HELP: pricing my photo art
PLEXCO
>but mounted 11x14 inch print (mounted to 16x20 museum board). i am
>more than willing to offer a print longevity guarantee to ensure that
>the customer is satisfied.
I sell my 11x14 signed but not numbered, dated or otherwise limited
edition prints, mounted with overmat, for about $450 each. It depends
whether or not you consider it a commodity or a limited production
artwork.
Generally, prints are not price sensitive in that way -- i.e. people who
won't pay more than $20-40 really are poster buyers, not print buyers. A
real print buyer is not going to flinch at prices starting at around
$500.00. Of course, most people have friends with low budgets, who think
of the print as just a nice version of something they might otherwise buy
at Target, with a frame included... [g]
CONGREVE
long time I've suspected that someone with a business school background
who understands such things (which I don't) would recommend going for
lower price and higher volume. Personally I feel a bit silly when I get
everything just right on a print, then spend one hour zipping out twenty
of them in the darkroom, and end up selling maybe one print for maybe $300
and storing nineteen. I have a hunch that maybe I could sell all twenty
at $30 each at make more money and "do more good for art." The technique
of selling twenty at $30 each would require a change on the part of
galleries. They'd have to be willing to hang a "sample" and indicate that
a print is available for $30----pretty much the way posters are sold. But
the fact that it is an "original" should make it attractive, and it
certainly is a smaller "edition" than a poster, which has to go at least
into the hundreds to justify the cost.
Anybody else feel this way? Anybody tried it?
Alan Heldman
cong...@aol.com
Ted W. Simon
writes:
>and storing nineteen. I have a hunch that maybe I could sell all twenty
>at $30 each at make more money and "do more good for art." The technique
>of selling twenty at $30 each would require a change on the part of
>galleries. They'd have to be willing to hang a "sample" and indicate
that
Alan, you have more patience than I. I make limited editions, signed and
numbered, of no more than 100 prints each. Usually 50. I want to keep
seeing new images.
*************
Ted W. Simon
simo...@mindspring.com
Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.
- William S. Burroughs
- Cities of the Red Night
Thomas C. Waters
cong...@aol.com (CONGREVE) writes:
> I think this is a really interesting subject, not often discussed.
I agree!!!! The replies have been most interesting with prices all
over the place from $30- $500.
<snip>
> Personally I feel a bit silly when I get
> everything just right on a print, then spend one hour zipping out twenty
> of them in the darkroom, and end up selling maybe one print for maybe $300
> and storing nineteen.
I gave up printing multiples like this a while ago. I don't number my
prints or print a limited edition either. Maybe if I were more
famous.. I'd do limited printings, but for now, that doesn't seem as
important. Numbering never did make sense to me. The practice is a
hold over from printmaking where the block is degraded with each print.
This doesn't happen with a photo neg. Degradation is the result from
poor handling, not the number of prints pulled.
Now, I tend to make 2 or 3 prints of a neg when I print. If all those
sell and I need to make more, I find the prints change; I print a
little lighter, or flatter, or darker... reflecting how I am and how
I've changed. I always print for what I think THE PRINT calls for.
IMHO, the print is the "object", the "art" and therefore, it is most
important. If it changes a little from one printing to another, it
makes each pint a little more like a one-of-a-kind.
>I have a hunch that maybe I could sell all twenty
> at $30 each at make more money and "do more good for art."
This may be true. This assumes the IMAGE to be the most important
thing, as opposed to the PRINT being the most important thing. I tend
to think there is some trade-off amount where you are selling for a
reasonable PRINT price, but sell more than 1. For me, that is usually
somewhere between $100 and $150, but this might differ per geographical
region, as well as from a number of other factors.
>The technique
> of selling twenty at $30 each would require a change on the part of
> galleries. They'd have to be willing to hang a "sample" and indicate that
> a print is available for $30----pretty much the way posters are sold. But
> the fact that it is an "original" should make it attractive, and it
> certainly is a smaller "edition" than a poster, which has to go at least
> into the hundreds to justify the cost.
