The art of commerce, 4: When global is local

When I first came to North Georgia, I asked a local gift shop owner what sort of photographs I should bring her – what sells?

She said, “Oh – the covered bridge! People always love the covered bridge.”

I dutifully trooped off and photographed the bridge for several afternoons. I got bored with it almost immediately.

As I was poking around under the bridge, looking for an unusual angle, my eye was drawn to a crisp leaf suspended in mid-air….  in a very fine spider’s web. The late afternoon light caught it just right.

Once I slowed down and began looking at those small details, the bridge became a fascinating and beautiful place. Eventually I did a small photo essay book about it (using Lulu.com).

Not surprisingly, I have sold more prints of the “straight” photos of the covered bridge than I have sold of the photo essay book. But I managed to make the assignment into something that was both artistically and commercially satisfying.

One of my favorite shots from the covered bridge series was a macro of well-hammered and web-encased bolt. I printed it on 16 by 20 canvas and exhibited it at the local Fitness Center, where the staff told me it became a real conversation piece.

People weren’t sure what it was, even though it was such a common object. They guessed it was a hat, a cake, or a building…. and then were amazed to read the tag with the title: “Bolt, Covered Bridge.”

I sold two prints of it. But that was enough to make me feel validated.

I do a lot of abstracts based on extreme close-ups (see my “Guess What” series on this blog), and my artistic purpose is twofold:

-to find and highlight the structures, textures and other design elements found in “natural architecture”, whether a leaf, bark, or moth wing;

-to help people see differently – by showing them very familiar places and objects in a way that they do not recognize.

Recognition, though, helps sell art. Abstracts are disorienting, on purpose; but disorientation doesn’t usually prompt someone to whip out their checkbook.

So, you need to “ground” your audience if you want to sell your work. Sometimes just explaining what or where the photograph actually “is” (in the straight-world sense) will be enough that people can connect to it.

Even though the point of my abstracts is universality, many people need to feel it’s something they know and understand before they will like or buy it.

Where I live (in North Georgia), art is considered somewhat alien – one of those odd things that hangs in Atlanta museums. But when locals venture into my gallery space, they are thrilled to see the flowers, covered bridges, and rock formations that are familiar to them, formally presented as art.

It’s art they can feel proud of, a sense of personal ownership of the subject matter. It helps them to bridge the gap that is sometimes created by the mere term “art”.

[View the complete set at now-defunct group photoblog]

The art of commerce, part 3

More than a year ago, my friend Sara suggested that I teach photography workshops.  “After all, you’ve trained journalists all over the world,” she said.

I grimaced.

I love training adults in new skills. I’d rather teach people how to photograph their kids than have them pay me to do it.

But as I told Sara – I’m a professional trainer. Unlike some so-called instructors, I can’t just show up and start talking. I spend 4 or 5 hours in preparation for every hour of instruction. So here’s the math:

In North Georgia, the typical workshop fee is $40 for a morning workshop. Typical enrollment is 10 people. Gross: $400.

The hosting organization takes 25 to 30 percent of the total. So, I’d take home $280 to $300. That is IF 10 people enroll and show up.

Best case, I spend eight hours preparing for a two-hour workshop. Inevitably there is travel time and I also spend time marketing directly to my client list, adding at least another two hours. That means I am earning $25 an hour.

But that is my GROSS pay. Then there’s overhead…. I pay income tax, social security, insurances, office costs, supplies, expenses, advertising – and I pay for time off. Any minute I’m not working is a minute I’ve lost income, which means I usually work six days a week.

As a sole proprietor with no employees, I do EVERYTHING. I hold a dozen staff “titles” because I do it all myself: secretary, accountant, tech support, marketing, legal documents, purchasing, printing, state sales tax, archiving, vehicle maintenance, research and continuing education, and HR.

[Yes, HR: I have to spend time to shop for and maintain all my benefits - health insurance, pension, disability, business insurance... And I donate a significant portion of my time to charitable events.]

Still – I love to teach. I have been satisfying that urge by doing short seminars and private lessons, but that only seemed to create demand …. for workshops.

So, I gave in and started teaching workshops. It immediately became my biggest steady source of income.

To make the math feasible for workshops, I have gone to this formula:

+I do workshops that require less preparation time, and that can be repeated in many locations or in larger markets.

+If asked to do a workshop for a group, I charge a set fee of $175/hour for up to 12 people. This way I have a guaranteed income no matter how many people sign up.

+I market more heavily on individual and small-group lessons. With only one to three people attending, I can simply adapt the pace and material on the spot. That greatly reduces the prep time.

If you are an artist or photographer who’s considering this, please do your participants a favor: LEARN how to train adults first. Just because you are a good photographer, or painter, or writer, does not mean that you know how to transfer these skills to a group of adult learners. Lecturing is not training.

But that’s another blog entry….

Making love in Photoshop

People hate themselves. They spit on their own images. They want wrinkles removed, scars covered over, teeth whitened, fat lost, dark circles lightened. All the things that life has done to them, and they want me to fix it.

I do understand. A portrait, even an informal one, is an Occasion. It has much to do with how we view ourselves – even though photographs are also lies.

