Question for all about becoming a postcard photographer

italy74

italy74

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Hi guys
in a world where everything seems already available "here and now" and where everyone has a p/s to get beautiful pictures of the places visited, looking at some slides I took of my town (not that "perfect" compared to digital images where everything can be corrected later) some said: "why don't you try to propose them as postcards?"
The question is "Ok, it could even be, let's suppose they are fine until a 5 x 7 print .. but how?" Anyone of you has experience of pro / cons of such a work?
Down you see one of the galleries I like: not all are suitable but some could.
Thanks for your advice in advance

http://italy74.smugmug.com/gallery/5753803_FdNYa
 
Do people buy postcards any more?

I see tourists ignoring stands of fading postcards and avoiding the hassle of buying the correct stamp etc., and just MMS'ing from their Nokia.

Also we all know that postcards sent from PIGS* will never ever reach their destination.


*PIGS is Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain.
 
I've toyed with since I read that Stephen Shore slipped some of his pictures as postcards in amongest those on offer in some shops. It struck me as a neat way of spreading your stuff about . I've looked around the net for some blanks with the normal postcard blurb on the back that I could be print, but never found anything that seemed to fit the bill. There are plenty of places that'll make you postcards but I wanted soemthing a bit smaller in scale.

You can buy postcard size paper but the reviews i read suggested its a bit thin. My reseach was rather vague so someone else may well be better qualified to advise you.
 
ClaremontPhoto said:
Do people buy postcards any more?

I see tourists ignoring stands of fading postcards and avoiding the hassle of buying the correct stamp etc., and just MMS'ing from their Nokia.

Also we all know that postcards sent from PIGS* will never ever reach their destination.


*PIGS is Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain.
Click to expand...

The postcards seem to just sit fading in the stands these days, but the calendars seen to still sell OK, and they look to use the same photos.

The trouble is anywhere that’s got a good footfall already has one, usually taken in 1962 however
 
Hi guys
probably you're right and less people than in the past use postcards nowadays (while I'm not sure about the PIGS thing LOL since a friend of mine just received my postcard from Amalfi (southern Italy) in UZBEKISTAN (!). I hope snail mail has improved over the years..
Aside from that, if any of you has (or had) direct experience about what I could encounter (also in terms of money paid for image, or % on images sold, no idea how it works at all) it would be really helpful.
Here's my friend Jenneva in Uzbekistan 🙂
001T051s7KS.jpg
 
There's a lady here...

There's a lady here...

in NE Ohio that has done the postcard thing for years. Covered bridges, shoreline shots, sunsets; touristy stuff for sure, but passable quality.

From what I've seen at local tourist traps, she doesn't move a ton of them. I wouldn't bank on it feeding the family.

FWIW, I sold 4X6 mounted to 5X7 and the occasional 8X10 to 11X14 matted/framed color/bw shots of the same kitch at these same antique dealer/farm stand/coffee shop venues. Like the fella' in the above post said: it'll get your stuff out there. A do-able, but not lucrative biz. Samples attached.Ashtabula Lift Bridge.jpg

Madison Christmas.jpg

Jo
 
Dino:


I looked into it a few years back.

Sales of the finished product are falling.

The photos are often many many years old, like 30 years or more, and the photographer was paid a fixed fee which is not very much.

There are specialist postcard printing companies, although I think the minimum order is something such as 1000 cards and the unit price is too high to make resale a viable proposition.

As said upthread you can go guerrilla and make up your own cards and put them in shops discreetly. I once did this for a friend's magazine. It gets your product out there but there is no income at all.
 
I really can't remember the last time I BOUGHT a postcard! The last few times I sent them, I got them free at the hotel desk or else found them in the hotel room. However, if postcards did not sell at all, the racks of them would quickly disappear.

One of my girlfriends has been trying to talk me into producing postcards and calendars for maybe 5 years now. I considered it, but when I looked into the practicality of it, it would be a lot of work for very little return. First of all, the market for "independent" calendars seems to be very saturated, at least around here, and those that are stocked seem to be very heavily photoshopped, which is not my style at all!

At a recent art fair, it seemed like everybody and their brother and sister were all selling photo calendars!

As for postcards, I agree that the market is shrinking. Plus that, hotels and merchants frequently give them away. Ditto with many of the recent ones looking like they are heavily post-processed.

As said upthread you can go guerrilla and make up your own cards and put them in shops discreetly. I once did this for a friend's magazine. It gets your product out there but there is no income at all.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm ... interesting concept.

However, thinking back to a conversation I had with a shop owner a few years ago, these "ringer" products would not have a UPC code and would not scan at the register. Yes, they could key manually, but it would attract the clerks' attention.
 
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