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What do Galleries prefer hand made or

You know tonight I was going through my negatives and just looking through them thinking about where I am at now in this craft and what is important to me and asking myself why am I doing this. Along the line somewhere it became real evident that even though I can't really nail it down to any one purpose I am without a doubt strongly appreciating my work so much more now that I am shooting film again. It just looks better. It feels better when i make a print and it feels like it has more worth. So much so that when I look at the last few years of digital I feel like deleting all of the files. I don't want anyone to see them right now I don't want to see them. They are good but somehow they are lacking and I can't even really say why. Crazy talk right ?
 

sorry terry
i didn't mean to misinterpret what you said ..
all the best
 
Reading this thread make me wonder...what if? What if analogue photography had never been? What if photography had its beginnings as a digital medium? Or...what if - in an otherwise digital age...digital photography had not (at least not yet?) been invented? The more I ponder these two "what ifs," the more impossible either one seems!
 

I'm not so radical with my approach. I do take digital pictures, view them on the screen and print them by inkjet printer. Why write the message on the paper if message could be digitally send?
But! Photography which I personally would go to see in the Gallery has to be analog BW prints, preferably on fiber paper. Because if photo is in the Gallery, it is different message to me. It is artist message. Those who prints by ink printers are less, to me. They are just like me. Or should I say it is less photographers with digital cameras whom I would consider as artists. If not only few.
 
I currently have an exhibition in a gallery ending May 7th. There are thirty-eight images. Most are silver-gelatin on fiber paper, an almost equal number are digital on cotton fiber paper and a few are platinum/palladium contact prints. My observation is that the medium matters very little to the viewers. It is the image itself that is of interest even to some excellent photographers who I spoke with at the opening reception. Most galleries are interested in sales and while some prefer a particular genre to me when properly printed with the best materials an image can stand on its own merits.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/
 
Well stated, and comports with my experience as a viewer of exhibitions.
 
I talk to a number of gallerists, museum curators, marketing consultants etc. during portfolio reviews. These people are from top of the fields..

Not a single one would care whether it's silver gelatin or inkjet. Museums do care that you keep notes of the paper and inks and printer used, so proper care can be applied.
 
Clyde Butcher charges more for his silver gelatins than inkjets. Is that just him or is that standard?
https://clydebutcher.com/pc/photographs/silver-gelatin-collection/
 
Alan Edward Klein said:
Clyde Butcher charges more for his silver gelatins than inkjets. Is that just him or is that standard?
https://clydebutcher.com/pc/photographs/silver-gelatin-collection/
Click to expand...

I was at an exhibition last year of prints by Jesse Alexander, a famous motorsports photographer. The photographs were mostly made in the '50s and '60s so obviously shot on film. I was really looking forward to seeing the silver prints so I was very disappointed to find that all of the prints on display were inkjets. The prints were for sale and mostly priced in the $5K range. I was speaking with the gallery director about inkjets vs. silver prints and she said "Oh, these would be priced MUCH higher if they were silver prints". So I don't know if this is common thinking amongst gallerists, but the relatively high value placed on silver prints is clearly shared by some.
 
SIlver prints take a lot more time. The whole chemical thing. Dodging and burning. Spotting. With a digital, once you finished the Photoshop stuff, you just pump out the prints, one after the other. A monkey can do that job. When I visited CLyde Butcher's Venice FLorida gallery, I went around and saw their processes. There were people spotting the huge silver prints while I was there. Then I went in to the room where they run off their digital prints. Attached to the printer was a note that gave some settings to be made and signed Clyde.
 
I would imagine that the 'hand made' factor will vary by artist, with some commanding [or simply demanding] a wider gap between their darkroom prints and computer controlled prints.

To me the 'real fun' with the whole mess starts when you manage to muddy the waters. Digitally 'printing' onto traditional paper, or even just making really good use of advanced masking, opens a rather lovely can of worms.

I helped with the wiring and timing of some lights so a friend could have a contact print machine in his studio on the cheap. Load a roll of photo paper in one end, turn a crank till a light came on, press on a foot pedal till the light went off, turn the crank again... Develop the whole roll of paper in one go, and cut the finished 'totally and painstakingly hand made' prints from the roll. Could totally train a monkey to do most of the labour involved.
 
