North Stars

Posted on January 25, 2012 by

In the fine art photography series that I teach, new artists often tell me that they are following my work, but wonder whose work I follow. It’s a great question and one that I can answer easily. But, before I do, let’s examine the concept of followers.

All of us follow someone at some time. In childhood, this is usually our parents or older siblings. In our teen years, it may be a valued teacher and or a sports or entertainment icon. Our individual faiths engender followers with an even deeper faith and commitment to spiritual excellence. Young business people follow other business leaders whose products or services change world values, and artists follow other artists whose works profoundly affect style of thematic revelation.

These are the North Stars of our lives, bright points of light to which we align our own compass and this North Star metaphor, is particularly true in the arts. Art leaders lead through creative influence, skills training, and mentoring. As new artists, we often mimic our leaders until we break out with our own style, story, and themes. Eugène Boudin who was 15 years older than Monet, influenced and encouraged him to go outside and paint, a wild idea in its time. Fred Archer influenced and collaborated with Ansel Adams to develop the zone system, and Willie Nelson will tell you that Bob Wills influenced his country style while Ray Charles’ country album contributed to a broader emotional range.

Unlike religion or business, leadership in the arts does not follow a hierarchal chain of command that creates internal evaluations. Rather it is collegial, influential, at times critical or hypercritical, and from time to time consensus driven to the point of boredom. Overall art leaders crack new social moirés, create exciting learning environments, and besides their creative influence, most are excellent mentors and coaches.

Daily, I learn something new from a wide variety of folks who create photography and digital images. However, learning from or staying in touch is quite different then following. Studying the successful work of others, be they dead or alive, is critical to the learning and development process but when I follow someone, I look for living leaders who execute their ideas, accept their success with grace, learn from their failures, blaze new trails without fear, consistently and persistently create new themes and visual expressions. As teachers, I follow those educators who encourage their students with equal measures of criticism and deep encouragement, who put their own accomplishments aside in order to let a new flower bloom. Teachers at this level often sacrifice time in order to grow creativity and creative outcomes in their students. In my view, these instructor leaders are the north stars of art today and tomorrow.

So, in the world of fine art photography and digital creativity my North Stars are. . .

John Paul Caponigro— JP as his students call him, is a creator of fine art photography that time and again pushes back conceptual boundaries and yet, his work embodies classical construction with 21st century skills and principles. His books, images, and workshops emphasize technical excellence in order that the student may develop and portray an extended emotional range. John Paul’s books, DVD’s Maine Workshops and seminars teach skill sets that encourage expression and an extended emotional range. He is a north star, magnetically and magically true. I recommend that you put him and his work in your learning constellation. http://bit.ly/Rj3hz

 

Katrin Eismann— I own every book and DVD that she has made, attend her workshops, and cannot wait for her next column in Photoshop User magazine. Katrin is a fine art photographer and the Chair of the Masters in Digital Photography Program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. While the digital world has many fine teachers, Katrin’s method exceeds knowledge; they stir and inspire the creative juices. In my view, she is the Leggos of fine art creativity, using ideas and methods that allow us to take apart and rearrange fundamental thoughts and images, and then recombine them anew to extend our emotional range, designs, and personal texture. Katrin is creative guiding light, a North Star. http://www.photoshopdiva.com

R. Mac Holbert— ‘Mac’ often teaches fine art printing with JP, but he is a stand-alone North Star for those of us who produce fine art photography in the service of the print. Co-founder of Nash Editions a pioneering digital print house, Mac was present at the dawn of digital printing and worked closely with Epson or perhaps Epson worked closely with him. He is a senior contributor to the Pixel Genius team, the finest third party sharpener on the planet bar none. Mac’s common sense book, lectures and workshops achieve uncommon results in those of us who want every synapse of expression in our prints. http://bit.ly/yDyJqY

Barney Davey— Barney is a pioneer in digital publishing and art printmaking. His daily digests and art print issues blog as well as his plethora of books address a multitude of issues, ideas, and techniques for successful fine art marketing. He has an amazing capacity to create as well as aggregate information for digital artists, painters, print makers, and photographers. He is a true North Star for his work is always a great source of encouragement for art practitioners. http://bit.ly/zwhe1Q

Julieanne Kost— Julieanne is the Senior Digital Imaging Evangelist for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom at Adobe Systems. She is a true road warrior as well as a North Star. An award winning educator and fine art creator. I recommend that you follow her blog, her AdobeTV.com series, and take advantage of her Window Seat book if you want to see how themes evolve in the most unlikely of places. Not a day goes by that her tweets don’t light up our night with new information and insights. http://jkost.com/

My students—Long after class I continue to encourage those students who continue to pursue their art. Their struggles and success are a source of light and inspiration, for each of them are North Stars. For we have to remember great leaders don’t create more followers, they create more leaders, more North Stars for the followers to come, for the followers who wish to grow.

