Too many pictures syndrome

[rdenney]

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.

Okay, let me ask it a different way. If money was not an issue, would you buy your own work? The point is to make work that we would like and buy, not to determine the depth of our wallets. The desire to buy is the first step. The ability to buy is the second. People who make things aim their creativity at the first, and set price points for the second.

Our personal tastes may be unique, and as such what we like may utterly fail to impress any potential buyers. We can either continue to seek a market that would be attracted to our own work, or we can make sure we keep our day job. The alternative of affecting a different style for the purpose of impressing the easily available audience right in front of us is seductive.

Rick "not tempted to quit his day job" Denney

[rdenney]

...How many people do you know that have ever gone to traditional art galleries to make certain purchases?

I would say that much of the art hanging on our walls (that is not home-grown) was bought at art or photography galleries. I'm even including some of the posters.

In many of those cases, we were just cruising galleries in a new town when something struck our fancy. In other cases, we were at an exhibition of someone we knew. But the biggest purchases were made because the gallery owner knew our (er, my wife's) tastes and when something came in that they thought would appeal to us, they called.

The problem for us is, after having spent money for art, it gets hanging priority, which means my own prints sit in the closet, facing the wall. That undermines motivation to make more prints. But more, it is forcing me to be selective about subject matter--perhaps too selective.

Rick "bring things back to topic" Denney

[darr]

... 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.

Well said Michael. Thank you.
BTW, I admire your work immensely!

Darr

[D. Bryant]

Okay, let me ask it a different way. If money was not an issue, would you buy your own work?

If I print it I would, but I don't print tons of my images. So yes I ain't quitting the day job.

Only a few choice photographers around the world can sell enough fine art work to make a living and most of them are dead.

Don Bryant

[al olson]

Sell the extra prints on Etsy!

Cyrus, are you an Etsy seller? If so, can you provide a little more information regarding how you sell successfully on Etsy? Are you selling inkjet or photographic process prints? What size prints sell best? How are you setting your price points? What kinds of themes sell the best?

Etsy has been recommended to me by other people. I have looked into the site, but it appears that much of the work is inferior. In that case I might well fit in, but then it would be obvious. Is anyone on this forum successfully selling prints on Etsy?

With Regards,

[mdd99]

We hope, we dream, we face reality. The world, and the trends that drive it, are constantly changing. For those of us attempting sell our photos, we are trapped by the numbers: Too much product, too few buyers. It’s as simple as that.

If I learned anything from my 20 years as a magazine editor, it’s this: You evolve, you adapt, you innovate, or you die. For photographers who wish to sell into this market, the best bet, I think, is trying to find a niche. That can mean developing a distinctive style, seeking nontraditional markets, working with sponsors, creating products that can be sold on their own or picked up by businesses as a marketing tool, and so forth. After struggling for years as a freelance writer, for example, one of my colleagues took a part-time teaching job at a local college. He also created a point-of-purchase pamphlet on tide pools in the Bay Area that he sells to shops of all kinds. Both the part-time job and the pamphlet, which has become a perennial best seller, allow him to continue to freelance. How grand.

Last year, I created a calendar that helped me raise money for nonprofits, and I even sold a few dozen in local shops that helped me cover my costs. The calendar also made excellent gifts to friends. That will be the last calendar I likely will create as I was recently diagnosed with a terminal illness that has caused me to give up LF photography. I don’t know what was worse, learning of the illness or giving up LF. Nonetheless, I continue to shoot digitally when I can because photography is my passion and it brings me great joy, regardless of whether I sell another print--and, in fact, I don't plan to. In the end, I’ve asked my wife to give away my prints to friends.

This all reminds me of another writer who relayed a story about a mountain climber who had decided to scramble up an avalanche chute. (That's dangerous—the scrambling can easily trigger another avalanche.) At one point in his scramble, he stopped to rest and saw a hawk. Instead of continuing to climb he sat and simply watched the hawk for two hours. It circled and circled and finally ascended 2,000 feet without once flapping its wings. A metaphor, the climber said, for "allowing the forces around you to lift you."

Hawks can't change the natural forces around them. But they can make canny and astoundingly productive use of them.

And, of course, when the natural forces wither, the hawk goes somewhere else. He knows how to ride the next thermal. Without regret, without anxiety.