Monday, January 29, 2007

Thinking before shooting

I have not been posting much of late. That is primarily because I have not found much I considered post worthy and have found very few subjects I was interested in photographing. At this point I have Spring fever and am ready for the weather to change get warmer, the plants and animals to come alive again so I can get back in the field.

I have spent the last few months making photography purchases though to enhance what I have already captured. Tri-pods, back drops, lens attachments, lights, etc. I have a few more purchases to make then I'll probably close the wallet until I decide to buy a dSLR camera.

I am also spending this time giving serious thought to selling some of my photos. I've done alot of reading on the subject of late and have fleshed out most of the challenges I will face. Still working out some of those, some, can't be overcome, they just need to be faced. Some examples of these challenges I will be looking to overcome or merely face are as follows:
  1. Which pictures do I put in my portfolio to sell? I figure I'll get some help on this.
  2. Are the compliments I'm getting just people being nice? Only one way to find out although a few of the people I know wouldn't blow sunshine up my ass.
  3. How much is a photo worth? (Printed, matted, and/or framed?)
  4. What subject matter should I focus on, or should I continue to keep it ecclectic as I have to date?
  5. Where/how to sell them?

Those are the primary questions I am facing at this time. There are more obvious, business related ones as well, but if I can't get through the above it is kind of moot. I have sold one print at cost to a co-worker for her office, and one or two more said they would like to purchase a print, so we shall see. Most likely I will do those at a discount just so I have additional samples around the office for some exposure.

Well I'm off to daydream about nicer weather.

3 comments:

Cagey (Kelli Oliver George) said...

I would definitely look around some local coffee shops, local arts/boutique stores and such that sell photos and/or art from local people. That will help give you an idea of what is selling and for how much. For example, Lee's Summit has a neat downtown chock full of such stores, although I am not sure how many are selling photos - but it would be a good place to start. Weston and Parkville and even Lawrence are more towns that have thriving downtowns with such cool shops.

P.S. I used to sell jewelry using the methods above - I called such places and asked them if they would sell "handcrafted jewelry on consignment from a local artist". You would say "would you sell photographs from a local photographer on consignment". Does that help?

Photobug said...

Thanks Cagey. That is a great idea. I know one of the things I was going to look at was displaying them in framing shops, there's one not far from my house and from my understanding some shops are willing to use art work to display their frames and the photographer/artist gets some free advertising out of it.

Anonymous said...

Good post.