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Michael Gordon and the Mojave Preserve

Posted on November 19, 2011 by

Let me encourage you to get out to the Kelso Depot in the Mojave National Preserve. Once inside this historic visitor center drop downstairs to the Desert Light gallery for a great photographic exhibition.

Michael E. Gordon has become our latest Artist in Residence for the Mojave National Preserve, an award-winning fine art landscape photographer of unusual and overlooked natural landscapes of California and beyond. A lifelong student of nature and wilderness, Michael’s intimate relationship with the landscape yields photographs of great depth and clarity. He is best known for his black and white ‘Desert’ series which, says Broughton Quarterly, portrays “stunning ethereal beauty from terrain where others see only a bleak landscape.”

Michael’s photographs have been published in and on the covers of magazines, calendars, textbooks and music CD’s. He is represented by art galleries in the U.S. and Europe, and his fine art prints are held internationally in private collections. Publications and clients include Backpacker magazine; View Camera magazine; Rangefinder magazine; Broughton Quarterly; T-Mobile; The Wilderness Society; Campaign for America’s Wilderness; USDA Forest Service; Brooks/Cole, Body-Mind Music, and more. Awards and recognition include International Photography Awards, Prix de la Photographie, Paris, and Black & White Spider Awards.

Michael’s love for and commitment to the preservation of imperiled landscapes makes him an excellent leader in the National Park Service Artist in Residence program. For his Joshua thematic he trained his 4”x5” view camera and film on the unique form and curious feel of the Mojave Joshua Tree.

Mormon settlers traveling across the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century found that the awkwardly outstretched limbs of the Joshua portrayed a prayer metaphor to guide them towards the Promised Land. One hundred and fifty years later, today’s Mojave Desert travelers remain as captivated as ever by the Joshua tree, and tourists often pose for snapshots beside prized roadside specimens.

Michael’s work provides a strong depth with this thoughtful thematic. To achieve a sense of timelessness, he employs a 4×5” large format view camera, a century-old diffused focus portrait lens, and black and white film. His Limited Edition prints are archival carbon pigment inks on mould-made German cellulose paper.

Beyond his excellent grasp of craft, Gordon portrays a deep understanding and relationship to what some might consider as pedestrian images. His points of view and sense of the desert light reveal a desert icon plant in human terms. As you spend time in the quiet gallery, you find yourself enmeshed in images that vary in emotional tone from anxiety to simple standalone beauty. The tension between images causes the viewer to reexamine the exhibit several times and when you leave the gallery, the desert is now part of your mental woodwork.

So, get out there and experience Michael Gordon’s work. Get out there and explore the Mojave Preserve.

Posted in Artists in Residence, Mojave National Preserve Conservancy, Shows / Exhibits | Leave a comment

The One Image Syndrome

Posted on October 9, 2011 by

Common subjects captured from an uncommon point of view are the first virtue of the fine art photographer. Look left, look right; look up, look down, themes are all around.

I use this simple catchphrase each time I begin a new fine art photography workshop series. And each time, I find that the words themes, thematics, and a visual art thesis, seem to breed fear for photographers new to the fine art genre. Why is this?

The internal psychological reasons are many; fears of personal acceptance (I’ll never be any good), sense of self-worth (I’m not an artist), creative discipline (this will have to do), and personal commitment (I should do something else in case this doesn’t work). Another fear is that for many photographers, consciously decoding visually what one synthesizes emotionally is often uncomfortable, as one has to reach for that uncommon point of view. This is frequently a life changing experience.

