Indeed. I have spent 10 years now studying photography from both the
craft-shop/fair side and the fine-art side. It’s frustrating from either
direction, unless you’re well known in the fine-art field and teach workshops.
That’s how all the big boys and girls are making their money now. It’s not from
prints, trust me. At least not for the vast majority of them.
The craft show/shop route has a very hard ceiling on prices. I can go so high,
and no higher, where I sell my 7x10s matted to 11x14. Right now they’re sitting
at $39 a pop. I may try to raise that this year because I need to, but I don’t
know what the response will be. Most of the customers of the craft show/shop
circuit are looking for price. Because I work at the craft shop that sells my
smaller stuff, I get to watch and talk to the customers. Believe me, most of
them are interested in price. Given the choice between two similar pieces of
pottery, for example, they invariably will chose the cheaper, even though it’s
markedly inferior.
There’s a fairly successful photographer up in Camden who makes his living with
the same general kinds of stuff I do, but he shows up at all the fairs with
bins filled with matted prints selling for less than I sell mine. He says the
secret to success is bins-bins-bins. This is all well and good when you’re
young and eager, but the older you get, the more boring this approach becomes.
It may satisfy income requirements, but it does nothing for the creative side
of things—unless your creative side is selling-selling-selling. (I don’t do
shows. I got back into photography late enough in life that I had no interest
in buying a van and outfitting it for shows—never mind that many shows in Maine
are interrupted by dreadful winds and rain.)
As well as I’ve done, and I’ve done pretty well, all things considered, my
photo income has never come close to an actual living. It has bought me all
manner of cool equipment, and paid for a few sets of tires and airline tickets
along the way. If I had to make a living at this, I’d be one of those takers
all the makers on Fox news are always carping about.
This year, I’m actively seeking to reduce my costs by staying away from new
equipment, and streamlining my mass-production prints. I’m also going to spent
little more effort at bumping up sales of canvas and metal and larger paper
prints, which showed some nice trends last year at the higher end shop where I
sell.
But as things now stand, I’m really working to ease the burdens of retirement a
little bit, give the creative juices an outlet, have some fun socializing—and
maybe put aside enough for another run at Scotland in a year or so. Oh yeah,
and buy better beer, pay off the Harley and the auto-start, whole house
generator we just bought. <g>
--Bob Whitmire
Certified Neanderthal
On Feb 3, 2014, at 5:07 PM, Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The people who actually make money doing this, over time, will have
> very low inventory costs by doing more of their own. I don't think it
> is possible for a photographer to ever make a profit if he/she
> outsources the printing. Simply impossible. If you look at the people
> making real income at these shows, you'll see that they are
> craftspeople making stuff out of nothing.
--
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