Are you one of the purchasers of Phil Rosenberg's Keck Observatory print?
As you may recall, purchasing that print came with an offer of participation in a Reader Print Sale, the winner of which will also receive a free week at a luxury condo in Hawaii just down the road from Phil Rosenberg's Kona coffee farm. (The hope is that your earnings from the print sale will help offset the expenses of getting there!)
I've just emailed the details of the contest to the 204 buyers of the print. If you expected to be notified but haven't been, please check your spam folder. If you can't find the email, contact me (see "Contact" in the right-hand sidebar) and I'll resend it to you.
The notification came from a gmail account that I don't use regularly, so please don't respond to that account.
What to choose?
Choosing a picture as a candidate for a sale might be new to some readers. Will C. wrote, "I was wondering if you can share any wisdom about the types of prints that do well in your sales. Obviously cat photos, but do readers trend toward rustic farm machinery, action shots, or insect macros or something else entirely? I ask because looking at what I’ve purchased, there’s really no rhyme or reason for what I’ve bought beyond 'I love Ctein’s color work, and Carl’s platinum prints speak to me.' And to note that the Keck looks astounding on the wall of my three-year-old daughter’s room."
The answer, if there is one, is to consider the audience—the people who read TOP. We're all photographers, and we all already have our own work. So the picture really can't be a "standard scenic" or just a technically excellent print—that won't be enough for TOP readers, because we all already have good pictures we've taken ourselves. What have you done that will make other photographers say "I wish I'd taken that" rather than "I have taken that"?
And as to what those are, well, it helps if you're in the habit of showing your work to other people, either directly or virtually. After you do that for a while, you start to get a sense of what other people respond to. If you're not in that habit, well, you're a TOP reader—just ask yourself how your picture would strike you if you saw it offered for sale by someone else. Would you say "I wish I'd taken that"?
Mike
Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
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A couple of questions if I may. You have in the past recommended a photolab/printer in Massachusetts (somewhere outside Boston if I recall) can you remind us who that is? What is the requirement if any for a model release form for the (potential) print sale? I have a subway shot I am thinking of submitting where one individual features prominently.
Thank you.
Posted by: Michel | Monday, 01 December 2014 at 02:23 PM