ER Ride from Chemo Dreams

But I also believe that thematic fear occurs because we have been taught photography one image at a time. Here is a picture of my brother fishing, or this is a wow image of our new widget, which will appear in the next issue of X. Initially this was a function of photography’s mechanical limitations— glass plates, sheet film, rolls of film, all had an image count limitations (1, 12, 24, and 36 shots) and the cost per unit defined economic limits or some might say pictorial discipline. While these mechanical and economic considerations often restricted creative freedom, they also ingrained in us the belief that a photograph is a definitive, single image expression; “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Image capture in the digital age has few upper limits, but the habit of thinking of photography as a one shot medium persists. Single shot thinking is valid for a wide variety of applications; snapshots, portraits, and advertising among others. With fine art photography, we brutally edit numerous images and ideas to the few that will support a thematic direction. The theme is the mission not the single image.

For example, a collection of colorful Yosemite Pictures is a collection of colorful Yosemite pictures that may work in a travel brochure or a few could hang on a wall as pictorial examples of an iconic landscape or a testament to the photographer’s skills. The fine art photographer may approach that same landscape with an emphasis on light and form wherein symbolic color can visually translate a range of emotions. Pre-vision capture and post-vision enhancement techniques are useful for producing fundamental interpretations beyond standard landmark beauty and identification. By changing the point of view to simplify the shapes and then post amplifying (or deconstructing) the colors or tones found in the landscape the fine art photographer can ‘synthesize’ his or her feelings to expand the emotional range and expressive power of the landscape. The result is often an insight into the artist’s thoughts and feelings as seen by in and out of frame symbols. Moreover, this type of work provokes emotional responses in an audience beyond the image because symbolic undertones conjure much broader relationships.

Word association exercises can help develop new thematic concepts, something I encourage. But photography is not language. Language provides direct communication, and while creative writing can create mind pictures and soul felt emotions, language is fundamentally conclusive. Photography is inconclusive because it is subject to how the individual viewer recalls their life experiences and their level of emotional resonance is subject to their personal synthesis of aesthetics and feelings about a given thematic. Within the fine art genre, a single image can and should inflame language while a body of thematic work can recast language with various gradations.

Finally, there is the fear of not finding a theme. This is remotely akin to writer’s block but more precisely, it is a desire to find a shortcut like ‘Method Acting’ to arrive at a thematic character. Thematic work requires exploration, introspection, not construction, as a constructed theme is often limiting, and subconsciously photographers often restrict what they see in order to fit a blueprint. Rather than select a subject. . . feel one.

Look left, look right, look up, look down, themes abound.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Bob Killen’s Fine Art Photography Course

Posted on September 19, 2011 by

Bob Killen’s Fine Art Photography Course

September 24th at the Calumet Learning Annex, Santa Ana CA

September comes with vapor flowers and a low slashing light that harkens to the winter sun a few squares further down the calendar. Random Santa Ana winds make a dry, dusty sound before going away and scorching the southern California light, the Mediterranean air. Schools open and yellow busses grind through working— or not—neighborhoods sucking up bright faces thinking recess and prepubescent wonders about the boy or girl who won’t look their way. In the tight tile communities of upscale families, chrome- wheeled cars slipstream out of manicured streets to school parking lots like shallow waters trickling over fine sands. Child learners slide off leather seats and down into the blue morning shadows. Hitching and scratching, they lean forward against the weight of book filled backpacks and march forward to school’s double doors.

Photographer: Jim Smart

Then it’s over; the high-wasted light of a yellow afternoon comes and the children fade into lemon busses grinding; chrome wheeled Mommy coaches gliding, slight faces pressed to windows, minds with crystal visions yearning.

School is open! And as the above paragraphs painted a truncated word picture, photographers who enroll in the new Fine Art Photography Class at the Calumet Learning Annex in Santa Ana CA, will learn how to capture image themes that transcends viewers beyond words written. In this series, we employ mentored learning techniques to teach students the creative thinking that fashions visual metaphors, and to extend our emotional range through creative Photoshop strategies.

Photographer: Dennis O'Reilly

A course with a Successful History—

I measure a student’s success by their personal growth, their sense of self-expression, and the success of their full or part time careers as their work finds gallery space, online venues, and or on the pages of publications. Most importantly, I measure success by how their work makes a difference to their personal art audiences. Happily, many of our alumni have experienced individual shows and publication success. Others have found new ways to express long felt ideas, and a visual voice.

A Great Course Revised— The Fine Art Photography course is now a thesis level program with online support between the classes. Class modules are one, two, and three days and occur two to three weeks apart. Between the classes, students photograph and post produce a thematic project based upon a theme developed in class. Online support provides additional instruction, coaching, and assignments to internalize a broad range of fine art photography concepts.

