le vrai rdu
Well-known
here are some of them, for obvious reasons, I cannot scan the wider ones 
my flatbed scan is a bit dusty :/
my flatbed scan is a bit dusty :/
Rayt
Nonplayer Character
At least today you have the internet where you can market your prints through your home page, forums like this and blogs. I tried selling prints 20 years ago by hanging samples in SF Bay Area coffee shops with a clear focus on a niche subject matter but generated very few interest. They weren't pictures of the bridge either. Good luck to you!
Al Kaplan
Veteran
The Vintage Factor
The Vintage Factor
Somebody sees one of your old images and wants to buy a print. You offer to make one, an 8x12 image on 11x14 paper for $350. Sounds fair! Yet they'll complain about the price, too high.
Tell them that the print he's looking at, the print in his hands, you printed way back in 1968, shortly after you'd shot it, and that you'd printed it on the legendary DuPont Varilour paper.
Suddenly it's no longer a print from an old negative. It's now a "vintage print". Instead of "What? $350 for THIS?" it becomes "That's all? You should be charging a lot more than $350 for these!"
Or like my son keeps telling me, "Pop, I'll pay for the chemicals and the paper. You should be out in your darkroom every day printing up your old stuff. Those prints will be worth a fortune when you're dead!"
Whenever you make a great print, you get the dodging and burning just tight, go ahead and make ten of them. Your kids just might love you after all. Too bad we have to die first. :angel:
The Vintage Factor
Somebody sees one of your old images and wants to buy a print. You offer to make one, an 8x12 image on 11x14 paper for $350. Sounds fair! Yet they'll complain about the price, too high.
Tell them that the print he's looking at, the print in his hands, you printed way back in 1968, shortly after you'd shot it, and that you'd printed it on the legendary DuPont Varilour paper.
Suddenly it's no longer a print from an old negative. It's now a "vintage print". Instead of "What? $350 for THIS?" it becomes "That's all? You should be charging a lot more than $350 for these!"
Or like my son keeps telling me, "Pop, I'll pay for the chemicals and the paper. You should be out in your darkroom every day printing up your old stuff. Those prints will be worth a fortune when you're dead!"
Whenever you make a great print, you get the dodging and burning just tight, go ahead and make ten of them. Your kids just might love you after all. Too bad we have to die first. :angel:
le vrai rdu
Well-known
with my only 24 years, it will be hard to say I have "vintage pictures from the good old days"
JohnTF
Veteran
Nothing is easy, bit like fishing, the results are yet to be realized. I have bought several other photographer's works, and have exchanged with friends.
Framing has become expensive, more perhaps than the print today, unless you can cut your own mats and put it all together-- plus there are many wrong ways to frame and few right ways.
I have generally two prices for prints, $150 and free. If I had an exhibit, I would follow the local guidelines. $150 is low, but I am surely not an established photographer with any collector appeal nor do I expect to ever have more than a local following if any.
This is $150 to me. In a gallery, that is the minimum at which I would part with a print, less than that someone does not care for it enough. Gallery profit and framing in addition, probably bringing the price up to $350 and tax, still a great bargain, if they don't sell I would raise the price, it works.
Selling fine prints, unless the photographer is established, is difficult I think now because of an overload of material out there, and certainly it is difficult to judge a print for purchase from a screen.
The general population do not seem to understand the difference between a fine print and a snap, so they are often not respected. Even a good friend who accidentally ruined a borrowed fine mounted print simply suggested I just run off another.
If, for example, I see a print offered by Ctein, or locally by Herb Ascherman, I know the quality will be far better than anything I see on the screen and up to gallery standards. I know their work.
I have spent time in Paris, if you can afford it, I would recommend you find a restaurant or cafe that might hang your work and with some publicity you might gain your modest goals in one night. It would certainly be a venue to boost your on line reputation.
I agree on keeping your prints modestly priced at this time, and I would stress the hand crafted silver gelatin aspect along with archival processing, and I am sure you know the prints need to be good. It would not hurt to have them looked over by someone who knows prints.
I decided on another career to support any photography I care to do, because it is an extremely fickle environment in which to earn sufficient money from fine print sales to support any kind of life style, especially where I live. Commercial work is another thing, but the niche is still small.
That said, a good night at an exhibit in a cafe might achieve your entirely reasonable immediate expectations and I hope to see a post validating those wishes.
Reputation is quite normally slowly built, but if someone will not pay your asking prices, I would not want them to have one of your prints.
Do not worry about the wording of your posts, I am sure we know you speak one more language than most, and you might always have your copy proof read. Il n'y a pas de problem, vraiment. I must download a spell check in French. ;-)
Regards, John
Framing has become expensive, more perhaps than the print today, unless you can cut your own mats and put it all together-- plus there are many wrong ways to frame and few right ways.
I have generally two prices for prints, $150 and free. If I had an exhibit, I would follow the local guidelines. $150 is low, but I am surely not an established photographer with any collector appeal nor do I expect to ever have more than a local following if any.
This is $150 to me. In a gallery, that is the minimum at which I would part with a print, less than that someone does not care for it enough. Gallery profit and framing in addition, probably bringing the price up to $350 and tax, still a great bargain, if they don't sell I would raise the price, it works.
Selling fine prints, unless the photographer is established, is difficult I think now because of an overload of material out there, and certainly it is difficult to judge a print for purchase from a screen.
The general population do not seem to understand the difference between a fine print and a snap, so they are often not respected. Even a good friend who accidentally ruined a borrowed fine mounted print simply suggested I just run off another.
