What Makes a sellable photograph?

[Stephen Willard]

Acknowledging the wealth of knowledge that reside here at this site, I would like to pose the question of “what makes a photograph sellable?” Before responding please state your area of interest such as portraits, landscapes, urbanscapes, and anything else that I have missed. This will help us better understand your responses.

Clearly there will be attributes of the composition that will have a lot to do with salability, but there can be other factors as well like color, shape of photographs, size of photographs, marketing considerations, whether its a man or women who is buying the photograph, and so on. Or we can look at some famous photographers most sellable images such as Ansel Adams Moon Rise and why it was so popular.

Please feel free to post some of your most sellable images to support your thoughts. If you have not sold any photographs, you can argue what types of photographs you find most appealing and would love to purchase.

This string is not about whether creating sellable photographs is art or is an act that compromise the artistic endeavor. So please do not diverge to this type of discussion. Also it can be said becoming famous will make even your very worst photographs sellable. Obviously, most of us will never be famous so this will have little value for us little guys.

I look forward to your thoughts and debates.

[invisibleflash]

Well, beauty and art is in the eye of the beholder. No one can say why a person likes this or that.

Generally speaking, generic photos are near worthless.

https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/...less-nowadays/

Some photogs are lucky enough to get half a million for a photo of a tricycle. The art world need such excesses to keep the carrot dangling in front of the rest of the struggling artists to give them hope.

https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/...ing-an-artist/

[Stephen Willard]

Well, beauty and art is in the eye of the beholder. No one can say why a person likes this or that.

Generally speaking, generic photos are near worthless.

https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/...less-nowadays/

Some photogs are lucky enough to get half a million for a photo of a tricycle. The art world need such excesses to keep the carrot dangling in front of the rest of the struggling artists to give them hope.

https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/...ing-an-artist/

I agree that portrait and social documentary would be very difficult to sell as decorative art unless you were famous. That said, these types of images fall into a category that I call informative. Informative images can sell well as a book provided there is a good narrative to accompany them. A great example of this is John Fielder's work. He produce images of nature that were very informative and he made a lot of money selling them through books and calendars. However, he was not successful at selling them as decorative art for the home because they were plain and did not inspire profound emotions.

[C.Wetherill]

A great example of this is John Fielder's work. He produce images of nature that were very informative and he made a lot of money selling them through books and calendars. However, he was not successful at selling them as decorative art for the home because they were plain and did not inspire profound emotions.

He was just here in Montrose a few months ago, giving a lecture/talk, and selling books and photographer workshops. I agree that his photos are kindof pretty-picture-ish (banal?) and I've never found them at all memorable (he's 68). But the place was packed to overflowing and he has a lot of fans.

Because he can make very large works I think he has gotten some corporate sales - a bank in town has one. He also mentioned doing an installation recently for a famous Bronco player, a backlit transparency that covers one end of a room.

BTW - Fielder is no longer doing LF work. He said he's now using a 20 Mp digital camera of some sort. Maybe even a point-and-shoot... something about how much easier it is on his back and knees. For those unfamiliar, he became famous here in Colorado for his llama pack trips into the wilderness, to carry all his LF gear. His latest book is of B&W photos, made by cranking the color saturation all the way down to zero. He no longer has a gallery in Denver, having moved up to the Kremmling area (north of Breckenridge and I-70).

[Peter Lewin]

You will get as many opinions as there are replies. Some people buy photographs to hang up as decoration, in which case the predominant colors must match their decor, and the subject matter is typically traditional, i.e. landscape, waterscape, still life. Some people buy photographs to remember a place they visited on vacation, so the photograph should be "typical of the location."

Of course, as a member of this forum, I am not the "typical customer." I buy photographs which inspire me to be better, but which are also relevant to my own photography, i.e. black and white prints made in a darkroom from large format negatives. But to prove my point, about a year ago I purchased an 11x14 B&W large-format silver print at a craft fair (which hangs with many other prints, both my own and purchased, in our family room), and my wife bought two small color seascapes (largely shades of blue) from the same photographer to hang in our blue downstairs bathroom. Definitely different criteria!

[Kirk Gittings]

This I know personally. When I am in the field and I make a photograph that I think will sell, it rarely does. When I am in the moment and making images that personally really move me-those sell.

[Stephen Willard]

This I know personally. When I am in the field and I make a photograph that I think will sell, it rarely does. When I am in the moment and making images that personally really move me-those sell.

Absolutely true. Many, but not all, of the images I thought would sell well did not. And those that moved me turned out to be great sellers. You never know what will happen once we enter the darkroom or post production mode if you do digital.

[Kirk Gittings]

This I know personally. When I am in the field and I make a photograph that I think will sell, it rarely does. When I am in the moment and making images that personally really move me-those sell.

Just to be clear. When I make an image where the main reason is because I think it will sell-it doesn't. When I make an image because it simply gets me excited-it does. There is something about a motivation that is primarily trying to second guess the public's taste that falls flat (or at least that is what I believe). So I try never to even consider that when I take the time to set up a VC. At this point in my life it takes something special to get me to set up a VC and on many outings I never do and that is fine too.

[Jim Noel]

This I know personally. When I am in the field and I make a photograph that I think will sell, it rarely does. When I am in the moment and making images that personally really move me-those sell.

That is a very good answer.

[Winger]

I'm mostly a landscape photographer, at least partially because I can take my time and also get exercise while shooting. Of my shots, the few that have sold have been ones that I think the buyer just resonated with. To me, those prints were ones with a certain richness to them and they're also favorites of mine. Though others that I really LOVE, no one else seems to. I've also had two people ask for certain flower shots handcolored with specific colors to match a room (yes, they were friends, so I did them, even suggested it to one).
Ones I buy tend to be of places I doubt I'll ever get to or things that don't happen predictably, like certain weather conditions. Unique-ness, too, I think makes them sellable, as long as they're technically very good.

I also suspect that photographers have different criteria when shopping for prints compared to non-photographers.