Photographer: Norman Schwartz

Class Descriptions—

Fundamentals of Fine Art Photography— This is a full day of lectures, portfolio reviews, and the student interactive discussions. We explore photographic philosophies, a history of fine art photographers and their contributions, a visual review of contemporary fine art photographers and why their work merits recognition. In the afternoon session, we consider how themes occur, how photographers pursue them, and how audiences perceive the work. During the day, I conduct a portfolio review and all students join in with their thoughts and comments.

• On Line Support— The support consists of image reviews, artists statements, and reading material that helps photographers find their visual voice within this genre. Students submitting theme ideas and images for discussion of concepts under consideration.

• Intra Class Module— Between classes students explore and capture images to support their themes. We provide intra class and online review.

Photographer: Dennis O'Reilly

Vision beyond Documentation— In this two-day class students unleash their concepts and prepare a thematic statement, learn Photoshop tools for fine art, fine-art workflow, and how to build a custom work space for fine art projects.

• On Line Support— The support consists of image reviews in light of a chosen thematic, online technical Q&A for Photoshop applications directed towards finding a visual voice and or for specific artistic applications. We provide input to keep the student images within their stated thematic objective.

• Intra Class Module— Between classes students continue to capture images that support a theme that is a vision beyond documentation. We provide intra class and on line review.

Fine Art Master Tools— In this three day class students concentrate on bringing their thematic images to life. They work from capture through output and learn to paint with light, control luminosity and use masks to deepen the emotional range of their images. With the use of new tools and techniques students learn to master and expand emotional range, edit images for a theme, and learn how to combine, intuition, serendipity, and purpose into a successful fine art project.

• On Line Support— The support consists of image critique, and technical Q&A for Photoshop techniques. We also provide valuable feedback to keep the student’s theme on course and within their stated thematic objective.

• Intra Class Module— Between this class and the next, students continue to capture and refine additional images in support of their themes.

Photographer: Jim Smart

Fine Art Output— The print is the thing and in this three day module students learn to construct fine art prints with Epson Printers and Epson substrates. Epson technical staff is present to help students handle their work professionally. Students master soft proofing, tonal adjustments, fine tune detail issues, and learn to further refine their themes during the print stage in pursuit of their thematic objectives. Students leave class with finished prints in archival storage sleeves.

• On Line Support— The support consists of technical Q&A for printing applications for fine art photographs and feedback on tonal adjustments in support of their stated thematic objective.

• Intra Class Module— During the time between this class and the next students continue to capture and refine their prints on home or outsourced printers for a final portfolio review.

Developing an Audience— In this two day course students learn how to find and develop an audience for their work. We explore: marketing strategies, audience recognition and the six portals of audience development. We also cover web presentations, galleries, online galleries, and the power of social media.

• Alumni Support— Student’s who complete all five modules will show their work in the Graduate Gallery Exhibit, as well as in our online gallery. We have developed a special Facebook discussion group where alumni can post their work and discuss their projects with other graduates.

The Graduate Gallery Exhibit— Students who successfully complete all five modules will have the opportunity to show their work in a Graduate Exhibit at the Learning Annex Gallery. This exhibit begins with a reception night, and is open to the public. We promote the show through various online advertising, with direct mail, and within the Calumet stores. Reviewers from art publications often attend and we invite collectors who are interested in emerging growth artists.

Requirements—

Desire— You must have a teachable spirit, a desire to learn, and a need to express yourself visually.

Photoshop— You must be comfortable with Photoshop and have a working knowledge of the tools, layers, file management, and adjustment layers.

Computer— You must bring a laptop with Photoshop CS5. Your machine should have a minimum of 2 GB of RAM, and sufficient hard drive space to manage the image work load.

Monitor— Your monitor should be calibrated. If not we will help you calibrate your monitor in class.

Photographer: Norman Schwartz

FAQ—

I’m not sure if I have the talent for Fine Art?— This program teaches you how to discover the unique visual voice that lies within you, and how to grow and refine your voice. It is not a matter of talent; it’s a matter of commitment and character.

Do I have to take all five class modules?—Yes, if you expect to gain a full understanding of and become proficient as a fine art photographer. However, you can take individual classes of your choice but you will not eligible for: discounts, intra module support, the certificate program, or to participate in the Graduate Gallery Exhibit.