I had two posters made of two of my more "popular" images. The posters
barely sell even though they are well done lithos on a good paper. I
doubt that most buyers in that price range really care if it is an
original or a reproduction. An "original" is a misnomer anyway since a
photograph is just one different type of print.
I agree however, that sales could be improved if galleries changed
their thinking towards photos however. I think galleries make their
$$$$ best by large $$$ amount sales. It takes a lot less work to make
50% of a $500 sale than to make 50% off of 10 $50 sales!!!!
--
Thomas C. Waters
twa...@pitt.edu
I always assume someone is gay unless they tell me otherwise.
"When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb,
good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of
hatred,
good men must commit themselves to the glories of love."
Martin Luther King Jr.
******************************************************************
PLEXCO
I think this is a really interesting subject, not often discussed. For a
long time I've suspected that someone with a business school background
who understands such things (which I don't) would recommend going for
everything just right on a print, then spend one hour zipping out twenty
of them in the darkroom, and end up selling maybe one print for maybe $300
and storing nineteen.
Ah yes, but if you sign and number the nineteen and make no more they
will, in the long run, be worth more. The main thing is that prints are
prints and posters are posters. People should price prints accordingly,
and figure out a way to make massmarket reproductions for the K-Mart
shoppers...
[======================= Begin Quote ========================]
I have a hunch that maybe I could sell all twenty
at $30 each at make more money and "do more good for art." The technique
of selling twenty at $30 each would require a change on the part of
galleries. They'd have to be willing to hang a "sample" and indicate that
a print is available for $30----pretty much the way posters are sold. But
the fact that it is an "original" should make it attractive, and it
certainly is a smaller "edition" than a poster, which has to go at least
into the hundreds to justify the cost.
[======================== End Quote =========================]
Fred Picker has what he calls Fred's Print Club, where you agree to buy at
least two prints a year from him at $100.00 ea. He selects the print, you
don't, and he makes up however many prints as there are people on the club
list and sends the prints out with invoices. The main difference between
this and selling limited prints is that the print club prints are of
course neither mounted, signed nor numbered. But still, assuming you like
Fred's work, which many do, it's a cheap way to regularly get fine prints
from a good photographer...
John Sparks
>In article <48p5k0$b...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>
>ple...@aol.com (PLEXCO) writes:
>> Ah yes, but if you sign and number the nineteen and make no more they
>> will, in the long run, be worth more.
>Only is sometime in the future, either before or after your death, your
>work is considered important and collectable. There are many many
>photographers who die and whose work is just forgotten. And those 19
>prints aren't worth anything.
Howard Bond sells his prints in numbered limited editions. He told me
that he trys to set the edition size so that he doesn't expect it to
ever sell out (though some do because he underestimates the market for
them). His prices increase as the number of prints left in the edition
goes down (I can't rememember the exact formula). Without the price
increase, the limited edition only benifits the purchaser of the print
(the smaller the edition, the more valuable the print becomes if the
photographer makes a name for himself and can't make any more of those
prints).
I personally don't like the idea of limited editions from a photographic
negative. The number of prints that can be made from one negative is
only limited by the patience of the printer and doesn't necessarily
reflect the value of the print. Ansel Adam's Moonrise was printed more
than any other of his negatives, but I expect that it's still the most
valuable because it's the most popular.
John Sparks
Thomas C. Waters
> Ah yes, but if you sign and number the nineteen and make no more they
> will, in the long run, be worth more.
Only is sometime in the future, either before or after your death, your
work is considered important and collectable. There are many many
photographers who die and whose work is just forgotten. And those 19
prints aren't worth anything.
