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Five year rolling plan
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I?m putting this in the business section, but if anyone wants to move it – fair enough.
Just thinking about the ?where do I want to be in 5 years? thing, and basically I know that I don?t want to still be in my current job by then.
So looking at my skills and interests , the obvious move would be to self employment, or part time paid employment so I can do ?other things?.
3D work is out – I have a respiratory problem that isn?t going to get better, so 2D work is my way forward.
Sort of a question, here, but what do you have on your walls?
I often look at landscape photos, some with admiration and others not, but I wonder whether many people actually buy them and hang them. Personally, I have a few prints of ?classic? paintings, a couple of ?paintings?, and quite a lot of small framed photos of family, dotted around the house.
Is there a market for landscape photography, or a market for any type of photography?
From my point of view – a painting could be sold for ?x, a print (not a photographic print) could be sold for ?y. An edition of prints at ?y per print would exceed ?x.
So the questions are –
Do people buy photographic prints?
What do you have on your walls?
From the top of head, I’d say landscape printmaking would be the way forward, but it all comes down to sales, doesn’t it?Oh when I said ?I?m putting this in the business section, but if anyone wants to move it – Fair enough.? maybe I should have said ?move it to another forum?. :lol:
unfortunately, how well your business does will depend more on how good of a business man you are instead of what kind of pics you take. i’ve seen some crap that sells wonderfully because the photographer is a businessman and not a photographer, and some truly wonderful stuff that never moves off the photographer’s wall.
a good way to figure out what sells well is to ask yourself what do you have hanging on your walls at home (photographs, drawings, paintings, etc..), how about family and friends? i know people here buy local stuff no matter what the quality. if its local they buy it, if its local and good they pay more. i’ve sold alot of local landscapes and architecture even though my ireland collection is better (although i do sell alot of ireland shots to people who are of irish ancestry.).. alot of the stuff hanging on our walls at home are landscapes, and architecture shots.
bethI think landscapes can sell, people on this site seem to be good at selling ithis type of image and make a living from it, but as beth says you have to be a good businessman aswell as a good photographer and you have to know how to sell it ..
One of the most well know landscape photographers in terms of the amount of general public that know of his stuff is Giles Norman http://www.gilesnorman.com/index-main.html.. in addition to some solid work, he is exceptionally good at presentation of his images.. from the virtual presentation on his website to the physical presentation of framing and design of how images are best presented, how they can be a sets and this is visible in his galleries if you ever get near one take a look.
I hope it works fo you :)
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LoGill wrote:
One of the most well know landscape photographers in terms of the amount of general public that know of his stuff is Giles Norman http://www.gilesnorman.com/index-main.html.. in addition to some solid work, he is exceptionally good at presentation of his images.. from the virtual presentation on his website to the physical presentation of framing and design of how images are best presented, how they can be a sets and this is visible in his galleries if you ever get near one take a look.
An excellent example of someone that has thrived as a result of superb marketing, building a very strong brand and image. He is certainly a well known landscape photographer but it’s hardly because of his photography. Good marketing and PR have had a significant role to play in his success and in my opinion his work leaves something to be desired. In think there are photographers on this very site that produce work that is light years ahead of G.N. If they had the same sales and marketing behind them, then I’m sure they would be even more successful than G.N. Sadly, in this business image is everything, even at the expense of quality photography. To quote Beth, “I’ve seen some crap that sells wonderfully because the photographer is a businessman and not a photographer, and some truly wonderful stuff that never moves off the photographer’s wall”
There’s a well known and successful female wedding/lifestyle photographer in the UK who also has an excellent marketing machine behind her, so much so that she now does very little photography. As for her photography, I think there are others producing far better quality work than she is but they haven’t built themselves the same high profile reputation through spin.
I think if you have the ability to sell sand to the Arabs then you will make a very successful living out of photography (or indeed anything else you turn your hand to).
Thorsten wrote:
An excellent example of someone that has thrived as a result of superb marketing, building a very strong brand and image. He is certainly a well known landscape photographer but in my opinion his work leaves something to be desired.
:) I’m not a fan or anything.. I just agree with you that he’s an example of how it can be done well commercially… I popped into his gallery in kinsale (is it kinsale ??) a year or so ago and I was surprised at some of the images in there.. I’d have to give credit and say he did have some really great images… BUT he is very prolific and generates a lot of work, which i think connects back to your point on the quality of some of it .. but i guess he is prepared to take this kind of critique about his images.. … in favour of having broader appeal and selling loads of them !
Thorsten wrote:
I think there are photographers on this very site that produce work that is light years ahead of G.N. If they had the same sales and marketing behind them, then I’m sure they would be even more successful than G.N. Sadly, in this business image is everything, even at the expense of quality photography.
I agree with you in terms of the standard of work here … and I’d exapnd your comment to say that in the photography businesses.. its all about the image and image .. if you get me ;)
L
There’s a well known and successful female wedding/lifestyle photographer in the UK who also has an excellent marketing machine behind her, so much so that she now does very little photography. As for her photography, I think there are others producing far better quality work than she is but they haven’t built themselves the same high profile reputation through spin.
Couldn’t agree more Thorsten :wink:
It’s all about marketing…as long as you can market yourself and your pics, there’ll be buyers out there. There’s a fine line in photography between art and crap, and alot of photographers cross it, but know how to market themselves so they sell it.I’ve dabled in a number of different arts, from Djing to music production to graphic design, and one thing I’ve noticed. Getting the respect of your piers is about quality to an absolutly anal degree. Appreciation of quality takes years to build up usually through a lot of practical experience. The general consumer (i.e. the public buyer!) of the product just doesn’t have the experience to evaluate the ‘quality’ of your product as critequed by other professionals. They use a completely different set of criteria for judging whether the like a picture. If it’s down to anything is much more about emotional response than techncial excellence.
If you’re tagetting comercial or professional buyers you can expect the degree to which the technical quality needs to be there as well.
I’m not familiar with the work of Giles Norman but it sounds to me that he’s realised that people buy when they recognise the landscape he’s photographed, not because it’s supperb image. You can find a million technically supperb anonymose landscapes out there to buy if you want one.
Got my new rangefinder magizine yesterday and saw this post and had read the attached article……thought I would post it here in case stock maybe one of your ideas you had 5+ years from now. It is about stock photography.
http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/May07/showpage.taf?page=14
Thanks for everyones’ input.
Some very good points and definitely good food for thought.Blow..
and I thought long and hard about that apostrophe, too!Oh, you might want to have a look at my spelling :lol:
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