After reading the thread, I'm starting to believe the original premise is completely wrong. Taking the question Do galleries prefer hand made or ...? is really asking will photographers make more money selling digital prints vs. darkroom prints? To this reformulated question, I would say it is becoming an irrelevant question.

The rules have changed to the point where if you hustle, have talent, then galleries (middleman) are to be avoided. I will you use a Youtube photographer as an example. His name is Thomas Heaton and he is a landscape photographer. He runs a multi-enterprise business. Youtube payment (with nearly 500k subscribers to his channel and his number views) he makes real money at it. Then he sells calendars and prints of his photographs. Running quick numbers: if 0.5% of his subscribers buy his calendar and Heaton nets 1/2 of the cost of each calendar (24 pound) then he earns about 22,000 pounds annually. Throw in price of the prints he sells (no idea how many), but he prints them himself so I bet he keeps a high % of his selling price. Then he leads landscape photog classes worldwide, organized workshops. Product endorsements, and on and on. I believe this is how money is made for an independent photographer in the modern world.

In the youtube world there are people who clearly make real money as photographers, albeit in non-traditional ways. See Tony Northrup, Matt Granger, as other examples. One of my favorite artists on youtube is Borut Peterlin. His work is fantastic. If he is the only name you look up from this post, make it his. Also, he the most entertaining personality out there.

Making a living as a photographer through galleries must be near impossible. Marketing outside the galleries really has to be the only way to make a living as an independent fine art photographer these days. Ok, I'm sure some photogs do, but a different world has emerged. Or I might be completely wrong.
 
The only people that really appreciate a well made darkroom print are other darkroom types. The general public and almost all galleries are just interested in a "name" and what will sell. Not counting good commercial photographers, the photographers that get a "name" are the ones that are great at marketing their work. They put as much effort into marketing as they do into their photography. That's not to say that they don't produce great work but their great work doesn't sell itself, it has to get out there, into galleries, into print so that they get a name. I really admire the commercial photographers that build up a client base over many years, they have the technical chops and the people skills and if they do it right they earn a good living but it is hard work. Taking photos is actually only one aspect of making it as a commercial photographer. To make it as a "fine art" photographer takes even more work.
 
markbau said:
The general public and almost all galleries are just interested in a "name" and what will sell.
Click to expand...

Sometimes people buy a photo just because they like the photo, even if it's not by a "name". Many smaller galleries even select their artists that way, as long as they have clientele that isn't hung up on a "name".
 
Peter Schrager said:
Galleries care about what sellS and pays the rent. . If you got the mojo it can go on the walls
Either digital or analog...besides lots of people do hybrid
Click to expand...
Exactly. Galleries are all about money. They (should) know their clientele and will likely prefer whichever sells quickest. Typically, they prefer well known artists to unknown ones. They also usually have a price point that needs to match other works for sell in their gallery. So if a silver gelatin print by a photographer sells for $5k and an inkjet print of the same image sells for $400, and most of their works are in the $300-800 range, they're probably going to want the inkjet.

It's a business to them. They'll take whatever makes them the most profit in the least amount of time.
 
There's a tremendous amount of cynicism and ignorance on this thread.

There are all sorts of galleries.

Some are owned by artist co-ops and exist to share and market the work of members. Some are owned by philanthropists who have purely generous motivations or are interested in tax-related issues. Some show the usual tourist stuff, knowing tourists want prints of favorite sites. Some are into erotic images of various kinds. Some want to sell stuff and price accordingly, others are generously and seriously into elevating the their visitors. Etc.
 
Good point! For those that want to play the gallery game, there certainly are a lot of types/genres to keep abreast of.
 
Yes jtk, you find galleries of all kind and gallery operators of all kind of motifs.
 
 
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A similar topic came up a few years ago. The research showed most of the highest prices paid for a single photograph were digital images. This was due in part because the originator was marketed as an "artist", not a photographer. For example Cindy Sherman works in photography exclusively (AFAIK) but is perceived and sold as a fine artist. Another influence on price is print size, which is easier to produce digitally than on film. A corporation or merchant bank wishing to fill an HQ stairwell with something bright and boost their pension fund, will find uncontroversial digital print acreage easier to acquire.
 
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