Hi Emily, First of all congrats on the extra, or "found" income. It is always nice when that happens. The truth is that as always the market is wide open. We don't often think this way - but someday one of the Keno (antique roadshow) brothers grand sons will evaluate an original photograph by the acclaimed sailing photographer Emily L. Ferguson!!! The print created by your hand will fetch some printsly (sorry) sum of $$$,$$$. Who will buy and keep your wonderful images once you have gone to the great beyond? This is where investing in oneself comes into play. The truth is her paintings of your photos are just a knockoff of your work. Sure it takes good blueprints to build an outstanding boat but it also takes craftsmanship, perseverance, and intimate knowledge of the subject. She does not have the skills to do the hard part, that is why she is relying on you. Remember anyone can trip a shutter, it takes a photographer to create an image. Building a need where there is none requires sales skills. We are all craftsmen at different levels within time. How well you sell has nothing to do with your capability with a camera as much as it does with inventing a need for others to buy your work. Along with that is the simple fact that you can sell 10000 cards or 5 custom made original prints of your creations, you decide. Would you like your images over the fireplace in the finest homes or stuck to the fridge? And I agree with you about Kincaid, as far as I am concerned he may as well be making Precious moments paintings. <The first is: <Why can't photographers get that kind of money for their work? Their <vision is just as essential to the success of the work, their skills <are different but equally disciplined and sophisticated. A fine <photograph can be printed that size and framed that luxuriously. So how about it, are there any monster prints for sale yet? Good luck and I want 10% cheerleader fees Les Baldwin -----Original Message----- From: owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Emily L. Ferguson Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 2:16 PM To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students Subject: How many times? This spring a woman who runs a new bookstore in Osterville found my photographs of the Wianno Seniors on the web. Osterville is where the shipyard is that designed and built the Wianno Seniors. They are a really local class and were born in this little village. So there is an 80 year love affair between those who summer in this village and these boats. And those who sail these boats are among the wealthiest class on the mid-Cape, and include the Kennedy clan. So the bookstore has been doing a pretty good bunch of sales of enlargements and notecards already, despite that the season doesn't really start until the kids get out of school. Now here is a new wrinkle. I was able to pay my RE taxes in May because of the bookstore's big pre-season order. But a woman who paints in oils came by the bookstore and contacted me about painting from the photographs. She has just signed a 3-year lease for a gallery space down the street from the bookstore. We struck a deal, mindful of my relationship with the bookstore, that she would pay me 15% of any sales she made of paintings that drew from a portfolio of 40-odd sailing images that I prepared for her. Her 4'x5' canvasses in wide gilt frames are priced at $2500 plus or minus. She has a nice bay window in which she places one of her large framed canvasses. So I get a phone call this afternoon and it's the painter. She's sold two of these big canvasses for around that price each. She's ecstatic that she's sold the paintings, and she's ecstatic to be able to tell me that she's sending me a check on Tuesday for almost the same amount as I get in rent from my tenant every month. Or I can come over and pick it up right now - a 25 minute drive one way. Now this is the life, for someone whose net taxable income last year was $6K, this could definitely be the life. Not being a painter, but a photographer, a couple of questions come to mind which I'd like to toss around with any of you who want to talk about them. The first is: Why can't photographers get that kind of money for their work? Their vision is just as essential to the success of the work, their skills are different but equally disciplined and sophisticated. A fine photograph can be printed that size and framed that luxuriously. Next question: How long can this woman go on painting from my images before she wears out her audience? Is there an infinite market for the same arrangment of sailboats, like in the image I put in the gallery this week? Is there always going to be another rich person who wants a grouping of sailboats heeling over and raising a nice bow wave for $2500 smackeroos to hang on the wall in his penthouse office high above Boston, or wherever? I think of the painters who do what she's doing, Michael Keane primarily, who are very successful. This guy is an honest painter, not like that Thomas Kinkaide guy who's trying to sell his inkjet prints for the same price that Keane sells his originals. Keane gathers his own material, it's locked into his spirit. He's coming from the same place I come from - the sea, boats, weather, beach, dune - all part and parcel of his spirit. And my little Osterville painter comes from there too, although she's not technically anywhere near Keane. So I'm slightly curious about whether she'll mature technically, or whether she'll ultimate come apart because she's not capable of being a Keane, sort of like I'm curious about whether I'll get as good as the photographers I admire, and figure out how to be a successful as they. But mostly I'm curious about just how big the market is for this sort of art. In this relationship I feel a bit like Gerald Moore, the accompanist of three generations of Lieder singers, include Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Without Moore, most of the singers would not have gone as far as they did. Without Dieter, Moore would have been the best accompanist in the world of Lieder, but Lieder wouldn't have become a major musical component of the classical music world in the sunset years of classical music in our culture. Do photographers make a living being accompanists? -- Emily L. Ferguson mailto:elf@xxxxxxxx 508-563-6822 New England landscapes, wooden boats and races, press photography http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf/