At any rate, I have spent hours on amending portraits of people – some are dear friends, some are one-day clients.

But this weird thing happens.

In order to do most retouching, you magnify the photo so that every pixel is distinguishable. Stroke, brush, daub, and smoothe.

Inevitably, I have the sensation that I am actually touching that person’s skin or eyes. I am careful, yes. But I feel so much, too. Compassion of the most intimate kind.

It is very much like making love. That kind of close, slow, soothing touch. As though I could really take away all the life-hours that brought on those wrinkles and scars and fat.

It’s not so different from Reiki – the hands-on healing technique that I practice. When I do Reiki on someone who has pain, I literally feel their pain.

It isn’t that I am IN pain. I simply touch it, the way that one touches cold water and gets the sensation without turning to ice.

Digital photography and all its accompanying software is often described as cold and distancing. It can be. But this strange business of retouching has become warmer than anything I ever did with film.

The art of commerce, part 2

A friend asked recently in despair,

When you can buy these posters so cheaply – how do we price photos???   Click here: Natural Landscapes (Photography) Posters at AllPosters.com

I’ve struggled with that for a long time.

But, the biggest factor is that people are never just buying art as a “product” – they are buying a feeling, or a story, that means something to them.

Many people will buy a piece of art because of their personal feeling about the scene, the artist, or even the place where they’re shopping for it. Or because it tells a story that they can relate to.

It is very hard to convey feelings and stories with photos on a monitor.

One of the women at the office where I have my gallery space told me that she wasn’t too sure she liked my work when she’d just looked at my web site. But she LOVED it in person – especially in canvas, but also when matted, framed, and on a beautiful wall.

There’s also the “expertise” factor, which is a major thing that small retailers have going for them in the face of the Big Box retailers. If someone don’t know what they want, the web site just feels overwhelming, and they will appreciate the personal attention and guidance that they get at a gallery.

Don’t despair, fellow artists – we have much to offer that will never be available online.

We must take the time to share our personal stories, about why and how we do art, with people who believe they cannot be artists.

The price is right.

The art of commerce, part 1

I make postcards.

It’s a pain in the butt, making all those 4 by 6 prints and stamping the back, but they sell for a dollar each at the local gift shop. It doesn’t pay my mortgage, but I know for certain that whatever effort I put into making postcards will be rewarded.

I also sell small, inexpensive prints with pre-cut mats in clear plastic wrappings. And I did a batch of mousepads with my photos, which sold steadily. Recently I set up a greeting cards web site.

I know that some artists would say this makes me a sell-out, or a “commercial” artist, or that I’m cheapening my work by mass-producing it.

Well, fellow artists, someday I hope that I will be as well-known as Ansel Adams and sell for $5,000 each the 30 by 40 canvas prints that really show my photographs to their best advantage.

Or maybe I’ll win the lottery.

Or I’ll decide to become dependent on my husband for financial support in addition to his emotional support.

But, until that day, I shall sell postcards and matted prints and mousepads and anything else that has a decent return on my investment in time and energy.

Here’s the breakdown: I make low-priced reproductions of photos that I know will sell – the landscapes, birds and flowers that are recognizable to my audience – and I know that this “cheap art” will reach many hundreds of consumers.  The profit margin works out to around $12 to $30 an hour.

I also make expensive, limited edition prints of photos that, according to contest and exhibit judges, meet the standards of fine art, and these are a puzzle to many and seen by few. Collectors do buy them, but the volume right now is so small that the profit margin works out to maybe 50 cents an hour.

Sometimes there’s crossover and one of my allegedly fine-art photographs appeals to a broad audience – then I can sell it in many forms. And sometimes people who keep coming back to look at my “accessible” work start to understand what I am doing in the abstracts or darker pieces.

Best of all worlds, I figure.

Let me also say this in defense of the cheaper forms of art:

The postcards, mousepads and small prints are a great marketing tool. Every one of them carries my name and my web site URL. People in my community and visitors here know my name and my photographs, and they visit my web site and recognize my style. They keep the postcards or they send them to friends far away, which expands my name recognition at no cost to me.

Second, sometimes postcards that get taped to the refrigerator, mousepads that rest under our hands, and small prints that are thumb-tacked onto the wall have just as much impact as a big expensive canvas. They are part of our everyday life and we love them too, because they are infused with meaning.

It isn’t the medium of the art – it’s the message.

Not all of the people who buy my postcards and mousepads are fine-art collectors, but all of them appreciate a beautiful image of North Georgia. Owning even an inexpensive reproduction is a way for them to remember the peace and enjoyment they feel when contemplating nature. Why is evocation of these  feelings “not artistic”?

[For more on this subject, see the column at Empty Easel by Denise Ivey Telep.]

Final question: If I don’t do “commercial” work, then I need to do something else to pay the bills. Given my work experience, that would be consulting on overseas media development projects, editing a newspaper, writing grant proposals, or running workshops.

Would that be somehow more respectable for me as an artist – to stay engaged with my former career, even when it drains my creative energy?

Or would it be better for me to be a waitress, so that I could keep my brain free for Art, uncontaminated by serving a larger audience?

For now, I choose postcards.