SeamusARyan said:
As I dont currently sell much via my website here is a question for Bill, Brook and any others that offer work for sale exclusively via their websites, do you know how you market is divided up into those who buy your work because they love photography but don't take pictures beyond holiday snaps and those who buy it because they are fellow photographers and have come across your wonderful work via forums and websites like APUG where you hang out?
I myself do not sell exclusively via my website. I do make special offers through the web, including an annual Web Series print and a small platinum print I now offer each month, but these are only a tiny fraction of the bigger picture. This would include sales to other photographers as you say. While I love the support I recieve from APUGgers and shooters I have met online, it is not any way to make a living. In fact to those I sometimes give work away because I KNOW they love it and I am honored to have my work with those that want it because of that fact and not simply as investment. Those from APUG that order books... a poster, etc. many times in the past have ended up with a little platinum or small work print in their package as well. (Sorry to those I didn't know were fellow APES that may have been left out)
However, except for the rare case, all of my editioned silver work sells through the dealers and galleries that represent me. Much of it at the "fairs" such as Photo London / LA / SF and the big kahuna, AIPAD's Photography Show in NY each year. There is not much sense in my competing with my own reps and in those cases I do not know who the people are that are buying unless I am reported this info on my sales statements. On the occasion I have had the chance to meet them, I have found they come from all angles. There are those that love photography and the print they are getting, and there are those simply playing the contemporary crap-shoot and buying into the investment potential.
SeamusARyan said:
...many of the curators there said that they expect there to be a back lash against collecting digtial work in the coming years, so I should continue doing silver gelatin prints, which I do alongside my digital.
I was speaking with Sandy Phillips from the SF Museum just the other day who, in effect, said the same thing. In fact it seems it has already begun in some way as I said in my previous post. Brandt, as you stated, has been one of the more successful with the digital prints but consider, like Balog's endangered series, much of this work sells to animal lovers that might in other situations never think of buying a photograph. Many are not your "ordinary" photography collector.
Also I, for awhile, was offering open editioned, oversized carbon pigment inkjets through my dealers that were selling like hotcakes 2 years ago... I haven't had one request for them in nearly a year now. Even in my small world, this tells me something.
As for people spending $1,000 and up on photographs at these fairs? You would be surprised. I've had people come up to the booth and buy 15 of my prints at a time as if they were buying record albums or CDs. In one case the woman had a newly designed dining room and needed "some pictures for the walls". She hardly spent 10 minutes looking before surrendering her AmEx card. It never ceases to amaze me and I will always be grateful there are those willing to support what I do by spending time and money on my work.
Bill
PS. BTW... APUG is the only place I "hang-out"... It is really the only place I feel comfortable.
