Re: [Leica] Pricing pictures

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

This thread is getting quite weird, if I may be so blunt...

If one is in photography to feed oneself and family, then one should be
pricing ones work at what ever one can con the market into paying for
it. Period. If you can find people crazy enough to pay $17,000 to have
you shoot a wedding, for God's sake go for it, and don't do weddings for
all you can eat plus cab fare. If you can find someone who will pay
$2500 for your "silver print" of a bee pollinating a flower, grab it,
don't give the damn thing away.

On the other hand, if people will only pay $1250 for the wedding, and
you are in the business of making photos and need to eat, take what the
market will pay and try to get the market to pay more over time.

OTH - if you are simply an "artiste," then making money is nice, but
what is far more important is producing your art, and, hopefully, having
it appreciated by others.

B. D.

P. S. More power to Tina for being able to get those kinds of charges
for inkjet - pardon me - Piezography prints..;-)



Jem Kime wrote:
> 
> Mike,
> 
> While I agree with your sentiments about people being able to make enough
> money to live with. The intriguing part of your post was the line, "Let's
> not be Vincent Van Goghs".
> 
> And that, I suppose, is where the difference of opinion will be. Some
> people would like to be artists and produce their work irrespective of what
> the financial conequences will be. Definitely not good for them but then
> they're not so much concerned with making money, rather, making art.
> 
> At the end of your life, would you rather look back and be remembered as a
> Van Gogh or a Joe Bloe (that's Joe Bloe, the anonymous forgotten money
> maker, rather than any famous Joe Bloe, artist extrordinaire I've not heard
> of yet) ?
> 
> regards,
> Jem
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:   Miguel Gil [SMTP:dtt2150@hotmail.com]
> 
> I have friends who bust there humps off for $200 gigs.  Why do they do
> this,
> its not because they do not have talent, its because they do not have
> confidence in there talent.  I think even non-professional photographers
> should ask for top price.  Lets not be Vincent Van Goghs'.  Newspapers,
> magazines, book publishers are in the business of making money, a lot of
> money for their shareholders, how could they stay in business any other
> way.
>   Why should you help them make more money off your photography.
> 
> Mike Gil