In article <42AAF9C4.4040208@qwest.net>,
"Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)" <username@qwest.net>
wrote:

Limiting the edition helps establish you as a credible artist -Imop,
but putting a high final number before an particular print has a history
of sale is a bad idea - Imop. Numbered prints say to things:

You can always number the prints 1,2,3,4 but not 1/0f 1,000
that way people know you are selling them but the final edition count is
determined by whether you have made a sum you deem as being fair to
the image.

This also allows you to raise the price rather seamlessly as the edition
sells or you see fit. You can easily price your work out of a market so
there is some governing by the market.

Your committed to the image.
 Other people are buying the image.
 

There are a lot of people in same circumstances, putting a big  edition
is wishful, unless the price is very low.

Think of it this way, you might have prints around after you
die, unless your actively selling them constantly and at rock bottom
prices. Getting enough people motivated to buy out a 1,000
prints means probably finding enough people motivated to
buy the same subject at a discount price, most people have twenty
dollars in their pocket at any given moment, so that's your price
point....unless you have a single magical image that can inspire
people to consistantly buy for more. Just my experience!!!

I work from a master print, I make subsequent copies according to
notes and a work copy that has notes on burned areas, dodged areas
etc.

Realistically there are only so many collectors, although 5 years is
stated as the turn around on serious collectors who display the prints
on walls, some collectors never display only acquire. All that stated
if an image strikes someone they will pay whatever price. I started with
16x20 limited editions of twenty five, some prints sell well at  $80.00
and some fetch as much as 225.00 framed (At craft shows). If i was
aggressive I believe I could command more through galleries and sell a
lot more prints. In general galleries have to be active in the process
of selling your work to warrant using them.

I would ask your
gallery these questions, how much can they sell the work for, how many
prints in your edition should you do? Also do they have a client list
that the show will be announced to? <Very important.

If they can't answer or give some
info you should not allow them to show your work, because ultimately it
will hurt your reputation -Imop

Ask your self what does the image cost, not just in materials but in all
the things involved. Commission Included "paid to the gallery".

You can sell a lot of prints at craft shows for 20.00 1,000 at 20.00 is
20,000 but most galleries will laugh at you (I think they will if you
say thats what you want to sell them at)

Limited edition photographic prints are a marketing device, pure and simple.
Unless the means to make further editions is impossible. As someone else
pointed out, the difference between a photographic print and most other
forms of art is it's repeatability.

Unless you're planning to destroy the original negative much like the plate
of a limited edition lithograph is destroyed after printing, why not sell
your photographs as something to be enjoyed, and avoid the trap of trying to
sell them as an investment?

I recall stopping in a "gallery" in downtown Portland, OR which was filled
with various images of light reflected in water. Pretty but not exactly
earth shattering work. I noticed that every single image, from postcard to
poster sized were numbered with the old 0/0 style of "limited edition"
numbering. I had to ask the proprietor if each and every image was truly a
limited edition as I saw many of the same images in different sizes
scattered around the room. He replied that each image was limited in the
sense that he had only printed them in the various sizes once so far...so I
then asked him if intended to destroy the original transparencies after he
finished making his thousands of prints, he replied that I obviously knew
nothing about photography as a photographer never destroys his originals and
besides there were other marketing avenues that he could take his "art"
down. I nodded and left his gallery.

Moral of the story? Well there isn't one really except to say that the last
time I was in Portland he was long gone...

As for me knowing anything about photography, all I can say is that I've
worked as a professional photographer for over 20 years, I've taught
photography workshops, sold a few prints over the years, been in a few shows
here and there. Even worked in the retail photography business. Course I've
never owned my own vanity gallery so what do I know...?

John Emmons

You might want to look at this site, or contact this photographer:

<http://www.chrisgibbs.com/index.html>

He has what I think is a nice system for selling images, in that future
pricing changes as prints are made. Another photographer who uses a
similar concept is at:

<http://www.danburkholder.com> He has his works in several galleries, so
obviously several prints of each image.

I do single edition only for my fine art works, though I would consider
an image run if there was demand. Part of my reasoning is that I come
from a painting background, in which there is only one original. My
commercial work is completely different, and I have had one series of
images printed to 80000 impressions.

