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Which photography sells best?

cmo

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Just a question for all those who really sell prints:

I guess that sociocritical reportages about kitchen assistants in Tadzhikistan are less popular and decorative than other motifs... but which are the others?

What kind of photography sells best? Landscapes, Nude, Street, local attractions... ?
 
Stock.
Of any kind that businesses can use.
 
This is my best selling stock photograph. It has out sold all my other photographs combined. I find it interesting because it is hardly an original concept. I'm sure if it had a guy standing in the road with a briefcase, it would have sold even more.

The big sales? The bill payers? The photographs that don't exist yet, that clients pay me to make. Thats where the money is in my neck of the woods. Stock is just a place to put what ya got. After a while it adds up, but it takes a long time before it is an oil well.

Prints? Expressive back and white? It's been a tough row to hoe. Nudes sell the easiest, then its a toss up on the rest. None of it really pays for me, it's more a labour of love, but then again I'm not producing allot right now.
 

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Porn!
 
Beat me to it
 
Fat babies curled up in flowers.

Lindsay Lohan doing anything with smudgy makeup.
 
David William White said:
Fluffy white kittens in a shoe box. But then you have to kill yourself.
Click to expand...

That won't work for me. When I was young the priests said: "everytime you touch yourself, god kills a kitten." None of them survived, I'm afraid...
 
commercial photography
 
On the Colorado art show circuit, color nature rules.
Landscapes/close-ups first, then animals.
It doesn't appear to matter where the shows are held, big city or small town.
Second would be color exotic travel & windows and doors, like Scanlan & Cantillo respectively.
Some hand-colored b&w does ok, but b&w overall doesn't, not sure why.
Creative portraiture, cityscapes and digital manips go pretty much ignored.
This is based on my personal surveys, and feedback from the artists.
Maybe Colorado buyers just aren't sophisticated enough to know real art when they see it...
But I hope it stays that way.
 
Celebrity exclusives

Of course, you didn't say if you're measuring volume or profit
 
I was in a Michael's store a few weeks ago, and saw a couple of Bill Schwab's photographs for sale as largish reproduction prints. The deal was to buy the print, and the framing was offered at a discount. So, there were B&W repros for sale in a chain store at a very modest price. I've no idea how much Bill gets for each poster, but from a thread he started some time ago, it apparently isn't a lot. BUT...sales in volume, of course, may make it worthwhile. The same is true of other stores like Target, that sell monochrome photograph reproductions in frames. Decor magazines seem to feature it quite often (monochrome fine art photographs), so it must be hot with inferior decorators at the moment. So...sell your stuff to a chain store; accept a pittance per print, and hope they'll sell a helluvalotta them.
 
inferior decorators at the moment. So...sell your stuff to a chain store; accept a pittance per print, and hope they'll sell a helluvalotta them.



"inferior decorators"- accident or not, i like that!
 
I saw what I thought were a couple of Early Riser's photos licensed to Ikea last Thanksgiving at a family gathering. I discreetly took them off the wall to see if there was any attribution, but none that I could see without unframing them, which I couldn't do as discreetly (well, maybe the one in the bathroom, but I didn't want to tie up the facilities).

I know Tom Sauerwein also did decor versions of his work for decorators who furnish model apartments in new building complexes, but he was selling directly to the decorators. The real versions were silver, and the decor versions were inkjets.
 


Although not sociocritical, I did sell such a photo, to my employer
http://www.swedesurvey.se/news/news_2007_q2.html
 
When I was considering going pro in some way I was disappointed to find that the most popular magazine images were more editorial in nature. For instance, a simple shot of people walking a path in park might outsell the beautiful landscape taken in the same park. For people my guess is images that make people feel good in much the same way as Thomas Kinkade, but those typically won’t be the images that get the high prices at the elite galleries. A more important question is what type of image that you can do well, sells best in the market that you the most economical access to. I talked a little about that in a recent blog post:

http://framedestination.blogspot.com/2008/05/understanding-your-photo-market.html

Cheers,
Mark
 
My mother in law swears sheep and hanging laundry is what people want. I do OK with foggy cityscapes for individual sales.
 
I have sold 4 prints this year... all black and white

1. Old gas pump against even older river rock wall of building (8x10 contact)
2. Old advertisement painted on brick alley wall (8x10 contact)
3. White Iris flower on black background (16x16)
4. Weathered, old American flag hung on old greenhouse (8x10 enlargement)

All sold to women (one bought #3, and another bought #1, #2, #4).

It has been my best year ever! Actually the first year I have actively tried to sell prints, after doing this for 27 years.
 
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