Too many pictures syndrome

[GPS]

...


I think all that stuff is bullshit -- after years of playing that game myself -- and now I have faith in myself, that if I keep pushing and shooting and producing something that is better and different and... just good work... that I will be discovered. Not by some college professor, contest judge, or neighborhood gallery owner, but by the market itself... word of mouth, bloggers, popular opinion, ad agencies, popular magazines, designers... real people.

...

In other words, let the success come organically because your work is so good.

You can have mediocre work and force it to be success by marketing it like crazy, but that doesn't make it good work and your real job winds up being marketing, not photography.

I agree about the bullshit...
Unfortunately, the other solution - "your way" - is the same BS too, just in a different color... Every amateur dreams about "being discovered" because his work is "so good"... That, in the real world, is BS.
Now, if you think that ad agencies, popular magazines etc. will discover that your works is oh, so good, because you write your blog like crazy, that's BS too. Good luck with it!
Even stock agencies sell what others need, not what is necessarily - oh, so good. That's what I know from the real world.

[GPS]

Frank Petronio comment can be true, however in the current age of an unprecidented explosion of photography this digital decade, the notion of the best work rising "until it is impossible to be ignored", is not likely to be successful either because of the enormity of noise currently from gazillions of other photographers fighting in a very unfair commercial Internet and media environment and art world where money, influence, and connections are likely to drown anything else out.

...

But of course!

[DanK]

I agree about the bullshit...
Unfortunately, the other solution - "your way" - is the same BS too, just in a different color... Every amateur dreams about "being discovered" because his work is "so good"... That, in the real world, is BS.
Now, if you think that ad agencies, popular magazines etc. will discover that your works is oh, so good, because you write your blog like crazy, that's BS too. Good luck with it!
Even stock agencies sell what others need, not what is necessarily - oh, so good. That's what I know from the real world.

I actually agree with both Frank's suggestion of the potential for inevitable discovery with high quality work and GPS's that it is in actuality completely unlikely....

But....there's always hope, and as long as the potential is there it gives a glimmer...

I still buy lottery tickets... maybe if I get lucky (buy enough) I'll win and can really pursue photography as I'd like....then again maybe not....

Dan

[Frank Petronio]

Words fail me, I'm not being clear enough.... I'm not saying "don't work hard at marketing yourself" but what I mean to convey is that marketing yourself to gallery curators and photo contest judges is a waste of energy. There are people who have been successful in spite of having mediocre work because they work extremely hard at sales and marketing. And in fact they are much better marketeers than they are photographers.

And I really don't want to be part of that. If I am going to work that hard in sales and marketing, then I rather sell something with a higher margin and make even more money.

What I am trying to convey is to find out where your work is appreciated and run with that, go deep into that niche, because marketing yourself will suddenly become much more effective and easier.

[Mark Barendt]

If I hear Frank correctly, all he's saying is find a market that wants your stuff and market there.

The reality of galleries (which are simply "retailers of high-end durable goods") is that they don't really want "different" products or lots of suppliers, they want to find and sell a very limited set of products their market likes and buy from a very limited set of artists, over and over and over-again.

I happen to live close to the OP and know the gallery where his work was hung.

Within 5-blocks of that gallery there are probably 20 or more arts based galleries/retailers, each has a theme. Some of these retailers haven't changed their product mix in years, many, many, years.

Why?

These galleries "market" primarily to the tourists that come to town from all over the world.

The tourists come here for the stereotype stuff; western Americana, cowboy dreams, big-mountains, fishing, steam-driven train rides, Mesa Verde National Park, Skiing.

Tourists go home show off their SWAG and their buddies go "oh wow, I like that, Marge look at this! Let's go skiing/on the Train/to Mesa Verde there next year and we can pick up a piece like that too."

My boring stereotype world, where the style in the shops rarely (if ever) changes, is a tourist's and gallery owner's dream.

The thing that should stand out here is that the galleries aren't "the market", they are just middlemen/women; the tourists are the market.

To cultivate a market for your art you must get real people talking to their friends about your art and showing off your stuff in their homes.

You may even have to live in an artists commune or start your own gallery to do that.

[rdenney]

It is easy to disparage "tourist" galleries in popular vacation destinations as being static (and hackneyed). But, in fact, they change all the time: The people in those galleries are continuously turning over. A gallery might offer a stream of new things to see for a static audience, or they might provide a new way of looking at common themes to a stream of people who have rarely or ever collected any form of art. It is unlikely that the material needed for the first application will find much success in the second--buying art has to start somewhere.

We don't expect first-time symphony goers to come away raving about, say, the John Adams work after the intermission, even though the grizzled veterans of symphony music were yawning through the Beethoven work before the intermission. The path to the appreciation of John Adams for many may lead through Beethoven.

The role of a gallery owner is to make the market. In that role, their first and most important asset is their prospect list. Knowing the tastes and expectations of a gallery owner's prospect list (which ought to be easy enough to identify by looking at the work they display), would probably save a lot of effort on the part of an artist. Substitute "magazine publisher" or "art collector" and the above statement works just as well.