Unless it was posters at somewhat lower costs, I cannot imagine too many
photographers doing high volume sales. Seems too much like a Thomas
Kinkaid idea of art. More traditional art works produced by various
printing methods have often been runs of under 500, though obviously
that can vary. I sometimes show with the PhotoArts Group, and some of
the other photographers do longer printing runs, though 100 seems
somewhat normal.

An issue of storage could come up, if you have many prints. A safe bet
would be under 100, or just printing when you have the orders. The
downside is that commercial printing can give you a price break at 1000
to 2000 impressions. If the price of each was low enough, then you might
be able to go through those quickly.

We have one of his galleries in La Jolla, California. They do enough
business to pay for the high rent, and a few employees. I think this
concept is very different from what most fine art photographers do with
their images. However, if someone could make a business out of it in
this way, then more power to them.

I guess having a few stores in different cities takes care of some of
the storage problems.  ;-)

When I see the term applied to Thomas Kinkaid or Wyland type of images,
then it makes me wonder. In such cases, it could be more of a marketing
term than reality. Similar tactics are used for "embellished" giclées,
trying to give the buyer the impression that what they are getting is
something special.

Your approach seems different to what the Thomas Kinkaids of the world
are doing. If you want to call them "limited editions", then I think
that would be a very honest approach to your images. There is nothing
wrong with doing it that way.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
<http://www.allgstudio.com>

I'm facing the same issue, though I'm making my own prints on an Epson
7600, rather than in the darkroom. In the past, I've mostly given
prints away to friends and family, though I have sold a few of my
larger works for several hundred dollars at various shows.

Recently,  I've put up a website with some of my images -
http://home.comcast.net/~chasfs - and have just added a prices pages.
This is brand new in the last couple of days, and I haven't sold
anything from the website yet; it may end up as more of a tool for
galleries to select which work of mine they'd like to display, rather
than as an e-commerce site.

The approach I took on my pricing is to offer relatively inexpensive
Regular Edition prints, in various sizes - where the price is
proportional to the size of the print.  No matting or framing
available, shipping is in a mailing tube.

I've also decided to make editions of 50 prints available as Limited
Editions.  The Limited Editions are printed on fine art paper or
canvas, and I'll frame them and mat them.  I've priced them
substantially higher than the Regular Editions, though I have a sliding
scale where images 1-5 are more expensive, 6-20 are medium priced, and
21-50 are lower priced.

I chose an edition size of 50 for several reasons.  First,  its more
desirable to a collector than larger edition sizes.  Second, there is a
reasonable possibility that an edition will sell out; this makes it
more valuable to collectors.   And finally, it forces me to do more art
- I can't get the higher price of the limited editions once an image is
sold out.

If you'd like to see my pricing table, its at
http://home.comcast.net/~chasfs/prices.html. Any feedback on this
approach would be appreciated!

Thanks,
-chasfs
http://home.comcast.net/~chasfs

Hi Roger,  Congratulations!  You certainly have enough good images
available to sell.

I strongly advise to NOT make them limited editions, based on selling a
few myself and also on owning (collecting) prints from several
photographers and finally on hanging around some of the finer photo
galleries and seeing what's available there.

The only reason to do LE's is to try to artificially pump up demand by
making availability scarce, but it often doesn't work.  Real collectors
buy the work because they like the image, I think.  It's sad to walk
the aisles of an art show and see all these guys in their 10x10' white
tents with dozens of prints for sale, all 10 or less of 1,200.

Ansel didn't do limited editions as a rule (and speaks out against them
in his books), neither did Weston or Karsh or HCB ... a gallery I
frequent in Santa Fe had a Weston image of the Oceano Dunes for
$150,000 last month, an Ansel image of Moonrise for $135,000, several
Karsh portraits for ~ $20,000, others by Eugene Smith, etc in the
$40,000 range ... none of these were limited editions.

Of course they are all dead too, which tends to bump up the price (a
Cartier-Bresson I *almost* bought at $3,000 2 years ago jumped to
$10,000 when he died last summer, for example).

