Fine Art Photography: Advice on Selling

L31mr0d

I moved to Canada a few years ago and started taking photographs as a way to document my trips into the mountains. My motivations have changed recently and I guess I'd consider myself more of an amateur fine art photographer.

I wrote about this here:
http://pebbleshoo.com/great-photos-arent-taken-theyre-made/

The David Alan Harvey quote I mentioned in that post pretty much sums up my drive: "Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like"

I started up a facebook page to start documenting my trips and hopefully inspire others to get out into the mountains also. A side effect of this has been that people have started emailing me looking for information on were to get prints of my images.

Some of my b&w shots: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.341240662664222.1073741828.287607764694179

How should I go about this?

Personally, rather than going the quantity route and just making a load of prints I was wondering if it would be better to just make one large print on canvas and display it for sale somewhere. I was thinking a local coffee shop or library.

Does anyone have any advice?

Prodigious

I have no idea, but I must say, your photography is absolutely beautiful. Good job.

dinneenp

loads of options (obviously)
create a website, post photos to stock photography sites etc.

Print Acrylic, canvas or whichever you want and approach cafes, etc.

Borderfox

You can go with someone like www.zenfolio.com and specify high end finishing in all mediums and they handle all the printing for you

Sgt Pepper 64

Great, great photos.
I would say set up a web site and look at other pros web sites for a start.
Read some of the professional mags for advice

challengemaster

Rather appropriate timing...

Creative live have a course on atm about fine art stuff, and the business side of things. AFAIK it's the final day re-broadcast at the minute though

http://www.creativelive.com/live1

L31mr0d

What approaches have people tried and which would you say worked the best and which required a lot of time for little reward?

I've looked into stock image sites and zenfolio but like I said I'm not sure I want to go the quantity route at the moment.

@challengemaster: Thank you for that link. I love Brooke Shaden, she has some really good advice.

LumpyGravy

Sorry don't have any advice but that's a beautiful photo you posted.

stcstc

if your not fussed on selling lots, you would be much better offering very high quality prints, framed etc

have a look at what enda cavanagh does. his stuff is very high quality prints, high quality frames etc

they are not cheap, but look stuffing and sell well

but to sell well need to invest a decent amount of time in marketing properly

the other thing about making only a few images, printed and framed well is they become kinda exclusive, people will pay for that

magicbastarder

have you tried to determine what sort of size and quality the people asking would like?
if you're getting requests from friends, beware of the reliability of this information as to the general interest, as ultimately you don't want to be selling to just friends.
plus, there is a disconnect between people liking an image on a screen and wanting to hang it on a wall. would be good to examine what you have available online, and what has had interest shown in it - to see if there's a common thread you can exploit.

stcstc

oh yes deff, thats part of the proper marketing effort i ment :-)

magicbastarder

we should ask the boards admins to have a addition to the like button, with a drop down list of prices you'd be willing to pay for a 12"x8" print of the same photo. market research built into the forum...

stcstc

not a chance, considering how much moaning there is from people when i suggest i can help them with project framing etc lol

Kenny Logins

magicbastarder wrote: »

we should ask the boards admins to have a addition to the like button, with a drop down list of prices you'd be willing to pay for a 12"x8" print of the same photo. market research built into the forum...

Will it go up to €1,000,000? I've seen a few photos I would be willing to pay €1m for.

I don't have that kind of money, and I'm not shopping for prints right now, but this is just the internet, right?

L31mr0d

stcstc wrote: »

the other thing about making only a few images, printed and framed well is they become kinda exclusive, people will pay for that

I'd prefer to go this route. As I said, it's kind of serendipity. I don't shoot with the intent to sell, but if someone wishes to buy something I've shot then I want to make that option available to them.

I don't think I'll ever get into stock image sites as it's more of a push industry. You need to be actively shooting what sells.

I'd prefer to go the exclusivity route. In the world of digital photography how does a photographer guarantee this to the consumer? I mean, if I wanted to sell 1 print only of an image at a premium and guarantee them that I'll never sell it again how do I go about ensuring this?

magicbastarder wrote: »

if you're getting requests from friends, beware of the reliability of this information as to the general interest, as ultimately you don't want to be selling to just friends.

I tend to ignore flattery from friends and family. The interest has come from complete strangers who've found my facebook page and liked the images.

magicbastarder wrote: »

would be good to examine what you have available online, and what has had interest shown in it - to see if there's a common thread you can exploit.

On the West Coast of Canada, and broadly the PNW of N.America, lacking in rich architecture, people see their local mountains as their Cathedrals and Castles. Art based around them seems to be prolific and sell well.

I was wondering if anyone had any personal experience with dealing with bricks and mortar locations to display their work like informal cafes or formal galleries and any lessons they learnt?