Are your prints in editions, if so why?

[david b]

I know this has been discussed a lot but let's have a fresh talk about it.

I am wondering who does a print edition and why?

If you do, why?
How many prints do you sell in a year?

Is the image limited or is the size, meaning Picture A is made only 20 times in any size or is Picture A made in various sizes, 20 times each?

If you do not edition, why not?
Are varying sizes available, or just one?

thanks

 

[Vaughn]

Yes I do
1) A--Because I don't want to make more than the number of prints in the edition (5 or 10, depending on the process). B--Because it is a good marketing tool if one does not want to make a large number of prints from a negative.
2) Not many
3) One size only (contact prints)

 

[Ian Grant]

Likewise, yes I do sometimes.

1) Because I had people who would buy small editions of 6-12 prints. It's also a great way to show & present images.
2) Not many at present, but up to 100+ prints a year in the past.
3) One size only, a bit less than 10x8, usually 5-10 sets, the odd large print sets to order for Collectors, no restriction on the number of individual prints but would consider limiting the number of editions if I started selling more.

Having said that I haven't put any editions together for around 10 years, and plan to as soon as I have regular darkroom access. This is partly at the request of a Gallery curator.

Ian

 

[WGibsonPhotography]

Maybe when I finish up my darkroom and get to the point where my pictures are good enough to sell

 

[removed account4]

i don't, because i never make more than a few copies of each print.
some prints i made only one copy of, and the negatives were disassembled
or destroyed or changed ( got cold or hot and changed the physical properties of what i printed through ).
i like things that are "singular"
( i do know that no matter how may prints are made from
the same negative, none will ever be the same ... )

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I do, because of most of the reasons previously mentioned. It's good marketing, I'm now mostly a contact printer, so it's a one-size-fits-all deal, and I would get bored out of my mind re-printing an image endlessly. For enlargements, I do offer editions in more than one size, but I limit that as well, for the same reasons.

 

[VaryaV]

No. I originally started off making 10 of each of each size which ended up being in the 100's for a series of work. It impeded so much on the time that I enjoy the most - photographing. I hate the production part and love the shooting process. Time creating is too precious, too valuable for me to get hung up on what is for me dreadfully boring. I have so many ideas and so little time to do the fun stuff, I want to keep moving. It's always a sacrifice one way or the other.

I keep a working copy and one final and send a separate series off for exhibition.....

 

[Ian Grant]

Another option is hand made books, I've made a few over the years and sold some of them as well.

I also produce one off archival exhibition sets, I think I have around 5 or 6 in storage (all have been exhibited), some framed but all matted etc. When I had a large 2 day exhibition 4 years ago at a Canal Boat Festival I made fresh prints even though 80% of the images were already in other exhibition sets purely because I needed a matching set made on the same paper, and sometimes I may print slightly differently to fit a sequence, that's also true with small editions. (While it was only a 2 day show in a large marquee it had more visitors than a city gallery would get in over a month & I sold a few prints).

The exhibition sets are all destined for museum/art gallery collections as many had public funding.

Ian

 

[markbarendt]

If you do, why?

I want to be selling originals not paper and ink.

How many prints do you sell in a year?

Not many. That's the plan; lower volume, higher dollars.

Is the image limited or is the size, meaning Picture A is made only 20 times in any size or is Picture A made in various sizes, 20 times each?

For me it's the image.

Look at it from the buyers POV.

If you were buying a print from me and knew there were only 10 in the world that rarity brings more value. As the number of prints for sale gets smaller, as the galleries sell them off, the price goes up.

If on the other hand, there were 10 16x24's, 250 8x10's, and "only" 1000 postcards and 2 magazines that will be using it... You get the drift I'm sure.

Are varying sizes available, or just one?

Whatever I feel like.

 

[Schlapp]

I do mine in editions of 1.
It is meant to fun and not a production line and I wouldn't want to get caught up in the wheels on consumer capitalism

 

[grahamp]

I date prints I sell. Which is not many - I think my most popular has maybe 10 copies in existence. The time and material investment in producing an edition 'on spec' is not warranted. And I know that I will not want to reproduce a print exactly in a year or so to complete an edition. So my prints are naturally rare. When you add in the limited appeal of most of them ( ) they are *really* rare!

Photography is not my business, of course. It is therapy!

 

[david b]

mark,
so how many prints do you sell?

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I date prints I sell. Which is not many - I think my most popular has maybe 10 copies in existence. The time and material investment in producing an edition 'on spec' is not warranted. And I know that I will not want to reproduce a print exactly in a year or so to complete an edition. So my prints are naturally rare. When you add in the limited appeal of most of them ( ) they are *really* rare!

