building suspense for my first ever print sale

[Jim Jones]

Eddie, I'm with you. There are businessmen, there are photographers, and there are a few who are both. I'm a photographer who is about to raise the price of 10x14 digital prints archivally matted and framed from $40 to maybe $45 at the local arts & crafts show. I'm not rich, but am appreciated by friends, neighbors, and strangers who can't afford to pay much more. That beats being merely rich.

[Kirk Gittings]

Personally I price my prints for what the commercial art market will bear for my work. At this moment that is $850 for a 16x20 inkjet based on a recent museum purchase. Then when I decide to give a friend a price break (or a gift) or donate one to a worthy cause, the advertised market value gives people an idea of the real monetary value of the gift or discount. I frankly don't care if my work is hanging on allot of walls and don't price my work to make it "accessible". There is plenty of "accessibility" for my work-i.e. opportunities for people to see my work in magazines, shows or books etc. If you want to own it however, it should reflect a special commitment and price is one way to achieve that.

[eddy pula]

Kirk, that is interesting... I recently sold some pictures to a luxury hotel magazine, $400 for 4 pictures, I have a portfolio review at the best gallery in Boston next Wednesday trying to get into the Drawing Project, a flat file archive of artists (I don't know if anybody but me looks through those things, heck I steal the handling gloves every time! but its something for a resume), I already got turned down from a show this summer, too much b&w already they said... I had a ton of color stuff that I could of brought but what are you gonna do? I wanted to print, get away from uncalibrated monitors and back to the only real thing in photography, silver gelatin prints goddamit! Plus every time I turn around another box of old prints hits me in the head, consider it a spring cleaning tag sale of Eddy Pula originals, that's why its buy on get one free! Why the heck should all these b&w people pictures live underneath my bed and in my basement, if I have 30-40 prints hanging in cool artists houses and I make $500, how can that be a bad thing?

[mdm]

Bottom line, reputation sells prints. Much more important than the price of your prints now, is that they be used to enhance your reputation and future earning potential (or at least someones). Thats why people still buy Adams and Weston prints, both are long dead, but their reputation still works. If cheap prints get your name out and improve your reputation, they will pay long term. Junk prints are only going to ruin your reputation. Even cheap prints should be the best you can do.

[eddy pula]

MDM, very true, I know my way around an enlarger, I'm no master, but I've been printing black and white for about 10 years and only the nerdiest anal printers ever complain about my work and even then its a quibble here or there. The only thing I'm worried about is the fiber prints wrinkling, that's why most of the new prints are RC. Also I really should replace my blotter book, been through a couple hundred prints by now, but I just hate shelling out dough for stupid sheet like that. Somebody tried to trick me into hauling away their 30x40 heat press.... I have no room and my back hurts enough as it is.

[Pawlowski6132]

Why do people charge more for lager prints? I've never understood that.

[Corran]

Uh well does 16x20 paper cost more than 8x10 paper??

[eddy pula]

I didn't want to say anything to Pawlowski, but as a loyal customer of Hunts photographic, the last 10 years have been tough, when I started out you could buy paper and film at a reasonable price, now its $100 dollars for 50 sheets of 11x14 fiber glossy illafrord, I know I could save like $15 bucks online, but they have a store in my hometown I've been going to since I was 14 and they still carry all the darkroom chemicals I need, and I must be like one of 4 dudes who still buy it. I thank the photo gods every day that I can buy powder d76 at 9 oclock in the morning on any tuesday and talk to the staff about my super obscure developing problems. Dude its expensive to make silver prints, the equipment couldn't be cheaper but the materials are going through the roof!

[Eric Rose]

Love your blog Eddy!

[eddy pula]

thanks dude! I try, I remember trying to write about my own photo's in college and I just couldn't though I could wax poetic about Winogrand, Weegee and Arbus. Now I can't shut up!