<BTW, I never meant such a value judgement on the orig poster work,
having never seen his photos, I was speaking in a general sense...>
j.tung
> Fred Picker has what he calls Fred's Print Club, where you agree to buy at
> least two prints a year from him at $100.00 ea. He selects the print, you
> don't, and he makes up however many prints as there are people on the club
> list and sends the prints out with invoices. The main difference between
> this and selling limited prints is that the print club prints are of
> course neither mounted, signed nor numbered. But still, assuming you like
> Fred's work, which many do, it's a cheap way to regularly get fine prints
> from a good photographer...
WOW! Fred's certainly got a talent for salesmanship, if nothing else.
Let me get this straight: a mail-order club where you don't have a
choice in the product that you purchase and a minimum $200/year
"membership" cost. Or do you mean that he sends you the print, and you
have a right of refusal (as long as you meet the yearly minimum
purchase or presumably forfeit some money or your "membership") -- that
invoice part implies that a sale has been completed, at least to me.
Does the lack of signature or initialing (?) mean anything? Would this
allow him to "instruct" an "assistant" on how he wants a negative
printed without obligating him to actually do the printing himself?
[I'm not critisizing this practice, I was just curious about what a
signed print v. unsigned print represented besides a potential
difference in value.]
I suppose if I really liked his stuff or thought it would appreciate
(what are unauthenticated prints worth anyway?) in value, $100 is a
relatively good deal (assuming I had that sort of disposable income
which couldn't be better spent on other photographic pursuits).
jt
No opinions that my employer would acknowledge.
David Fingerhut
I have a hunch that maybe I could sell all twenty
>at $30 each at make more money and "do more good for art." The technique
>of selling twenty at $30 each would require a change on the part of
>galleries. They'd have to be willing to hang a "sample" and indicate that
>a print is available for $30----pretty much the way posters are sold. But
>the fact that it is an "original" should make it attractive, and it
>certainly is a smaller "edition" than a poster, which has to go at least
>into the hundreds to justify the cost.
>
I've been selling prints for about 8 years. I guess from what you
describe, I go for the low price/high volume. My prices go from $15 for
a matted but unframed 5x7 to about $200 for a framed $16x24. Any
commission I have to pay is tacked onto the price. I charge about triple
my own cost.
It's mostly because of who I compete against. My competition is not only
other photographers but painters. I think it would be rediculous for me
to charge as much as an original oil painting that some spent 8 hours
painting, when all I have to do is call up my lab and order 10 more
prints. Yes, I know I spent time taking the original photo, and I have
to get something for the "artistry". I'm also competing against other
photographers. When I sell at art shows I see customers going back and
forth between my photos and another photographer's trying to decide. And
price is going to be a big part of the decision most, but not all of the
time.
At a gallery I raise my prices. Not only because the galleries here get
40% but because I think people who go in a gallery will pay more.
There's
another reason which is because at an art show when a photo sells, I just
pull out another one and hang it up. At a gallery show, sometimes they
just put a SOLD sticker on it. In that case I want to get more money
since I might not have an opportunity to immediately replace it with
another one.
It took me a couple years to settle on prices and start making a good
profit at it. (Once I was able to separate the photos I like from the
ones that sell.)
Dave
Marcus J. Ranum
> list and sends the prints out with invoices. The main difference between
> this and selling limited prints is that the print club prints are of
> course neither mounted, signed nor numbered. But still, assuming you like
> Fred's work, which many do, it's a cheap way to regularly get fine prints
> from a good photographer...
Hmmm -- talk about reducing the photographer to a poster-maker.
Regardless of the value implications of the print's being not
signed or numbered, the signature is a gesture of the artist's pride in
the significance of their work and effort. Selling an unsigned print is
like selling a scratch, working print. It's valueless - it has to be. If
it had any value to the artist, they would sign it as theirs and take
credit for their work.
Perhaps Fred has come up with a clever way of offloading his
work prints and scratch prints.
Say, I have some original, unsigned, Ansel Adams test-strips
I'll sell you. :)
mjr.