I have prints from six living photographers and the two most expensive
are in unlimited editions, costing several times more than the LE
prints I own from Mangelsen, Tom Till and Freeman Patterson ... what
these guys do is offer prints at a given price and when an image
"catches on" and sells a lot they simply jump the price to squelch
demand, which is good for the artist because he gets more money and
good for the collector who loves the image because at least it's still
available, but bad for the collector hoping to drive the price up
artificially because of limited availability.

A good example of this non-limited edition philosophy is Christopher
Burkett, who sells mainly 20x24" and 30x40" Ilfochromes he prints
himself from 8x10" chromes (also a smaller # of 20x20's and 30x30's
from a Hassy).  Base price is $750/$1,500 for the two sizes and about
80% sell for that ... next bump is to $1,500/$3,000 after he sells
"enough" at the base price and he has maybe 10% at that price, then
$2,500/$5000, $3,500/$7,000 and, for I think two images currently,
$5,000/$10,000.  So he is participating in the price appreciation, as
are folks who had the good taste to buy the right images early (like
moi).  He announces a couple of months in advance each December which
images will be increased in price the next year so collectors can jump
in (I have my eye on two more of his right now, hoping they don't go up
before I can afford them).

Jack Dykinga is another doing this, with right now one image (his most
famous one) selling for about 30% more than the others.  And my wife
recently bought a nice Paul Caponigro black/white print of the Cosmic
Apple that is expensive but still available since it's not LE.

Very few people ever sell 1,000 prints of the same image, I think.

He actually sells out a lot of editions, at least 50 that I know of
with typical edition sizes of 800 to 2,500 prints ... but most of his
images don't sell out so he simply replaces them with newer shots ...
the first print I ever bought was in 1990 at Tom's Jackson Hole
Gallery, off a side street, up the stairs and in a tiny room (across
the street down an alley from his new main street gallery).  It was two
polar bears play fighting ("Polar Dance") and I paid $199 for a 16x20"
framed print, # 599 of an edition of 1,200 ... two years later he had
sold out of this print, he won the BBC "Wildlife Photographer of the
Year" award in maybe 1994, the image was used on the cover of his book
on polar bears, and he said it was the best image (or at least his
favorite) he ever took, so the price skyrocketed ... I was offered
$3,000 for it at one point but have no interest in selling ... I also
have another sold out shot of his of cedar waxwings on an ash berry
tree, # 639 of 950, but that one didn't appreciate much yet.

I personally think he would be better off not doing limited editions
since he could probably sell 50-100 prints of this particular shot each
year in his 16 or so galleries, but I got mine so ... but there are at
least 4 other images of his I'd love to own but that are unavailable.

At any rate, if the prints have intrinsic value you'll sell them,
regardless of whether or not they are LE ... if you ever have a really
special image that thousands want to own then you're definitely better
off selling open edition though and raising the price to control
demand.

One final thought which may explain why I'm anti-LE ... a photographer
I know in Sedona had a fancy gallery there and sold his own LE
Ilfochromes ... his money image was the best shot of Sedona I ever saw,
Red Rock crossing in perfect light with yellow leaves on the cottonwood
and a cloud in the right spot above the rock formation ... he sold it
LE in quanties of 200 per size, ie, 8x10" up to 30x40" and told me that
image brought in more than 60% of his total income ... but
unfortunately for him he eventually sold everything except a handful of
the 30x40's when I knew him and was jacking those up to $5,000 each for
the last 10, advertising that then the image was closed forever.  Three
years later I was in his shop and surprised to see that same image in a
smaller size in an edition of 1,000 ... I asked the clerk what the deal
was since the image had "closed" and he said with a straight face "Ah,
we 'discovered' a new size of 22x28"!".  I think those who paid five
G's for the "last" prints probably felt he was a fraud.  I know I did.

Bill

A friend of mine, a fine art landscape (mostly) photographer, NEVER made
individual, limited edition prints.  His philosophy:  why limit your
profitability?  Print more of what sells well and charge more for them,
and less of what doesn't sell as well, but charge less.  He did,
however, make a few limited edition monographs of a dozen or so images
in custom made storage boxes to cater to collectors, art museums,
photo-art auctions, etc., but he never really considered them
"profitable."  It was more a marketing thing.  He made his money on
selling individual prints to the average Joe Tourist, who just happened
to "like" a shot and wanted to hang it in the den along side the
10-point buck he got last season in Montana.