Photography is not my business, of course. It is therapy!

I think that generally, most photographers print their editions "on demand", as it would be unusual for all but the top-selling photographers to sell their entire edition in a single gallery showing, and most of us don't have the time, money, or space to produce an entire edition at one shot and store it until it sells out. Others chime in and correct me if I'm blowing smoke here.

 

[MikeSeb]

David, apropos our recent correspondence I see....

Following with interest.

 

[Vaughn]

FC...mine are printed "on demand".

Vaughn

 

[removed account4]

one or twenty or fifty or hundreds or thousands of prints from the same negative
is the greatest gift and the greatest flaw of photography.

if fifty duplicates of the man ray's le cadeau ( the gift ) or his lampshade were
made would they still be worth anything? at what point does it just become
a commercial production ??

 

[Ian Leake]

I tend to the opinion that unless an edition is going to sell out within a reasonable time, then to call something a limited edition is simply marketing flim-flam. As such it is disingenuous.

 

[MikeSeb]

I tend to the opinion that unless an edition is going to sell out within a reasonable time, then to call something a limited edition is simply marketing flim-flam. As such it is disingenuous.

I agree completely. As an artifice to gin up a false sense of "uniqueness" or "preciousness" in an inherently populist and reproducible medium, it smacks of photography's nineteenth-century battles against painting over its status as an art form.

But in the real world where art meets commerce, for those of you who have sold through galleries and/or had work purchased by "collectors", has this issue arisen? Do the galleries or buyers ask about it or "insist" on it?

 

[david b]

I thought for sure there would have been more responses but maybe not

 

[eddie]

But in the real world where art meets commerce, for those of you who have sold through galleries and/or had work purchased by "collectors", has this issue arisen? Do the galleries or buyers ask about it or "insist" on it?

I've found that editioning is an issue. I sell my work to corporations, in galleries, and at art festivals. Prior to my newest work, I only numbered the largest size. While I sold unnumbered prints at art festivals, I can only think of one situation where I sold one to a corporation, or through a gallery. If your income is based on your photographs, limited editions are a good marketing tool.

 

[bdial]

Mike's comment pretty much summarizes the argument Brooks Jensen made on this topic one or two issues ago in Lens Work, the PDF is available here; Dead Link Removed.
The notion of a limited edition is borrowed from lithographic print making where the number of copies is limited by the process. This is not true of photography, and hence is meaningless, unless you perhaps destroy the negative after making the last print of your "series".
His recommendation is to number and date each print, and make prints for sale according to demand. Collectors will have a way to know where a given print fits in the hierarchy, and will have the means to assign relative value to a given print.

Last time I checked, you can still by prints of Pepper 30 from Kim Westin. I don't think those prints have affected the value of the ones printed by Edward or Cole one cent.

 

[markbarendt]

mark,
so how many prints do you sell?

Not a lot so far, still early days for me in this part of the business.

I tend to the opinion that unless an edition is going to sell out within a reasonable time, then to call something a limited edition is simply marketing flim-flam. As such it is disingenuous.

I agree, but so what.

Let me ask these questions;

Are we selling a commodity (the paper) or are we selling art (an intangible)?

Are we selling our time at $40/hour plus costs or our artistic vision?

If we are selling art and or our artistic vision, to one degree or another, we all have find a way to hype our work to sell it.

Selling anything for more than the commodity price takes shameless promotion of some, even many, intangibles.

The specific intangible does not matter. Limited editions, name recognition, the wine I buy for the gallery owner to get her/him to spout flowery words about my work.

I agree completely. As an artifice to gin up a false sense of "uniqueness" or "preciousness" in an inherently populist and reproducible medium, it smacks of photography's nineteenth-century battles against painting over its status as an art form.

Yes photography is an inherently populist and limiting editions is an artifice imposed artificially but it is not false if the negative is destroyed.

jnanian has identified the problem specifically.

one or twenty or fifty or hundreds or thousands of prints from the same negative is the greatest gift and the greatest flaw of photography.

So how do we each address this problem and make a buck.

Do you want to sell thousands or 5 or 1.

It is simply a question of how we want to market our work, there is no "right" answer.

Personally, if I wanted to mass produce I'd be using a print button, not an enlarger.

But in the real world where art meets commerce, for those of you who have sold through galleries and/or had work purchased by "collectors", has this issue arisen? Do the galleries or buyers ask about it or "insist" on it?

Actually that's where I found out about it.