Four Tips for Working a Photo Exhibition


Working a Reception (Photo Courtesy Mary Smith)

Working a Reception (Photo Courtesy Mary Smith)

My two-person show “Rhythms” opened last night in San Jose, and the reception was a blast. It can be a challenge to get the most out of a show of your photography, I’m often astounded by how many artists believe that their work will “sell itself”, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Here are a few tips for getting the most out of your photo exhibitions.

1. Make sure your pricing makes sense. Most venues will want about half of the gross of any sales of your work, which means that your half has to cover printing, matting, framing, labels, and oh, you wanted to make a profit, too, right? One of the biggest mistakes I see artists make is underpricing their work. If you don’t make it clear that to folks that your work is valuable, why should they believe otherwise? [Read more...]

Pricing Prints

Pricing fine art photographic prints is always a challenge, there’s a lot of costs involved, a lot of competition in the marketplace, and a lot of variation in prices out there in the marketplace.  While I don’t have the One True Way of pricing for photographic prints, I do have a few thoughts on the matter for those of you considering your own print sales.

As a starting point, you first need to figure out your cost of goods. Start with the photographic print itself.  If you own your own printer, that cost will include the cost of the ink, the paper, and the amortized cost of the printer itself, Mark Segal has a nice article explaining how to do this over at the Luminous Landscape.  In my own case, I print through an outside service, so I know up front that the cost of one of my standard-sized prints (16×11 inches image size) is about $25, then I add to that a few bucks for shipping or my time/effort to pick it up. [Read more...]

Closing

I suck at closing.

I get a fair amount of appreciation for my photographic prints, and am usually able to manage a good turnout for my big photo exhibitions, but closing a sale can still be a challenge for me. [Read more...]