Rules of Professional Art Photography

[Mark Sawyer]

Don't know whether this thread will fly, but here goes...

For many photographers, the dream is to make a living doing their own creative work. Few achieve this, but many of us flitter around the edges or think of making the plunge in the future. It's something I think of, and hope the list will be added to.

Up for discussion then are the "Rules," the facts of life and responsibilities of the working fine art photographer trying to make it in the world of the private gallery, public museum, critic, collector, publisher, and grant-awarding art foundation.

(General disclaimer: all rules are up for discussion, and just because I started this mess doesn't mean I know what I'm talking about.)

The Rules:

Rule: If you're going to show in a private gallery, your work must meet the approval of the gallery owner/director, and be marketable to a buying audience. The gallery is theirs, not yours, and they have the responsibility of keeping it financially viable and aesthetically sound.

Rule: If you are represented by a gallery, you will not sell your work in that gallery's area (geographic area, audience area, etc.) except through that gallery.

Rule: A 50% gallery commission is the current standard, but by long-standing principle, a gallery should never take more that 50%.

Rule: When a gallery accepts you as an artist it will represent, you have accepted a continuing responsibility to produce new work in cohesive bodies that is both critically successful and saleable.

Rule: Work produced for sale will be archivally processed and mounted, whatever that means to the gallery/customer.

Rule: Only your very best prints will go to the gallery. If it takes 100 tries to get the best print, they get that one, not a near miss, even if you're the only one that can tell.

Rule: You must promote yourself to galleries, publishers, etc., especially as a new artist. No one will seek you out.

Rule: Grants to support your work from art foundations will not come until you are already an established and published artist.

Rule: You will produce substantive artist's statements, and articulately explain and defend your work. You should be able to converse in the language of the art-literate if you are to build and keep the relationships necessary to success.

[Jonathan_5775]

So - you feel you've made a series of contenious statements and we should support or deny them? Not TOO clear on what you're looking for.

[Brian C. Miller]

Looks like reality to me. The alternative is to open your own gallery.

But what you really want to do is sell your prints. Let's explore that instead.

#1: Your prints need to be viewed by the public.

No matter what this entails, you need eyeballs looking at what you produce, and the more the better. There are blank store fronts. There are places where people can hang advertising posters. You could rent bus advertising. You could rent open space in a mall and hang prints there, and redirect the customer to a web site.

#2: The public needs its questions answered.

A knowledgeable person physically on the spot is the best option. If you can't afford that, then a computer kiosk could suffice.

#3: You need to exchange your prints for the public's money.

Either a person to collect checks and hand over the print, or payment via a web site and then ship the print.

Of course, what I outlined here is targeting the average consumer. Selling to the freaking rich who will shell out $10,000 for a picture of a guy staring blankly will require time with galleries and shows and all of that.

[Brian C. Miller]

I just did a Google search for "fine art photography" and I looked at what came up in the sponsored links. On the second page there is a link to a guy who is on the Starved Artists web site. Now that's an interesting concept, but it seems hard to stand out on the site. Apparently the artists set their own prices. Too bad the search engine is limited.

[Kirk Gittings]

"Rule: Grants to support your work from art foundations will not come until you are already an established and published artist."

I don't think that is always true. I received far more grants when I was something of an emerging regional artist (say late 1980's, Polaroid Artist Support Group, NEA, Getty) than I do now as an established one. But the mitagating factor is that in the 80's there was far more money around for photo grants. Now I make enough from commercial work to fund personal work out of pocket. Grants take an enormous amount of work to get and sometimes if you look at how much time you put into them they are hardly worth it. Grants also have strings attached to them which may limit your freedom with the final project. They have benefits like prestige and money of course but they come with a price.

[Mark_3899]

How about:

You should go to graduate school and obtain an MFA from one of a handful of Universities deemed important at that time by the "art world"

After you get this graduate degree you should get a faculty position at one of these chosen schools.

Finally you must go to every opening at all the important galleries in your city and shmooz relentlessly.

[paulr]

Without fussing over the details, I think those are some good generalizations. I'd like to add that while very few people support themselves completely through fine art work, there are a lot of people who support themselves partially through it. They have "art businesses" (the IRS's term, not mine) that are profitable, even if the profits don't pay for their whole lives. This allows them to get by doing their personal work and some other kind of non full-time work. It's not a bad life, and it's within reach of a lot of people who have talent and energy.

On the grant question, I think your chances are better in general if you're well established. There are a lot of reasons for this. But I wouldn't make it a rule, because I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from applying for them. Especially the people who need them the most.

And Mark Steigleman, there are certainly people following the path you describe, but it seems like it's far from the easiest, most likely, or pleasantest path someone might take.

[Jonathan_5775]

Actually, Mark - it's the other way around! It's very difficult - if not next to impossible to actually get on the faculty of a decent art school unless you are ALREADY a big name - at least regionally.

[Mark Sawyer]

"So - you feel you've made a series of contenious statements and we should support or deny them? Not TOO clear on what you're looking for."

Looking for a dose of reality for someone thinking of going that route. As a high school/community college photo instructor and photographer-in-general, I deal with, I see quite a few young/new photographers who think of going this route, but have an idealized fantasy of what's involved. We have photographers here who are accomplished in this field. (I've floated distantly around the edges, but for nearly three decades.) What advice is there for the reality of the situation?

I threw out a few ideas, but it hardly scratches the surface...

[Mark Sawyer]

"You should go to graduate school and obtain an MFA from one of a handful of Universities deemed important at that time by the "art world" After you get this graduate degree you should get a faculty position at one of these chosen schools."

The university teaching route is a different, though closely related, area. Jonathan's right, you need an MFA (of course) AND a reputation to get a university position. The short list of rules here is "publish, publish. publish, exhibit, exhibit, exhibit, and network, network, network."