage of light in her photography puts her among the best. She worked with many of the greats and personally knew Adams and Bernhard. I know for a fact that her work has not sold yet. It's left me absolutely shocked. I have another photographer whose younger than me and his work is very out there and just completely not what we would publish normally and he actually wound selling a few prints from the same issue. I mean, it's really a risk...all advertising is a risk. The more you advertise the greater the chance you have of selling. Not only that, but I don't judge a campaign a success if someone's sold. I judge it a success if their website has received a huge amount of traffic and they've received inquiries. Unfortunately, some people's websites are terrible and tough to navigate around, other people don't have a method of buying directly from the website and still others have no way of even tracking their traffic...even though there are several useful tools that are absolutely free.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

btw, Jorge. You mentioned a year ago that you contacted "only the best" galleries out there to look at your work for representation. So far, I don't see any galleries representing your work. I guess your method isn't exactly fool proof, huh?

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

btw, Jorge. You mentioned a year ago that you contacted "only the best" galleries out there to look at your work for representation. So far, I don't see any galleries representing your work. I guess your method isn't exactly fool proof, huh?

First off, you better back off the sarcasm or I am going to start dishing it out to you, by now you should know I am pretty capable in that deparment. As I said , I lost some opportunities for personal reasons, but how about the late John Stevenson Gallery agreeing to look at my work. This was the best Gallery in NY for alternative work bar none.

One gallery which I approached too soon but although it denied my representation did agree to see my work was the Photography Room. It is clear you have never called a gallery asking them to review your work. You would be surprised how easy it is with a friendly call to get them to look at your work, of course you have to ask to talk to the curator/owner of the gallery, don't talk to the first person who answers the phone. I don't know where you got this idea that it is very hard to talk to the person who makes the desicion, it has never been a problem for me. This does not guarantee representation, but then, neither does advertising in your magazine. The advantage is not only that you can get immediate feedback, you can actually discuss your work with those who have at least some knowledge of the market.

Sharing my advertisement with another photographer was the best I could do, we figured a half page was better than a quater page individually. You might be right about the reproduction style, I don't know how much more effective would be to have the four color ad, methinks it is not that great of an advantage. The ad was placed in the section for photographers, same as it would be with yours.

I think there are a lot of people out there who have great work, I am surprised you make this statement. Hell, have you looked at the work of some of the guys in this forum. Domenico Foschi, Vaughn, Kerik, Clay (well Clay does not count too much since he already has very good gallery representation), Frank Petronio (he does have more to show than just naked chicks), Kirk Gittings (once again, a bit iffy since he does have very good representation but is not a "household" name as it were). Robert Teague does great color work. And this is only from this forum whom I am sure any gallery would agree to see their work if only they contacted them and asked. One guy who is great, has been around for many years, does very interesting work for those who like the "message in a photograph" kind of thing is spanish photographer Chema Madoz, yet we rarely hear about him in the US. If you are not seeing the plethora of talent that it is out there, then maybe there is something worng with your submission scheme.

As Tim pointed out, you are under no obligation of disclosing the success your advertisers have had, but I think it would be a refreshing change and may in fact bring more business for you. OTOH by your response I get the feeling you are guessing rather than having done the survey.