I love these birds! This is a Greater Yellowlegs. We have Lesser Yellowlegs in our pond at home. Sometimes the bigger ones are here too, but this guy was found at a nearby lake. I haven't actually even been out to our pond for a week or two. I want to leave the nesting ducks alone, but I'm betting it's almost time for them to have babies. Maybe I'll see if I can quietly check on them today.
I've been having a couple different conversations with people about the business aspects of an art career with such topics as marketing and pricing. Daniel Sroka pointed out a blog post by Lisa Call on pricing and the reasons she raised hers.
This has really got me thinking about my prices and whether or not they are realistic for a long term viable art career. Here are some things that need to be taken into consideration when pricing your fine art photography:
- Cost of equipment (without it you aren't even getting out the door on this one! Don't forget that equipment breaks down and needs to be replaced occassionally.)
- Time spent capturing the image
- Cost to capture image (and we're not talking $8000 to take that family vacation to China where you also took pictures, but we are talking the gas to drive to your local lake, or horticultural park, or wherever you go to take the majority of your images)
- Time spent processing the image. (You should not charge less than minimum wage for your time in all aspects of your art. Here in Alberta that is $8.80 an hour - make no apologies if you charge more than minimum wage.)
- Cost of print. (If you print yourself don't forget to add in a labor charge, equipment costs and maintenance, inks, paper, shipping expenses for supplies, etc. If you use a printer, don't forget shipping charges.)
- Cost of any presentation. (Things like matting, framing, packaging.)
- Advertising expenses. (If you are advertising online, don't forget your time to list products on your website or wherever you advertise, as well as server costs.)
- Commissions, dues, and fees (include anything you pay to a third party as part of your business. I belong to three professional arts organizations which all require yearly dues. Galleries typically charge a 50% commission.)
Yes, you may be able to get a print done at Costco for $2.00, but when you sell it for $10 are you really making a profit when you consider the things I've outlined above? I doubt it. $10 doesn't even cover my time to list the print online and blog about it! At $10 are you going to have a viable long term business? I doubt it. Are you going to make it hard to be taken seriously as an artist should you decide to pursue photography as a real career later? Probably.
I do intend to spend the rest of my life doing this, so I've got to make it viable for me to do so. Yes, photography is a passion. Yes, I love what I do. Yes, I'll always be an artist of some form or fashion, no matter what. I've spent 15 or more years working as an artist and not really making anything at it. Financially, our family would have been much better off if I'd gone and flipped burgers at the local hamburger joint for those 15 years!
So fair warning, my prices are probably going to increase again in the next year.
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5 comments:
I hate to say this but I think that the price should be based on marketing. And this NOT because of that I think that one artist is worth more then another. It has to do with where, how, and when a print is marketed. For example, if a print is shown in a location that is only frequented by rich people, well that print should be priced higher for it is only something that the rich can afford. In other words you are giving that 'rich person' a reason to buy your work.
Then there is the print that ends up on a website with thousands of other prints from various artists, there is no 'leg work' put into this marketing technique so of course $10 is a justified price.
The artist should get paid for not only the quality, but also for the amount of heart and energy that the artist puts into that shot. This is my long winded way of saying that I agree with you ;-)
Great post! I think about my costs in another way too-- from the top down: I think about how much my studio costs are for a year (camera, computer, software, travel, ...) and how much I want to get paid, and then think about how many prints at $X I need to sell to make that in a year... If it turns put that I need to sell 200 prints/week, I raise my prices... :)
Well said Roberta!
Excellent post Roberta.
I'm not selling fine art prints but I found a real struggle last year when I tried selling my prints from photo sessions. This year, to induce sales I'm advertising locally that I have "low introductory rates only for 2009". Believe it or not (realizing this is not fine art prints) people are more open to buying prints from their session -- yet, I'm barely breaking even and they think I'm making a huge profit! It's a different scenario than yours but with some similarity. Too many people seem to equate those ubiquitous Sears point-and-shoot 'portraits' that cost next to nothing with a real quality photo session. Sheesh.
I just read another article on pricing which had this to say:
"By artificially lowering the price to accommodate a market, an artist actually devalues their own work—as well as the works of every other artist..."
Amen to that. Artists have to realize that success is not defined by the raw number of prints that you sell. It's defined with your ability to earn a living.
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