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Connie Fox

4 Years Ago

Paying Attention To What Actually Sells

Lately I've become more tuned in to what actually sells. I received on online ad from a boutique store (I'll mention the name later if allowed to), and they were offering art prints for under $100 each. I studied them all and realized that all but one or two were paintings. At least one was a photo of a beach (called "photo art") where the tide lapped the sand. It clearly had digital effects, but I thought it was nicely done. I have a few of those in my collections, too, and one was among my first sales.

One memorable eye-opener was an ad in a major décor-and-livestyle magazine for southerners. This straight-laced publication had published an ad (a photo) with digital effects, and I liked it! These two encounters are causing me to rethink what actually sells. It's a bit late for me to become a painter, and I'm pretty set in my ways in terms of what I like to photograph. But I'm thinking of taking a few more risks and not doing quite so much "straight photography." I might be more prone to enhance it tastefully. What do you think?

Most important, what is actually selling--and how can we adapt, especially if we're older now, less able to get around quickly, and (worse!) set in our ways?

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Mary Bedy

4 Years Ago

Connie, been there, done that and posted here about it too. I, too, like my "straight" photography and it's still my favorite way to work, but I've loosened up quite a bit and have heavily filtered some scanned film shots and saved them that way. I kind of like them too, but I've not sold one of those yet. Everything I've sold has been of the "straight" variety, except one that had a watercolor filter on it.

If nothing else, it allows you to play a little bit. I've gotten some good feedback on some of the digitally altered stuff, but like I said, have only sold that one so far.

Of course, I'm not a big seller here (about one a month or a little less), so I can't really go by my own experience until I start selling more often. Then maybe I'll see a trend in my own work.

EDIT - ok, I've sold two "altered" photos. I forgot about the one I sold to another member here.

 

Floyd Snyder

4 Years Ago

In almost all of the galleries I show in, paintings outsell photography at least two to one.

I am the exception in a couple of them because I am listed as a photographer but about half of what I sell are actually digital paintings that started out as photographs and then digitally tweaked to look more like paintings.

I have four photographs that have not been digitally enhanced that are among my very best sellers. All of my other top sellers are photos that have digitally enhanced.

With the software like Topaz and a dozen others, there is no reason to be just a photographer.

Be prepared if you sell in local galleries to get some push back from people that are just painters.

When I look at your gallery Connie, I see a lot of great images that would also make great digital paintings. I see no reason not to offer both versions for sale.

 

Val Arie

4 Years Ago

Hi Connie,

Go for it! It is too hard to figure out what sells, but digitally enhanced photography does so if it is something you enjoy...why not?







 

Mary Bedy

4 Years Ago

Floyd, that's interesting. I have one photo posted with a digitally "painted" version right next to the "straight" version and I've gotten about the same amount of comments on both images. And they are right next to each other.

I guess that means, it's a matter of taste and taste on the matter may be evenly split.

 

Jessica Jenney

4 Years Ago

Photos that look like snapshots probably don't sell as well as images that are edited. They are not eye-catching. I don't mean heavy editing but images that reflect a certain style. There are also trends in the decor market. I personally don't follow the trends in my work and I don't like to copy the styles of others.

 

Diana Angstadt

4 Years Ago

Most of my over 4,000 images are digitally enhanced in various degrees. I like making my photos look almost like paintings. They definitely sell. In cases where I do night photography, i usually do not digitally enhance those much, except for perhaps brightening and saturating the colors. I would imagine there is a taste for everything out there.

 

Mary Bedy

4 Years Ago

Well, Jessica, I think we're talking more about "heavy" editing and filtering, etc. I think almost everybody does edit for skewed views, straightening, bumping up contrast and maybe the color and selectively changing the contrast in certain portions of the image, and getting rid of distracting small items. I think Connie is talking about making "painterly" and other versions out of an otherwise "regular" photograph.