Lynn Walton
>
>Fred Picker has what he calls Fred's Print Club, where you agree to buy at
>least two prints a year from him at $100.00 ea. He selects the print, you
>don't, and he makes up however many prints as there are people on the club
>this and selling limited prints is that the print club prints are of
>course neither mounted, signed nor numbered. But still, assuming you like
>Fred's work, which many do, it's a cheap way to regularly get fine prints
>from a good photographer...
>
>
>ple...@aol.com
Fred's Print Club prints ARE mounted AND signed on the back of
the board. At least they were in '92 & '93 when I got my two.
It is a little strange buying prints I didn't choose but
knowing they are his favorites makes it nice and I have grown
to like them both.
CONGREVE
a limited edition at all. What I meant was that it might take five hours
to figure out how to make a good print from a certain neg, at which point
you can crank out twenty (or whatever number) in a very SHORT amount of
time. My point was that if we AIM to sell all twenty (or twelve, or
forty) I suspect that the price curve, or whatever a B-School type would
call it, would suggest that we price much lower. As it is those of us who
aren't famous and at the top of the success heap are lucky to sell one or
two (most often one, frankly, for me) print of an image, at a few hundred
dollars. I just think we ought to consider pricing cheap enough that we
sell out "the edition," without in any way calling it an edition, or even
numbering the prints. After all, John Grisham doesn't price the first ten
copies of his next novel at a price which would recompene him for the year
it took him to write it. He prices it for what people will pay for a good
schlock novel, and hopes to sell a zillion of them, printing more and
more, as inventory drops. Granted we're not QUITE in an analogous
situation, but if I'm not mistaken Rembrandt, while he was getting huge
fees for commissioned oil portraits and such, was doing etching plates and
cranking out large numbered of unlimited, mostly unsigned, and always
unnumbered "prints" which ordinary middle class people could afford to buy
on a whim. And it's my impression that his print business brought in the
groceries.
If you walk through any mall this time of year you'll see these horrible
little shops which sell frames with awful cheap poster prints in them, and
I can't believe they (and their customers) wouldn't be interested in
having a "genuine, signed, original" black and white (or even C print or
R print) photograph if was priced only (say) thirty or fifty bucks more
than the "repro," which is not as good quality as what you can tear out of
a magazine.
My hunch is that "we" have a sort of snobby pride that Rembrandt didn't.
On the other hand he did die in bankruptcy, but he had some good years.
What the hell.
Alan Heldman
cong...@aol.com
PLEXCO
Only is sometime in the future, either before or after your death, your
work is considered important and collectable. There are many many
photographers who die and whose work is just forgotten. And those 19
prints aren't worth anything.
Well, that's the definition of art, after all: the evidence of a
particluar life. Better to make just enough proof, rather than not enough
or too much... [g]
Graham Byrnes
[...snip.....]
>more, as inventory drops. Granted we're not QUITE in an analogous
>situation, but if I'm not mistaken Rembrandt, while he was getting huge
>fees for commissioned oil portraits and such, was doing etching plates and
>cranking out large numbered of unlimited, mostly unsigned, and always
>unnumbered "prints" which ordinary middle class people could afford to buy
>on a whim. And it's my impression that his print business brought in the
>groceries.
May I put a different slant on this: is it reasonable to price prints according
to what our friends can afford to pay?
I should say that I'm not an exhibiting photographer, so discount my opinion
appropriately. However, when I take a "good" photo, there are people I want to
see it, so I give them a copy. Now I can see that if my friends weren't
impoverished students (mostly), it would be reasonable for them to buy some of
those prints, if they like them. Unfortunately, I know very few people who
would/could pay US$300 for a print by *anyone*. In fact, those who could tend
to have less interest and art and fail on the "would". Has art got up itself
by selling only to the upper class?
Just a provocative thought for the day :-)
Graham
PLEXCO
Fred's Print Club prints ARE mounted AND signed on the back of
the board. At least they were in '92 & '93 when I got my two.
