Pixiq

Hello! This is my inaugural post on Pixiq and I'm very happy to be here. I hope having this blog here on Pixiq will help me eke out, and coherently organise, interesting articles on everything to do with being a fine-art photographer.

Printing and selling photography is an extremely complex world that interweaves the science of printing, the subjectivity of ‘art’, and the business of selling. I’ve exhibited in shows small and large, from locally to internationally; London, Spain, USA, South America; I’ve sent prints all over the place in various different circumstances and made dozens of private sales where there was little headache whatsoever. A lot of the issues outlined below lay in situations with galleries, where prints are consigned and sent long distance with multiple parties intercepting it along the way to its final client. Some of my pointers are really obvious things that for me are only just hitting home now, after 5 years.

Printing and exhibiting your work is in principle a wonderful thing, and the privilege of making any segment of living from it, especially in these times, shouldn’t be taken for granted.

It’s also the most stressful part of what I do as an artist, so I’m glad there is a wide berth for error in those profit margins.

Here are, specifically, ten pointers to help save you several £££s, $$$s or headaches in making and handling prints: getting from print production to final profit.

1. Agree – or disagree

Ok, so you’ve got the interest of Some Gallery who wants to exhibit your work. Great! Typical scenario: they’re in a rush and they want to get moving ASAP, they want to print the flyers this afternoon and receive the prints tomorrow. Erm, no. Before you do anything, questions need to be asked, and putting everything down in an agreement is essential. It doesn’t matter if they’re super friendly – in fact that’s all the more reason to make sure misunderstandings don’t happen further down the line.

In this agreement, along with everything to do with commission, costings and liabilities, you should address the issue of who will pay for the prints, who will pay to ship/transport them to the gallery - and back afterwards – and who will pay for shipping out extra prints during the exhibition if further sales are made. And make sure you both read and understand it. Talk to them on the phone.

Even if you’re doing your own exhibition in a non-gallery space, you need to at least verbally agree the terms with the owner of the space.

2. You like that one? It comes in an edition of... zero

Choose your prints wisely. The gallery will usually make their own selection, which is all very well. But you're the one who's paying for them, and will likely be burdened with them afterwards if/when they don't sell, so you need to have a say. It’s also your right to discuss framing style and cost, because that’s probably coming out of your pocket too. I write this, thinking of an earlier exhibition of mine, where I easily assented to the gallery's choice of images and framing. They helped pay upfront but in recuperating the costs from sales I realised at the end that I’d essentially just bought a load of my own prints that I didn’t like too much, expensively framed. Of course, most of my opinion on that comes with experience and retrospect. You can't always get it right in your early days.

Don’t forget to be open-minded about images in your work that you might not like so much, however, that could sell like hotcakes. I’ve had at least a couple of surprising sellers. It’s just important to be comfortable overall with what is essentially your financial investment into a business punt. It’s so easy for the business side of an exhibition to become washed over by the etiquette of talking ‘art’, especially when you’re talking about your own work. In the early days you’re still getting over the idea that someone is interested in it at all! Just remember from the outset that selling art is a business.

3. Get the price right

If you've never exhibited your work before, you need to make decisions, and the gallery might try and make them for you. To sell photographic art, the print (arguably) should be a limited edition. In a nutshell, this means it will become one of a numbered set, with any number of 'artists' proofs' per edition. My own edition structure (10 small, 5 medium, 3 large) was originally formed from gallery advice, but I also tweaked it myself based on my own experience with my market’s demand. It might be scary to price your work for the first time, but you need to remember you’re selling your photos as art. Having limited editions, especially quite small numbers, gives any one of your images a limited life - but in my view, it validates the notion of putting decent prices on – and that’s an average of about £300/$500 for a 13” x 20” print. It also means you don’t spend a lifetime flogging off the same picture you’ve grown weary of, and it keeps your artist cycle going: once prints are sold, people have to start looking at your new work.

Choose your edition numbers, sizes and prices wisely, because once you sell one of the edition, you should not change the size and number of that print.