 

Mike Savad

4 Years Ago

if your always chasing trends, you'll never have the right work. i will keep making my work a certain way. there are trends, then they die. they come and go too fast for anyone to keep up. and i'll never be a trend setter. if people like the work and they have actual money, then they may buy it. that's all i can do.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

 

Jessica Jenney

4 Years Ago

Yes, Mary I understood. I was talking about more than the normal edits.

 

Mary Bedy

4 Years Ago

Yeah there are a lot of "snap shots" posted. Some people have a hard time distinguishing that from something someone may want to hang on a wall. I was in a camera club with one such person. He shot anything and everything indiscriminately and it was all pretty blah.

 

Abbie Shores

4 Years Ago

Instead of chasing trends, get the best at what you enjoy doing, and then you become the trend.

 

Nicole Marti

4 Years Ago

Personally I like the look of blended photos and collages where the photo blends into the art. But I am new to all of this and haven’t even figured out what I’m going to focus on. Don’t sacrifice what you love doing though!

 

Lise Winne

4 Years Ago

I am NOT making art that is trendy in the least, and I have a hard time getting into a lot of galleries with my present work, but when I do get in, it sells pretty well (go figure). I got inspired by Renaissance art recently, and particularly millefleurs, and hardly anyone is doing it, or even thinking about doing it, and that's why I like it.

By the time you have a body of work that conforms to a trend, the trend is passe.

I'd just do what you love. And play a lot to discover.

Trends get started by people who aren't following a trend.

 

Doug Swanson

4 Years Ago

There's a long standing schism in the photo world as to whether cameras were intended to "capture reality" or whether they're just a starting point for a created image. I have to admit that I really don't understand the reality thing myself. I have enough tech background to realize that a camera NEVER captures reality. It's like Plato's cave. In the case of a photograph, it's a 3D "reality" constrained to a 2D rectangle with a limited span of color and dynamics and movement frozen into a fraction of a second. It's recreated either on a screen or print and those have their own set of limitations in addition to the ones imposed by the image capture and its subsequent editing. It's never even close to actual reality, so why even bother with that.

Having seen countless movies in my life as part of an avocation as a movie reviewer, I take my hints there. It's a plausible image, made plausible by whatever artificial means are at my disposal, kinda like shooting a rainforest in a Hollywood back lot. Yeah, it's an illusion but then buyers were not there when I took the shot, so they have no reference point for authenticity, only believability. Aside from court evidence or legal documentation, I can see no reason for claiming any sort of truth in an image. The actual question is whether it looks good over the couch, whether you like it and whether you can see yourself in the picture...all very subjective factors with nothing hinting at literal truth, whatever that is.

 

Mary Bedy

4 Years Ago

That's a good take on it, Doug.

I just went out to catch another freighter (I've collected a bunch of them) and I went through the mall here and shot one of my absolute favorite things - bits of geometric architecture. Whenever I see someone doing that same sort of thing, I always leave them a comment because I'm really drawn to that - like triangles, rectangles, shadows, geometric abstract shapes. IT FELT GOOD, which I think sometimes is a reward in itself. Nobody has bought one of those from me yet, but maybe, eventually.....

 

I agree with what Mike and Abbie said. Lots of what is advertised, or what seems popular, is just what "they" are trying to push on folks. Creating trends...

It doesn't surprise me at all that paintings outsell photos in galleries. Folks tend to like the idea of creating an image by hand and feel a greater inherent value to them. I know I do.

 

Mike Savad

4 Years Ago

i remember when blue prints were really the thing to have, and everyone sold them. and then i don't see it come up nearly as often now. when i was a kid there were these dinosaur shirts, with a definition on it, and i saw those everywhere, and then not. i think some things sell only because there is a movie or a show that is pushing that theme. like i bet vampire art did well when all those buffy movies came out. and i know the notredam pictures did well for about 3 days before people forgot it happened. i was a few days too late on that one.

as far as paintings vs photos doing better. if you ask a painter, its the photographer that wins. if you ask a photographer, its the painter that sells more.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

 

Connie Fox

4 Years Ago

Lots of good observations here. I appreciate all of your comments.

