from Chris:
Okay, I posed y'all a question (August 9th, on this blog) about why so few of you have given price information with your Critical Mass submissions. The photographers who replied mostly said that they didn't know how to price their prints. That makes me think that we'd better have a discussion about principles of pricing. I'll start it off and then you guys should chime in with your thoughts and insights.
(By the way, just to underline Shawn's point about his favorites not all making the final 175, 2 prints arrived today that I bought through the prescreening from a photographer who is not a final 175. He did list his prices, though, luckily for me and him.)
Photographic prints generally cost between $10 and $100,000, though there are prints above and below that range. Your basic trajectory is to start your print prices lower and have them rise as the demand for your work rises. Your price for a given size and type of print should never go down. (Although, this moment of total collapse of the world economy does actually present a rare opportunity to reset your prices if you find yourself trapped at a ratcheted-up-to-unsubstainable price point.) If you buy one of my prints from Michael Mazzeo Gallery for $10,000 and then find me selling the same print for $100 at Saturday Market, you are going to feel massively ripped off and betrayed. You won't buy my work again, you won't buy anything from Michael Mazzeo again, and Michael Mazzeo will stop carrying my work.
Your print prices are going to be weighed in the context of other artists' prices. You need to get a feel for what other photographers at your stage of development are charging. I will assume that you don't have gallery representation or you would have figured out your prices with your gallerist. That means that you should be finding out what other unrepresented photographers are charging, by asking them (which presents the added advantage of giving you a chance to also ask how their price strategy is working out) and by checking prices at non-commercial exhibition venues, such as university galleries. Once you enter into a relationship with a gallery your print prices will go up because of the value added that the gallery contributes by exhibiting them in a swanky space manned by salespeople who are on a first name basis with collectors.
As you get a sense of your pricing context you will notice that "size matters." Big prints cost a lot more than smaller prints. You will want to listen to your work and let it tell you how big it wants to be printed, but if it doesn't mind, you might do well to have work available in both affordable small versions and pricier big versions.
You also have to figure out about limited editions. Gallerists and collectors will want you to have limited editions. This is because it puts them in the driver's seat as soon as those editions sell out. At that point the price goes up because of supply and demand - this are your most demanded images, by definition, and now there is no more supply from you. The work remains cheap while you are still getting 50%, and once the price goes up you get 0%. This is a bad deal for you but you have to decide how far you're willing to go with it. Just recognize that you are going to lose control over your work when it's sold out. If you have smaller editions, you will lose control sooner of more of your best work. If you have larger editions, you will retain some say over more of your prints for longer. I keep my own work unlimited (as you may have guessed from that preamble) which also lets me trade prints, give them to my friends for Christmas and not freak out when they don't return from an international show (about 50% of the time).
When you first are starting out, you have no prints out in the world, in major or minor collections. If your prints are affordable then some adventurous souls will be brave enough to buy your work even though you're not famous. Those adventurous souls will become part of your team, displaying your work in their homes and bragging about how smart they were to discover you. The decisions that you make about price and edition size will determine how many of your prints are out in the world, being seen, thrilling people, and eventually flowing into museum collections.
Don Juan told Carlos Casteneda that the only bad choice you can make at a crossroad is to just stand in the intersection. In addition to costing you some print sales, it does mark you as "not ready for prime time" to not know what your print prices are. Do a bit of soul searching, a bit of research and make up a number. If you're unsure, stay a bit low (since you can't lower the price once you sell your first print,).
Now let's hear from you about any or all of this.
Chris Rauschenberg
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6 comments:
im a student at uni and I just want to say thanks for this post, it really helped me and made me think, even though it wasn't aimed this way,
thanks again
Andy
The only thing i would add is to suggest that you first figure out how much printing and framing costs (and possibly mounting too, depending on how you want to present the work) before deciding on pricing. You may be surprised to find out only after quoting a price that the costs to deliver the framed print exceed your quote!
What's the old saying, "Art is cheap. Framing is expensive?"
Great post Chris! I wonder if medium should be discussed/considered as well... I am a traditional silver printer & every time I reprint an image I have to go back in the darkroom and even though I've kept notes more than likely I'll waste a few sheets of paper & spend a heck of a lot of time before it's just right (again, or better this time around - the hope). Not to mention toning...... I don't think there's equivalent "work" that goes into #2/50 when it's a pigment print?
All that said, I can't remember if I even listed my prices...
~A submitter who unfortunately did not make the first cut... It was nice to read that we might have a "fan" anyway. Thanks for the encouragement.
I think Chris's comment "Your print prices are going to be weighed in the context of other artists' prices. You need to get a feel for what other photographers at your stage of development are charging" is a key. While few galleries list prices (some do) many photographers list them.
In response to anonymous, pigment prints are not always quite that easy. While a little less painful than wet prints, profiles change, inks change, heads malfunction, cpu's crash, all contributing to the "work".
Years ago I had a show in the Photographers' Gallery, London and I hand printed about 50 postcard prints of a couple of the images complete with "postcard' stamp on the back. I sold them for 50pence ($1?). I sold most of them - I was very pleased that people bought them because they wanted them, not whether they could afford them.
I now try to make my normal sized prints at a price that 'ordinary' people can afford because they want it, not as an Art investment. And yep, printing, mounting, production time, commission, etc all has to be considered.
Well...here is my two cents about pricing artwork, mainly photographs. As a photography art collector, I can guarranteed you that right now, I can purchase great stuff right in this market condition from very and quite established photographers for, a very good price.
For any artist it is important that :
1. See WHO is looking at your work first.
2. Follow, understand and keep with the art market trends. That way you will know how your price tags measured to others bigger in the food chain.
3. Be aware that art collectors are usually very smart and very good investors.
4. Jurors looking at Photolucida's Critical Mass work can be career maker or brakers so, It is important to price your work accordingly.
5. In these economic hard times sometimes is better to get your photographs in a good art collection, institution or museum than, trying to sell them for a high price tag.
6. I think it is important to edition, sign and document the photographs unless, you are a Magnun photographer. Art is a business and collectors, institutions , Museums ,etc, etc, like the work to be properly documented. You can't not expect somebody buy a photograph for a lot of money and that 20 years later is still being mass produced.
7. The era of, I got an MFA please pay $5,000.00 for a an enlarged blurry photograph is over for now.Photography right now is more intimate. Most of the shows had being showing photographs no larger than 20 x 24 focusing more in the suject and quality, not in its size to provide the dealer more income. Size does not matter, quality does!
8. In my opinion a lot of work I saw in Photolucida from unknown ones, it is highly over priced. So it happens that some of the most sucessful entries, I had some of their work already and trust me their prices are not as high as some of the unknown ones.
9. My best advice before you price your artwork, follow the art market, do a comparative study with other photographers that are on your same and higher level in the photography business ...or contact me!
10. Be always open for negotiation when pricing your artwork. Be aware that, the person who might be buying your work might most likely lead you to more sales.
11. If you can price your own artwork , find the proper assistance for it.If you do that make sure that the person do it , knows and keeps up with the art market.
12. Finally, I believe that Photography like most art media right now, it is going through a re-adjustment period meaning, size does not matter, quality and subjects do, more intimacy with the viewer and buyer, more emphasis of strong series and body of work and getting the work in good collections , institutions and even Museums. If you accomplish all this ...then your work will deserve a good price tag!
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