4. Two equals. Two.

An exhibition is essentially a collaboration between two enterprises: the artist and the gallery. When it comes to picking, pricing, editioning, and framing your prints, you should agree together, not just be told. Most of the time, any gallery with whom you're doing business is going to be a gallery on your level (unless it's your big break and you've just been plucked from obscurity by the National Portrait Gallery) which means you should not be scared to speak your mind or raise issues. Most gallerists will welcome your input. Don’t let them get too cocky with you.

Do your research, get opinions from friends and other artists, just remember that any one gallery's opinion is never gospel. They’re all humans with opinions after all, some of them don’t even have a clue. You’re just one pawn to them. You are the only one who can decide how to sell your work.

5. Resolve resolution

You've decided on sizes and you’re ready to make a print. Or are you? Everyone knows (or should know) about the pitfall of printing from an uncalibrated monitor and money being wasted on prints coming out wrong. It’s wise to invest in a calibrator for your own monitor to start the consistency from home, but you should still test a print with the actual lab you’re using before getting it large. You need to test for two things: colour, and resolution. For colour, you can print a small print and judge it from that. For resolution, you need to see the print at the required size, so you need to print a strip. Most professional photographic labs will offer a service in helping you tweak a print on their calibrated monitors and print test strips.

Once you have a file tweaked, save it and always send that version through to the lab’s server to get their cheaper online prices.

6. Check your prints in the most Sherlockian pose you can imagine

Your print is ready. The colour looks great. There are no pixelly bits. Aesthetically, you're over the moon. Before you pay or leave the lab with it - stop! Check the print, all over. Undisturbed. Hawk-eyed. Turn on all the lights, get on a pair of clean white gloves and swivel the paper so the light shines over it like a laser beam, inch by inch. No one is going to check it for you. It's your job. A scratch? A crease? The tiniest dent? If it's in any way imperfect, refuse it. If you don’t, your client will, and you’ll be back paying for a replacement. If there's a slight surface scratch, that doesn’t go away when you gently breathe your warm breath closely on it, send it back. Different paper surfaces have different sturdiness and kinds of problem.

The print may have arrived by post, and you’ve already paid, but perform the same thorough check upon a (clean) table, and make sure you lock the cat out. You still have the right to report faults. Obviously the lab will have to trust you, but that beckons the advantage of building a close relationship with one lab.

Once the print is approved, make sure you take absolute care handling it at all times. You don't want to crease your own print, like I did the other week (the lab creased two versions, then just as they got the third right, I creased it).

So where's your print going? If it's going direct to a buyer, it's just a case of getting the hot potato off to the lucky purchaser, safe and well, and once they confirm it's arrived and all is fine, you can heave a sign of relief and go out to celebrate at the most overpriced curryhouse you can find.

Or maybe it's going to get mounted and framed for your own exhibition.

7. Make the right framing choice

Prints are so fragile that you’re going to want to get them framed as soon as possible. The worst thing I ever did with 3 large prints (ages ago before I had much knowledge) was to have them window-mounted with a floppy 1cm mount and hung, naked, open to the elements in an exhibition. Mounting and framing your prints is very important, in terms of protection and presentation, and it’s also where the costs come in – you’re going to be paying at least double the cost of the print for its mounting and framing. The print is the cheap part. But if you can buy a decent frame, like buying a decent lens, you are able to transfer different prints to it over time. You can reuse that capital cost.

The best way to keep a print deadly flat in its frame is to get it bonded onto something: foamboard, or dibond for example. A print can start to look wavy in its frame over time, otherwise, so watch out.

I’ve had a lot of my prints mounted onto aluminium and hung just like that. Nice, clean result, without reflection or distraction at the front surface, just a naked print. But this also makes them vulnerable to the elements. Any damage to the print surface, and the whole thing is defunct. It’s also bonded permanently, so the cost of the frame is tied to that print forever. For future shows I would not pick aluminium.

Make sure you oversee the whole process, checking the prints before and after framing. Make sure the lab wraps them in oodles of bubble wrap and foam corners. Buy some yourself if you have to.

If you’re sending your print(s) in a tube away somewhere else for exhibition, take a deep breath and see below.

 8. Pack, dispatch, insure, and pray.

Sending prints abroad has become one of the most nerve-wracking things I do. Of course, first make sure your prints are all pristine before going, as above.