Do I have to pay for all five modules at once? —No. You may pay for the modules as you go.

Are there discounts available?—Students who sign up for all class modules are eligible for a 10% discount. Students also receive promotional in store discounts on equipment and supplies.

What if I can’t complete the course?—The Learning Annex Administration judges the merit of each withdrawal case. Students who leave the program are eligible to join the program the next semester but the instructor will determine the reentry module.

Will I be able to sell prints at the Graduate Gallery Exhibit?— Yes if someone chooses to buy one of your prints. It will be your responsibility to provide the print, Certificate of Authenticity, and to deliver the print.

Will our instructors guide us through the Exhibit Process?— Yes, support staff form Bob Killen Fine Art and the Calumet Learning Annex will guide you through the process.

I am coming in from out of town. Is there a place I can stay?— Yes contact our studio manager, Michelle Bracey at michelle@bobkillen.com and she will help you with accommodations.

To enroll on line go to: http://bit.ly/qVlkXG

Or call: Calumet 714-285-0143

Posted in Adobe, Shows / Exhibits, Student Projects and Images, Workshop News | 1 Comment

Mojave National Preserve Artist in Residence Program

Posted on September 6, 2011 by

Here is a very, very cool, very free event that you should not miss.

On Sept 8th, 2011, at 6:15 PM at Calumet Photographic in Los Angeles, Ms. Linda Slater, National Park Service Ranger and Chief of Interpretive Services, Mojave National Preserve will present an evening seminar for fine art photographers who want to capture and interpret the desert landscape for the Artist in Residence Program.

I had the great privilege of starting the Artist in Residence Program with Ms. Linda Slater. It has and continues to be a rewarding experience because Linda has a deep sense of the art that lies within our National Parks. Thus, in the beginning, we decided that we wanted to attract photographers who could create specific art themes beyond the postcard and Kodak moments that are sometimes common to these programs.

Several fine art photographers that I had the privilege to work with through my Calumet classes, Norm Schwartz, Jim Smart, and Terry Ellis soon followed and earned the Artists in Residence designation as well. Their work brought a new voice and vision of the Mojave to the attention of the public.

Now we are seeking new voices to capture images from the Mojave Preserve’s 1.6 million acres of diverse visual communities. Out here, thunderclaps are rare, lightning strikes even less, and hard rain is an episodic event that creates gully-washing floods. On the ground, you find dry lakebeds coated with salt dust, grand vistas of hard packed sands covered with creosote plantations, black lava domes, and purple cinder cones that crunch under your feet. Sand dunes around the dry lakebeds launch dust devils into the blue atmosphere, and the monster dunes at Kelso, where fine wind-driven sands sing a shrill falsetto as wind driven silica particles shift and shake. At higher altitudes, snow often falls, and the world’s largest Joshua tree forests grow, their gnarly branches casting fuzzy shadows under a sun of luminous bleach. Rugged four-wheel drive trails provide access to played-out mines, and abandoned homesteads wrought free of slow-glowing dreams reminds us of the early explorer’s true grit as they trekked across an unforgiving desert.

Linda will teach how the National Park Service’s Artist in Residence Program works, and the specific application requirements for the Mojave Preserve. During the seminar, you will get a great tour of the desert and learn about working and living in the Mojave. She will provide materials for you to take, explain how the solo program works, how to earn income from your images, answer questions, and take time to learn about your goals.

I will give a short talk about the Caruthers Cabin project, a new restoration project (see next blog) of a historical ranching homestead that will soon become permanent housing for visiting artists.

This is a free event but you must register to reserve your seat. Simply go to http://bit.ly/qkPUuu and click on the registration button. So join us for a fun evening, one full of inspiration and opportunity for photographers who wish to capture the desert landscape and history.

Posted in Artists in Residence, Mojave National Preserve Conservancy, Shows / Exhibits | 1 Comment

Photoshop for the Creative Mind

Posted on August 9, 2011 by

I have three openings for my “Photoshop for the Creative Mind”, class at the Calumet Learning Annex in Santa Ana on August 18th and 19th.

I’ve decided to limit this class to 4-6 students instead of the normal 10-12, which allows for more exploration of the imagined image for those who choose to attend.

If creating images with an extended emotional range and taking your work to a higher level of expression are your personal goals, then join me and learn the strategies and techniques that will take you there. Continue reading →

Posted in Adobe | 2 Comments

When Weariness Sets In

Posted on August 1, 2011 by

I’m worn out, tired, no ideas, nothing is working, everything I shoot, post process— whatever—it all means nothing.