If, for example, I see a print offered by Ctein, or locally by Herb Ascherman, I know the quality will be far better than anything I see on the screen and up to gallery standards. I know their work.
I have spent time in Paris, if you can afford it, I would recommend you find a restaurant or cafe that might hang your work and with some publicity you might gain your modest goals in one night. It would certainly be a venue to boost your on line reputation.
I agree on keeping your prints modestly priced at this time, and I would stress the hand crafted silver gelatin aspect along with archival processing, and I am sure you know the prints need to be good. It would not hurt to have them looked over by someone who knows prints.
I decided on another career to support any photography I care to do, because it is an extremely fickle environment in which to earn sufficient money from fine print sales to support any kind of life style, especially where I live. Commercial work is another thing, but the niche is still small.
That said, a good night at an exhibit in a cafe might achieve your entirely reasonable immediate expectations and I hope to see a post validating those wishes.
Reputation is quite normally slowly built, but if someone will not pay your asking prices, I would not want them to have one of your prints.
Do not worry about the wording of your posts, I am sure we know you speak one more language than most, and you might always have your copy proof read. Il n'y a pas de problem, vraiment. I must download a spell check in French. ;-)
Regards, John
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Ronald M
Veteran
Journeyman beat me to it. DRY `EM FIRST
le vrai rdu
Well-known
some more
imajypsee
no expiration date
I wanted to buy one of your prints
I wanted to buy one of your prints
and I recall you didn't have a process set up at the time; so, summer travel and a commission job has kept me busy. My mail on Flickr has your price and so on.. I'll get back to you on the details, but my advice would be to join one of the online selling communities like Etsy where your audience would be more focused on buying.
I think your work is outstanding. My guess is that you'll have a good future in photography. Try sending work to some print publications so you can build a following. You're young yet and with your good eye there's lots for you to see.
And, to the fellow who says photographers don't buy the work of other photographers, NOT so. Buying from "unknown" photographers is a passion of mine. My walls are filled with my purchases.
I wanted to buy one of your prints
and I recall you didn't have a process set up at the time; so, summer travel and a commission job has kept me busy. My mail on Flickr has your price and so on.. I'll get back to you on the details, but my advice would be to join one of the online selling communities like Etsy where your audience would be more focused on buying.
I think your work is outstanding. My guess is that you'll have a good future in photography. Try sending work to some print publications so you can build a following. You're young yet and with your good eye there's lots for you to see.
And, to the fellow who says photographers don't buy the work of other photographers, NOT so. Buying from "unknown" photographers is a passion of mine. My walls are filled with my purchases.
wjlapier
Well-known
Yep...I buy from other photographers all the time.
What are your prices in USD? How would you ship to the US?
A wet print ( silver gelatin ) I'll take anyday.
I say it's a good idea to raise money to travel using your craft. Good luck!
What are your prices in USD? How would you ship to the US?
A wet print ( silver gelatin ) I'll take anyday.
I say it's a good idea to raise money to travel using your craft. Good luck!
le vrai rdu
Well-known
Today I was asked to mak two wet prints on Ilford multigrade IV FB Fiber Mat, I asked 80€ each print, I deliver them next week
Quite glad to be able to sell my pictures
Quite glad to be able to sell my pictures
JohnTF
Veteran
Today I was asked to mak two wet prints on Ilford multigrade IV FB Fiber Mat, I asked 80€ each print, I deliver them next week
Quite glad to be able to sell my pictures
No request for French Paper? ;-) I used to use it when Fred Picker sold it.
I brought some home from Paris, was hard to find at the time.
John
le vrai rdu
Well-known
hummmmmmmmmmmmm ?
Didn't caught the meaning of your post
what do you mean by "french paper" ? newspaper ?
I sold it to a guy I know on a french forum
Didn't caught the meaning of your post
what do you mean by "french paper" ? newspaper ?
I sold it to a guy I know on a french forum
JazzMess
Newbie
Just bought a couple of 40x50 prints from him, honestly I find the prints of the highest quality
Hope that helps !
Hope that helps !
Al Kaplan
Veteran
40?x50? Inches, centimeters, millimeters?
le vrai rdu
Well-known
centimeters of course
le vrai rdu
Well-known
My two first prints to be sold are ready to dry for a long night
I you want some, ask me Handcraft wet prints
I you want some, ask me
Handcraft wet prints
JohnTF
Veteran
hummmmmmmmmmmmm ?
Didn't caught the meaning of your post
what do you mean by "french paper" ? newspaper ?
I sold it to a guy I know on a french forum
No, not at all, not even a French Letter. ;-)
Bergger made the early Zone VI paper sold by Picker + paper under their name, stopped production for a while, and began again. I thought they were still in production, I believe they said they are the oldest producer of silver gelatin paper?
I almost never saw it in Paris, I think it was sold in green boxes?
Odeon Photo had Agfa, Ilford, Kodak, but no Bergger. I found it at a shop in the north of Paris, along with some warm tone Oriental Seagull.
Found it, www.Bergger.com
Excellent gallery on line, btw, looks as if they have some fine products as well.
Regards, John
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le vrai rdu
Well-known
Ah yep
I buy in photostock, there is less and less "exotic products" mostly Ilford paper now
I buy in photostock, there is less and less "exotic products" mostly Ilford paper
now le vrai rdu
Well-known
Well, in france Bergger propose only : multigrade glossy (i hate glossy) and mongrade mate, and I prefer to have a multigrade paper
uhligfd
Well-known
I found your title "SELLING WET PRINTS" somewhat funny: why not dry the prints before you sell them, I thought ... What would be the harm in drying them yourself?