Faced with the daunting challenge of your first photography exhibition you will have to make a number of important decisions along the way. From selecting what photos to include through to your guest lists it can be a time consuming journey.
One of the biggest and possibly hardest decisions is how to price your work. If you have had canvases or your photos framed then you will costs to cover and most galleries charge a percentage commission on each sale.
This week’s poll asks how do you price your work ? Exclusive one off prints offer the chance to charge more for the image but locks you out of repeat sales. The results were very informative and I still not really sure which model I would prefer to adopt.
The idea of exclusive one off prints is attractive and I would have assumed viewers would be attracted by the fact they would own a one off piece of work. Exclusive deals would attract a higher price tag but leaves you with a predicament if someone else wants the work at a later date.
Limited Editions lie somewhere in between, a middle ground where exclusivity is retained but you can sell to a number of customers. I suspect this is a model I will try during my next exhibition. 5 limited edition prints but with a clause that the image can be used at a reduced size for publication, in case a book of the area is every produced at a later date.
I am still a little baffled, my attitude to valuing a photo compared to an oil painting is the the painting is a one off whereas the print can be easily replicated for resale. Photography as art poses quite a challenge, perhaps there is a graph for exclusivity v price ?
If you have had your work exhibited in the past we would love to hear your opinion on how to best manage costings and pricing of print work.
Actually, normally I sell unlimited numbers of my photos (I would be so lucky that I did that more often….), but I intend to exhibit photos in the near future and then I would sell those photos in a limited edition Print.
For some time, I wanted to sell numbered limited edition prints but never pulled it off. After a few exhibits, I’m still selling unlimited prints for a fair price and I’m happy with that method.
Patrick, how do you go about working out the selling price?
I don’t do the “print price” + “framing” + “profit” math. I set the price according to the value I think someone would want to pay to hang the picture in its living room. The same kind of person who would pay 2500$ for a designer’s couch.
The value is also related to how much I like the picture myself.
I try to keep the price between 150$ and 350$ CAD. But if someone wanted a unique copy, it’d be a lot more.
During my last exhibit, the highest priced pictures all sold while the lower priced ones didn’t. So I think that if the buyer really likes a picture, price will not be an important deciding factor.
When it comes to pricing pieces, I rely on several determining factors: audience (venue); the amount of value I personally place on the work, and whether it is a unique piece (higher cost) or a traditional photographic print (lower cost). The gallery split is also a determining factor, as I never want to be in the hole for a piece after a sale 😉
You haven’t included the way most people sell their photos – Stock (or, [spit!] microstock)
Stock, yes, and there’s also by event. You charge a price to do a package containing a specific number of pictures.
I’m currently in the middle of writing a full review on my experience in using Fotomoto.com to sell my prints. By far, it’s been the most seamless solution to monetize my prints in terms of being to implement the system very well in into my website and it eliminates all the manual work of that I use to deal with when using a PayPal system.
Trey Ratcliff has written that he does not copyright his work, but licenses it under creative commons, and permits anyone to download his images for personal use. His images are widely distributed via the Internet. He has also stated that the way he makes money off of his images is by selling limited edition prints, and licensing commercial use rights. So while Trey displays many images on his SmugMug site, you can not buy them there, you have to go to his limited edition sales site. I believe he has started his own company to produce the limited edition prints and fulfill orders.
I sell one off prints but to compensate for that I have the same subject maybe at a different angle or slightly different shadow effect. You might say its what TK does with his “art” where he might add a splash here or there to make it “unique.”
Photographic images are the same as any art piece, it is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Take a look how much Peter Lik gets for his images. He has galleries all around Las Vegas.
I think it is the rarity of the image that will grab the highest price.
I shoot mostly Off Road racing and the images have to be unique and shot with the best quality. That is what it takes. To buy an unlimited use license for a shot like that can cost around $3,500.