Unfortunately, I often hear from students, as well as working fine art photographers who are struggling with these thoughts. This is a sure sign that creative weariness has set in. The truth is that making art of any kind is a fragile process, an emotional roller coaster of vicissitudes that often makes an artist question their self-worth if not their sanity.

It is not easy to hold onto a dream of work successfully completed when the world around you is holding onto failures of the past. And while it’s normal to tire of any project that requires innovation, creativity, and a great effort, weariness is significantly different from simple tiredness. The fix for tiredness is rest, refresh, and a restart, but weariness is the result of mental and creative fatigue. It signals doubt, fear, and in our work the visual no longer seems to flow from the visceral. Weariness breeds disillusionment and the fiery passion that drives our projects flickers, and no matter how hard we try (and often we try too hard), all we can see is the cold ashes of failed attempts. A weary artist often feels their new work is one promise too late, and their old work a promise unfulfilled. This is a vulnerable time for anyone, but for artists in particular, this is when we rationalize quitting by telling ourselves that our work at best is average, that we don’t have what it takes, and finding an audience— well forget that.

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Why I Teach

Posted on June 20, 2011 by

There’s an old axiom that says, “Those that can— do; those that can’t—teach”. Well I don’t buy that. I teach because I know that once I help a student stretch his or her mind with a new idea, an improved technique, and to develop a visual direction, I know that their mind will never again regain its original dimensions.

In practice, expanding a student’s mind also expands their potential for success and fear at the same time. Its human nature to let fear defeat us when our work doesn’t work, to let success escape us when we tell ourselves that we will never develop our themes, that our visual voice will never rattle the rafters of our studios with stunning clarity, that we will never find an audience for our work. Thus, I know that teaching means more than presenting information or demonstrating process and technique; it means to encourage, to lead, and to restore the artistic dream that is often under pressure from the world without as the student struggles with their art within. Continue reading →

Posted in Adobe, Student Projects and Images, Uncategorized | 7 Comments

The Six Ports of Entry

Posted on May 30, 2011 by

Fine Art Photography audiences take possession of your images as it relates to their personal experience. They do not respond to work that has a rootless generality. Your work must be an expressive specific (themes!) because through your images the audience expects to see and feel your theme in new ways, one that may make the world seem more available then it really is.

As you get your work ‘out there’, a special trust develops between the photographer and his audience that relies on the photographer’s ability to transfer feelings. But audience responses to the feelings conveyed will be diverse due to their financial means, desires, time commitment, competing art content, and comprehension. Thus, we have to provide convenient ports of entries so that the audience can join our work at whatever level is possible for them, while providing a series of next steps so that our audience can grow and develop with our work.

I use the term Ports of Entry, but marketers use several other terms, such as Levels of Participation, Points of Market Entry, Price/Use Channels, Buyer on Ramps, and others. The terms are interchangeable and all of them share the following market drivers.

  • A Port of Entry is the point where a potential member of your audience becomes receptive to your offering. For example, it’s highly likely that you won’t care about wheel chairs until you need one. Your audience won’t buy your art until they care about art, care about you, and find a reason or more likely, an emotional need to own what you have created.
  • Certain markets have clearly defined entry and exit points, like diapers. Other markets, such as Fine Art Photography are more imprecise.
  • It’s best to find out when people are interested in your work before you reach out to them in order to avoid wasting resources.
  • When an audience member becomes interested in your work, your work will become the standard by which they evaluate competing work, which governs the decision to own/not own your prints.
  • It’s important to discover where and when your audience starts looking for information after crossing the interest threshold.

These drivers are common to all sales/marketing programs including developing a fine art photography audience. However, the Ports of Entry vary widely between various products (fine art photography is a creative product) and services. The more imprecise the product, the more discretionary the buyer becomes and thus the need for a wider audience with a number of well-defined Ports of Entry and next step paths for audience growth.

Six Ports of Entry

Based upon my last blog and some of the e-mail received you may believe that I am anti-gallery and see galleries as a waste of time for audience generation. I don’t. I just think that a wider audience is a far better marketing plan for sales and artist recognition. If getting your work ‘out there’ is important to you, gallery, and gallery representation can and should play a part in your marketing program, but I don’t believe it should be an exclusive delivery channel. You need a number of entry portals for a wide audience.