When I said I've become more tuned in, it's really just a raised awareness. I'll stick with my style of photography, which I try to keep improving--but will probably add more creativity and artsy-looking work. (The magazine ad made me feel more free to do so; interesting to see changes there.) Maybe the same work but two versions (at times) as suggested. If there's going to be any trend-setting, I'd rather be the one setting it by simply being myself.

Mary, I like Doug's take on it too. Our trip to Alaska proved to me once and for all how limited our cameras are in capturing what we see. So whether I'm sticking to basic processing or doing something more artistic, my objective is to capture more accurately (in my mind) what I saw and felt in that moment--and convey it to the viewer. Whether they see it or like it or not is up to them. I have two checks to deposit, but this will remain a hobby.

I showed my handyman the two canvases I hung in a room and explained how I had turned old film snapshots into art that looks like paintings. (My first orders of mirrored canvas prints turned out beautifully. Thank you, FAA.) His comment: His uncle does the same thing, but he paints them. (I'm laughing!)

 

Mary Bedy

4 Years Ago

Yeah that's funny, Connie. There may be more talent needed to be a good painter (and I say that because I used to be a traditional oil painter nowhere near as good as some people here), but being consistently good at photography is not just being able to hit the shutter button. We do need SOME talent :-) (or at least training/practice).

 

Abbie Shores

4 Years Ago

The worse thing that ever happened to art, was the premise that we are all good at it. Especially photography. I just don't think it's true any more and it's disappointed way too many people who believed it

 

Mike Savad

4 Years Ago

anyone with a camera and a filter think they are the masters of photography now. hoping eventually people will figure out that their own so called art isn't great and will go back to buy the real stuff.

----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

 

Dora Hathazi Mendes

4 Years Ago

whats worse when they use some filters on photos and called them and list them as paintings... so they think they are painters now, and make the viewer and buyer believe what they see are actually painting. Sometimes is never mentioned in description that it is a digital painting, or photo manipulation, just listed as painting, and sometimes you can see only at keywords it is digital art, digital, or even nothing. They share them on SM as paintings and receive comments as what a wonderful watercolors etc and sell them as that etc..

I love to see digital art, and filtered photo art , and I think wow lots of times because I dont have idea how to do that, but dont like this type of adaptation. they should be never listed as painting, but digital art or photoart whatever.

when you search for a keyword and filter you want to see only paintings , you see more digital photo manipulation than actual paintings. and i think is misleading

Above that I agree everybody should do what they feel like, to follow or not to follow trends. But if they start to turn their photos to digital watercolors in hope selling paintings now, it should be clear that how it was made, not with brush on paper on canvas etc.

Maybe the filters are not correct in this time. Maybe be would be better called them photography, digital art, traditional art



 

Yuri Tomashevi

4 Years Ago

I started to digitally enhance my photos just recently. Now my abstract photographs are in a front of my website. So far I never used so called "painterly filters".

As to for what is selling - everybody has its own anecdotal experience. Only people with massive sales of both paintings and photos (Floyd, etc) could provide some statistics. But even in that case this statistics will be applicable just to specific styles. FAA as a site has much more trust-able statistics on paintings and photos sales but we would never know it.

Anyway - digitally enhanced photos are accepted by society everywhere. Even at Sony photography awards. You could find heavy digitally altered photographs among Sony competition winners - even in a standard category (like Landscape).

 

Janine Riley

4 Years Ago

Art is what pulls out the emotion and tugs at the heart.
Whatever means it takes you to portray what you feel is what you should be pursuing.

If it does not feel authentic, then don't pursue it.

There should be enough of the easy Picasa / Photoscape free online editors that you can play with a bit to amp up your work and see how that feels to you.
The possibilities are endless . You don't even have to leave home today and have a full gallery of work that you can play with.
What could be better on a rainy day.