At the end of the day, selling artwork is difficult, and the more unique the artwork (or, the more peculiar the artist's vision), the more difficult it is to find a market. Marketing directly to gallery owners might be the efficient path for some types of work, and a colossal waste of time for other types. Frank is suggesting that spending one's time playing the "gallery game" is both time-consuming and dangerous, but that may be a reflection of his work as much as anything.

One thing is for sure: There is no orthodoxy here. If a photographer is enjoying what he or she produces, and those who buy it are happy with the result sufficiently to sustain the effort, then that is the best possible outcome. Few can claim such. That's why I don't worry too much that my photos often sit in the closet. I didn't make them for anyone else; I made them for me--I'm the buyer and often (okay, sometimes) I get more than my money's worth. The two photos I entered into a contest last year reminded me of that--the people judging that contest demonstrated baffling preferences and tastes that certainly did not persuade me to their view.

Would we buy our own work? If so, where would we be likely to buy it? How much would we pay? Those seem to me critical evaluations to be made by anyone hoping to sell their work as art. The notion that artists can't evaluate their own work suggests to me artists who don't have a clear vision.

Rick "for whom these questions are convicting" Denney

[cyrus]

Sell the extra prints on Etsy!

[Brian C. Miller]

OK, so we're back to the other active thread on promoting yourself.

Things to ponder:

#1: What is actually selling at the gallery? If the public isn't in a buying mood (bad economy, layoffs, failed banks, offshore oil spill, invading aliens from space, bedbugs in the mattress) I wouldn't take it as a personal slight that nothing sold. If picture of pine tree A sold and pine tree B didn't, I wouldn't see that as a failure, either. If normal pine tree sold and hallucinogenic vision of a pine tree remained, I'd find a different gallery.

#2. Giving your work away is not devaluing it, you are promoting it. Give it away in a nice frame you bought on sale, with a nice note on the mat about who made it, etc. This is your business card, and it is 16x20 in size. That's big, right? Lots to attract somebody's eyeballs. And since it is LF, there's a lot there to keep somebody's eyeballs on it. And eyeballs read that nice note on the mat, and then fingers do the walking.

#3. If you are mainly interested in selling stuff, see if people will buy what isn't being commonly photographed. Why do people buy Jerry Uelsman's compositions? Because they are unusual. Go ahead and do something unusual, and have some fun doing it.

[Michael Gordon]

My work has hung in a number of exhibitions over the last few years, with some of them being very successful and others not at all. I have certainly been surprised, as my work has sold where I didn't expect it to and has not sold where I have expected it to. There's no making sense of it. Because of the internet and social media, I'm no longer convinced that galleries are a viable business model for ordinary artists like us. How many people do you know that have ever gone to traditional art galleries to make certain purchases?

Simply hanging your work in an exhibition is not a guarantee of sales. Sure, it may be a perfect Zone and Tone print, have sharp focus and all that, but if your work does not connect with the viewers than none of it matters. People don't buy prints because they are well executed or contain memorable local or regional subject matter; they buy prints because they're too moved by the image to not buy. Further, I seem to sell better when I can have a dialogue and/or relationship with the buyer. Would you buy an expensive print from a photographer you don't know, don't care about, or have no relationship with? In a gallery setting, the possibility of striking a relationship with a potential buyer starts and ends on reception night. With your website, blog, and email, a relationship has plenty of time to develop into a sale.

Art Festivals have long been sneered at by the fine art community, but if you want to have hundreds if not thousands view your work over a 2-3 day period, then these might be an answer for you. More eyes = more possibilities of sales. Sure, they're a ton of work to do, but many of the folks who attend festivals are actual buyers who are there to buy (which seems to rarely be the case with galleries). I don't know about you, but I'm much more interested in selling my work than saying that I'm represented by so and so. I've only exhibited in four local (and high profile) festivals this year, but they've proved to be more lucrative for me than all my previous exhibitions combined. Why? More eyes, more buyers, less lookie-loo photographers who would rather know the location of the photograph or what tools I used to shoot and print.

Finally, if there's little about your work that can distance it from "too many [other similar] pictures", it's not gonna sell. Your work's price and quality will be pitted against that similar work. If your work is yours, that someone who likes it will be forced to buy it because there is nothing else like it.

[Mark Barendt]

It is easy to disparage "tourist" galleries in popular vacation destinations as being static (and hackneyed).

Rick I'm not disparaging these galleries. They are being good business people.

Would we buy our own work? If so, where would we be likely to buy it? How much would we pay? Those seem to me critical evaluations to be made by anyone hoping to sell their work as art. The notion that artists can't evaluate their own work suggests to me artists who don't have a clear vision.

Rick "for whom these questions are convicting" Denney

If I remember correctly Enzo Ferrari went many years without personally owning one of the cars he made, he could not afford not to sell one.

Most of us are not in the markets we hope to serve.