If you are sending one or two prints, you might be ok rolling it in paper and sticking in a tube yourself. 90% of the time, I’ve been ok.

If you're sending multiple prints, especially for a roll of about 8 or more, and especially if they're different sizes, then I recommend getting the prints professionally packaged and your lab might offer this service. It costs more, but it's worth it. This will involve putting a double wall tube around the prints and wrapping them round an internal core. It means you can rest assured knowing that they will (probably) get there problem-free. You can choose to pick up the package up once ready, and arrange the shipping yourself. I use and recommend Interparcel which gives several courier choices. Or, have the lab ship it, but make sure in either case that it’s insured for at least its full production cost. You could be spending £500 or more on one show. You don't want to be £500 out of pocket when all the prints arrive with one subtle but fatal dent in them.

If something does happen to your print(s), make sure the recipient sends you pictures of the damage and of the packaging. Send this off to your courier for the necessary claim and don't delay, as there’ll only be a 30-day limit or so.

9. Get smart: because no one else will

Ok, so you've read all the above (or I assume so). So, you and I both know all about how to handle and send prints. But does everyone else? Nope. Will everyone else take care with your prints? Not necessarily. Even if they're a professional framer? No guarantees! One of my recent headaches has been with the mysticism of how a crease has been caused in one of my prints that I've shipped out to somewhere for a sale or an exhibition. A print, that inevitably, I will have to pay to replace. Yawn and groan.

The first advice is to make sure that in your agreement with your gallery or agent, or whomever you are doing business with, that you request them to check the prints immediately upon arrival and report if there is anything wrong so that you can make a claim before the window of time runs out. Problem is, culpability might not ostensibly lay with the courier. You may have checked the print all over, handled it like a sacred feather and packaged it bulletproof. All it needs is one Customs officer to peel it open, unroll your latest nude and put a knock in it. If you haven't got sufficient evidence to make a courier claim, then you might have no choice but to pay out of the nose for a replacement.

You should also request that once the recipient confirms the safe arrival of the pristine prints, the responsibility of their safety and quality thereon is in their hands. So once they start shifting it around to the framer and back, they can't start moaning about creases appearing.

My other solution is the draw the line earlier on, much earlier:

10. Print locally… thousands of miles away

Tricky one, but very tempting when you’ve been in my shoes exhibiting abroad, and had prints rejected a few times. If you're working with an agent/gallerist you trust enough, then look into having the print done on their side. The good things about this: no shipping risk. No shipping cost, even, although printing prices might vary. But the best thing is that the gallery will oversee the print production, make the payment for it, and be responsible for passing their own hot potato from mounter to framer, to exhibition/client. Responsibility is entirely out of your hands. They'd need to pay to replace it in the case of any damage, and deal with the headache. They could still moan about resolution of files though, so watch out for that. Otherwise, it sounds utopic, but I don't imagine this agreement taking place very often. Most galleries expect the artists to pay for their print and ship it direct to their doors – even having to organise framing can be a pain for some, they want the artwork ready to go. So if you can wangle this arrangement, power to you!

My article may sound pessimistic. All this talk of creases in prints you haven’t even printed yet.

If you've never exhibited and would like to, you may be wondering if I'm off my trolley sounding so gloomy about the whole world of printing and exhibiting. Yes, it's nice and can be very profitable. But too many times, money has slipped unnecessarily down the drain, and I want to put advice out there to stop too much of yours slipping down there too. If you know in advance of the boring stuff, you’ll be less likely to have to deal with it. Disagreements have happened where none needed to be had. I should have asserted myself or asked more questions at times when I wrongly believed in someone else's competence. I should have had an agreement, or added a certain line to it, or made sure they actually read it.

The great thing is that with printing and exhibiting and selling art, it’s ok to make mistakes – as long as you set decent prices on your work, the profit margin drowns them out. And you’ll also learn from them. Win-win.

Good luck and thanks for reading! Please share the article if you found it useful.

This article is focused on print quality, but if you’re interested in reading more of my advice on agreements when it comes to exhibiting, there's a small section on it in the last chapter of my book Self-Portrait Photography (found on Amazon US and UK).