It is a little strange buying prints I didn't choose but
knowing they are his favorites makes it nice and I have grown
to like them both.
We stand corrcted...
Gregory Pease
A few quick thoughts before I scoot off to a meeting...
At the advice of a friend, a well established business consultant (who
isn't?) I began raising my prices a couple of years ago. I find that I
now sell far more work at *nearly* triple the price (and my work wasn't
inexpensive before).
You have to consider all the "marketing" forces. A higher price may
result in a higher perceived value, making the customer believe that it
is worth more. A steady increase in price implies that the value is
increasing, and if they don't get it now, they might not be able to
afford it.
Personally, I abhor the $15 art-fair print sellers, as they cheapen the
public's impression of the art. Generally, these folks order second rate
colour prints from cheap labs, throw them into pre-cut mats, and call
themselves photographers. (My soap box is getting warm here...)
Considering the amount of time I spend 1) planning my shoot, 2)
developing film, 3) editing stacks of negatives, 4) printing, 5)
organising an exhibit, plus all the other ancilary activities which are
part of making photographs, I wouldn't insult our craft by "downselling."
When I print for other people, I can charge $30 for a print. But, when
I exhibit my own work, there is so much more involved in the process that
$30 would likely itemise out to about $1/hour.
I don't sell hundreds of prints. I'd rather sell one for $300 than 10
for $30. If someone *really* loves one of my prints, and can't afford
my price, I'd sooner give it to them (and often do) than sell it for a
bargain basement price. This way, they still feel that they have
something of value.
Further, it is in the interest of everyone who has bought my work that I
keep the prices either stable or increasing. There are two things to
consider in this topic; art and business. The art is done for the sake
of the art, period. The business is just like the stock market; there's
n intrinsic value and the illusory value. The intrinsic value of a
piece of paper with silver on it is quite low. The illusory value is
the thing we manage by setting our prices where we do.
Damn...the alarm is going off, and I have to run...
--
| Gregory Pease | "...for such things are of the spirit, and it is
| "ShadowMancer" | in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost"
| g...@netcom.com | -Black Elk
| 510/234-2830 |
William Tyler
of psychological effect. Putting a low price on your prints can cause
people to treat them as if they are objects of low value. And that
might even decrease sales.
Bill
--
Bill Tyler wty...@adobe.com Adobe is not responsible for my opinions.
PLEXCO
One factor that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is a peculiar sort
of psychological effect. Putting a low price on your prints can cause
people to treat them as if they are objects of low value. And that
might even decrease sales.
Absolutely correct. It is better and, with a little confidence and
experience, easier to sell one $500 print than to sell ten $50 prints (or
gawd help you, twnety five $20 prints). You are not going to sell many
prints anyway, so why make a lot of them and waste time with a lot of
little sales. Take the Rolex approach, not the Timex approach.
PLEXCO
I don't sell hundreds of prints. I'd rather sell one for $300 than 10
for $30. If someone *really* loves one of my prints, and can't afford
my price, I'd sooner give it to them (and often do) than sell it for a
bargain basement price. This way, they still feel that they have
something of value.
Further, it is in the interest of everyone who has bought my work that I
keep the prices either stable or increasing. There are two things to
consider in this topic; art and business. The art is done for the sake
of the art, period. The business is just like the stock market; there's
n intrinsic value and the illusory value. The intrinsic value of a
piece of paper with silver on it is quite low. The illusory value is
the thing we manage by setting our prices where we do.
[======================== End Quote =========================]
This is the real point. And, there all kinds of limited. There is limited
as in the plate wore out, there is limited as in he didn't feel like
making more than twenty of them, there is limited as in he died and can't
make any anymore, and the is limited as in this is one of the ones he
sold, but this is one of the ones he gave to a freind, and now that's a
really rare one. Personal inscription too... [g]
The point is, as I have said and the quoted poster here has said also,when
it comes to handmade "art" it is in the long run easier to sell one of
something at $500 than twenty of the same thing for $20.