I do agree with Dora - but the purchaser typically just does not care- they just like what they see . If they wanted an original they would pursue it.

the how to's and why for's seem to be necessary for our satisfaction .


 

Floyd Snyder

4 Years Ago

I agree, a whole lot of buyers simply do not care how it was created as long as they like it.

But there is still this feeling in a lot of people that painting is superior to photography.

I have sat in enough galleries in recent times and in years past and talked to enough people to witness this bias first hand. If photography seems to be winning the day, especially on a site like FAA it is simply because it is much, much easier to bring photography to the marketplace then it is a painting. That is not the case in a lot of galleries because photographers are not allowed or are limited in many galleries.

Not long ago I was meeting people in one of the galleries I show in and a couple of gals were all over this piece that I had hanging on the wall. They were just going crazy over it and I was standing over to the side and just watching and listening to them. They just kept going on and on about what a great "painting" it was. It said right on the price tag that it was a digitally enhanced photograph but they don't read.

I finally approached them and introduced my self as the person that did the work. They immediately started talking about what a great painting it was and I had to interrupt them and tell them it was not a painting but a digitally enhanced photograph. The first thing out of the one gal's mouth that had been doing most of the talking was, "Oh, It's only a photograph"?

I can't tell you how many times in the last 3 or so years since I started showing in galleries again and in years past that I have heard these sort of comments from people. Some people will still go ahead and buy the "only a photograph". Most will not.

The people I like the most are the people that simply do not care one way or the other and there seems to be plenty of them out there.

 

Mary Bedy

4 Years Ago

That's a good example, Floyd. It has taken quite a while for strictly digital art to find respect. I've seen tons of straight digital art, both realistic and abstract here that I would LOVE to have on my wall. But of course, I guess I'm part of the "choir" here, so to speak.

But it's true most people now don't care about the method if they connect to the image.

 

Connie Fox

4 Years Ago

Dora, just for the record, I list everything I do as a photograph--for that's how everything starts out. Even something done on a scanner is a photograph, for that's what a scanner does. In the description I tell the extent to which it was enhanced and often mention, when it applies, that it's a photo that looks like a painting.

Floyd, it may be important to some gallery buyers that their traditional artwork (i.e. an original painting) could appreciate in value. If Grandma Moses or Norman Rockwell had been photographers, one can only imagine how that might have affected the history of art. Likewise, if Ansel Adams had been a painter. I have no doubt they would have all been good at what they did, but look what happened when they stuck with what they did best.

I bought a painting half a century ago from a sidewalk artist in Scottsdale. The painter let this impoverished student have it for $10. Two years ago I googled his name and determined it was a good investment and (in my opinion) his best Arizona painting. Mostly I love it because of the story behind it and the memories of living there when Scottsdale was "the West's Most Western Town." We even had hitching posts for our horses, and if my parents truly loved me they would have bought me one. :-)

 

Damir Martic

4 Years Ago

I have to agree with Dora, i don’t like when people juse filtera on photo and then callit digital painting, it is digital art not digital painting, and i see that alot not just on FFA. I do digital painting sometikes photomanipulation but they are like day and night i hope people understand that. There is still stigma that digital painting is somethinf easy fo create, but it is not, i draw on my ipad and you need skills in tradicional art first, you need skill in everthing but one thing is to juse filter with one click on the mouse and another thing is draw something on your tablet it takes more time and skills. But i feel like older people still have some reservation about digital painting thats way younger people are more open for this new media of art. I hope this will change.

