Hi. I never was able to sell any of my prints so I have stopped attempting to. When you sell your selling price will have to cover your direct cost of making the print and also the indirect cost of the camera and printing equipment. Another cost is how much the accommodation you use. You also have to pay for your housing, your car, clothes, family and food, and luxuries such as TV and holidays. Also another cost is your savings, medical insurance and pension savings. The buyer has to consider what the print is worth to him. I suppose if he is a commercial user who wants to use your print in a publication or advertisement he can pay a higher price, if it is for any old bloke to hang on the wall that is another price. Another factor the buyer looks for is the rarity of the image. Another is the reputation of the artist. Then the value of the print is what the buyer and seller agree, known as the bargain. There is no absolute price to look up in a book. I would suggest that to pay your costs, as listed above, one print of about 10 x 8 inches would be anything from $60 to $5000. However, once you're dead the $10 print could sell for $10,000,000. I did notice that images of buildings in the area that are no longer present fetch quite high prices but day to day street scenes have no value at all. Mind you, if they are friends of yours, I suggest you ask a price that only covers your direct cost of making the prints. As I said nobody wants my prints so I recently put a quantity of mounted prints, once lovingly produced out for the rubbish collection and they charged $40 to take them away. I am about to scrap my whole collection of negatives as I have said and the Gentleman who requested I sent them to him has gone silent so I will probably scrap them next Wednesday with the trash collection. Incidentally I have asked that a local photographic dealer put my mother's old black and white negatives to CD, there were quite a lot, they wanted 50p a frame for the first 40 then 40 p a frame. The total cost was £100 (GBP) for the work. They go back to about 1924 so I would like to see what is on them. I suspect that most of the people in the frames have died. I think my mother's wedding pictures are there. I do not think the thousands of other frames that I took are worth preserving. Some important images captured in 1960-1969 were stolen some time ago and things that I took then are contentious as the people and events portrayed were said never to have happened. So they are lost forever now. It is possible that the thief, another photographer, has preserved them. I recall one sequence of frames on a monochrome film taken in 1969 shows a spot of light moving across the moon as the lunar module landed on the moon. I could see it in my rangefinder. I did not think it was valuable at the time but I took to the RPS but they did not want it so I took it to the science museum in London and they published it. It has featured in several books on space travel but the authorities rubbished my photo to say it was impossible but it is they only one. Some people here say the lunar landing never took place as the moon is just a light in the sky. So they have tried to destroy all evidence of the event. I have never received any income from the image. I suspect the science museum no longer have the image or a copy. The photograph is proof that the moon landing took place. I took it while standing just outside my back door using a hand held camera with telephoto lens. I have been pilloried for it. I was put on a course of tranquilizers and given electro shock therapy and pushed out my job at a space research station and false charges were brought against me. More recently the same thing happened when I took a picture of a "flying saucer" in the sky near my home recently. It was published in the local paper but men came and took the image file from me... I was given injections of an anti-psychotic and nearly all my money stolen. The newspaper denies the image ever existed. It is gone and forgotten forever! That is how the authorities maintain the status quo. Chris -----Original Message----- From: owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Lea Murphy Sent: 23 February 2011 17:06 To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students Subject: pricing prints to sell Question. Printed a bunch of images of trees in the fog. Paper size 8x10, images smaller within. Took them to coffee and showed them to friends. Many offered to buy prints. Two were very serious. I was totally unprepared and didn't quite know what to say so sort of stammered around and didn't say anything indicating a price. I'd love to sell some of these as I feel they are worthy of hanging on a wall. I am certain I'm not the only one here who has been in this situation. How have some of you handled this kind of situation? Lea your kids . my camera . we'll click www.leamurphy.com