 

Abbie Shores

4 Years Ago

One of the artists was accused of filtering a photograph in our contest. People do not always believe it when it IS a painting. https://youtu.be/hZinz5yjQCI

 

Mike Savad

4 Years Ago

people call my work a painting all the time. its become such a habit i decided not to shame them and say its a photo. i had one guy argue with me that it is a painting, and it took a bit to convince him otherwise. it says photograph a number of times on that page - no one notices a thing.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

 

Bradford Martin

4 Years Ago

I see little point in creating for sales trends. That is the total opposite of what an artist or photographer should be doing. Yes if someone is paying you, go for it. To compete successfully one needs to be special, if not unique. To be special one needs to spend a lot of time mastering what they do. Because it is very hard to compete with something that takes both skill and originality. One will spend more times doing something if they enjoy it. And if they spend more time they will be very good and have the skills to fulfil their creative intent. And if you are good people will notice. And if they notice, they will buy.

If you enjoy creating a new work from your photos just do it. Go ahead and take some risks.

As for me I like to work with what the camera captured and make numerous edits to make it more the way I saw it. I am not above a few white lies. But I like to say all my work is photo documentation. That is my brand, my stock in trade and there will always be a market for it. I may change the sky tint a bit or blur the background, but nothing too substantial in content and I try and keep it believable. I don't stick to the rules for court evidence or even editorial but I don't stray too far either. I do like Topaz products and maybe if I found the right one I might try some other things. But for my enjoyment, not to chase trends.

 

David Smith

4 Years Ago

In regards to the difference in relative values between painting and photography.

Back in 2003 a friend rented his studio to an art consultant who was giving seminars to collectors on how to buy photographic prints.

Neither of them were particularly tech savvy at the time so I came in with my laptop and digital project to run the powerpoint presentation.

The consultant pointed out that paintings would always be more valuable because they were always one of a kind and, with the exception of people like Mark Kostabi, done by the hand of the artist.

Photographic print values were affected by various factors like how close the print was made relative to the image being captured, how many prints were in existence, whether it was part of a limited edition or open if the photographer was living or dead, etc.

Tis particular consultant recommended only buying chemical prints that were personally made by the photographer in limited editions of 25 or less for investment purposes.

 

Floyd Snyder

4 Years Ago

Photos, especiallon paper, are not consided permantate vs oils for instance.

That too has a lot to do with value.

The argument of photographs not even being considered art by so many people, like it or not, will always have a negative influence on values.

 

Yuri Tomashevi

4 Years Ago

An important component is user perception ...

A search in Google on "abstract paintings" returned 423K. A search in Google on "abstract photographs" returned 440K. - Almost equal numbers.

But .... "abstract painting sold" returned 95600 while "abstract photograph sold" returned only 7 results!!! That means in "abstract art" area people (and businesses) are buying many-many times more abstract paintings than abstract photographs.

 

Doug Swanson

4 Years Ago

In most things in life, "value" is as directly related to scarcity as it is to merit. There's no way around the fact that, even the best photo in all of existence is infinitely replicable, unlike the Mona Lisa. A stroke-perfect, authentic material replicant of the Mona Lisa might be an interesting novelty, but it would not be the priceless cultural artifact that the original is. The original is priceless because it's carefully documented and not one of the artificially aged imitations.

It's obvious to me that the whole sense of value in images is under revision in recent years since there's not as strong a correlation between effort and product for digital images. Not only do people "digitally paint", but they copy, purloin and otherwise duplicate items that might be considered unique. Brand names, copyrights, etc, are all at risk. Stolen images are everywhere.

The other side of the argument is that, while a digital image is easily printed, nobody except the creator has any idea how much went into creating it. A photog might reject 500 images for each one that makes the cut, there's the physical effort and risk of getting that image and then there's editing...all that stuff that doesn't look like Van Gogh standing in front of an easel. Digital images are a variation on the work that Monet could not have imagined in his dreams.

I think all this is fascinating because I don't think any of us knows where it ends. Replicability already exists, actual painting devoid of digital FX is a shrinking niche, printers, both 2 and 3D are here and only will get better and cheaper. Aside from documentable uniqueness in individual items, everything can be re-created and it's only going to get cheaper and easier.

 

This discussion is closed.