I have summarized six Ports of Entry that you may want to implement in whole or part. Each of these portals could generate a book length discussion that is beyond the scope of a blog article. I suggest that you research other resources about the portals and become familiar with the process and nuances of each. I also encourage you to proceed with the understanding that you may expand and refine your ports as your work and audience grows.

1. Free and No Commitment—This Port of Entry is like going to a high school dance with friends. Its free, you don’t have a date, and there is no commitment from any of the parties. The dancers and wall flowers alike are just getting to know each other and perhaps starting to talk about or view one or two members of the opposite sex with some interest, but the parties are still a long way from personal involvement and commitment.

For the fine art photographer, this Port of Entry in today’s market is your web site. It should be a dynamic, content rich, frequently refreshed, and not a simple showcase of your work. This is your first dance, the place where people get to know you, your work, and why your work is an expressive specific. While you may want to sell your prints online, driving sales of prints should not be the site’s primary goal. The primary goal is to develop an audience and when people leave your site you want them to leave enriched and with a desire to return. Moreover, you want to provide them with a next step opportunity to grow their interest in your work. In future blogs, I will explore web sites and blogs in detail.

2. Free with Commitment— Every savvy marketer in the world uses the free commitment format; sign up here for free recipes, sign up and get news on our next book, get discounts on your next purchase when you join our gold star club, etc. This is a next step point, one launched from your web site, blog and/or in some cases from a social media page, such as Facebook. Your audience members and prospective audience members can follow you or learn more about your work through a free sign up commitment.

As a Fine Art Photographer, you might invite your audience to follow you through a newsletter wherein they receive detailed news about your work, or perhaps you post special .pdf files that contain content that would be of interest to your audience. Besides a newsletter, there are other communication tools available; you can create an art digest, podcasts, and other rich content devices that augment your creative time as opposed to destroying it.

3. Cash Commitment — Your audience will participate with you at various financial levels and this step provides a low cost Port of Entry. For $15-$25 you could provide your audience with content rich pdf’s about subjects related to your work. These could be downloads or well-presented DVD’s that an audience member wants to own for reasons of content or the need to review some instructional material repeatedly.

4. Intermediate Owner Commitment— In the past, fine art photographers have sold images that require wall space for viewing. True, some collectors store work in cold storage and only display images for exhibits or further resale, but most buyers of our work expect to display your work on a wall, but not everyone has the space or discretionary funds to invest in prints suitable for display. You can provide other audience participation products and with today’s technology it is quite possible to produce well-crafted books, folios, or box sets of small prints, electronic folios, and so on. (I recently test marketed images for viewing on wide screen TV with rather positive results.) The point is that you want to grow this commitment level by providing an intermediate cost Port of Entry.

5. Owner Print Commitment— There are print buyers who seek smaller prints that identify with your images as expressive specific. They want to own your work but at a size and price commitment that fits within their parameters. You can sell prints from your web site, through other web sites, through both channels, or have a gallery or outsource printer representative handle your work. Price Points are important at this level as well as any additional value offerings such as providing mats and other value added services. Some images may warrant a low price point but others warrant a higher price point. I’ll cover price points in other blogs, but in most cases, I think you will find that getting your prints out there is a matter of offering your work at an affordable price on a nonexclusive basis.

6. Gallery Print Commitment— If your work is expressive specific, and there has been some significant buzz about your images you may want to consider presenting some of your work through major gallery exhibitions. If you decide to pursue this channel then it is important that you carefully evaluate this path in light of prices that you may have already established for your prints. Work that you intend to release through the gallery channel should not compete with your other outlets. I’ll discuss how to interest galleries in your work with future blogs.

These Six Ports of Entry are not mutually inclusive or exclusive. They represent a logical progression from a wide base of audience followers to a narrower audience who participate with you through print ownership. Nor are these six ports the only method to develop a fine art audience, but they are a proven marketing method that is readily executable for most photographers.

I know many of you are wondering about the time commitment. Yes, each of these Ports of Entry take time and in some cases funds to develop, but once you have a program in place the time commitment becomes one of content input and should account for about 20% of your creative hours. Invest the rest of your creative time in your fine art photography with an emphasis on becoming an expressive specific.

Posted in Developing an Audience | 6 Comments

Fine Art Photography success is not about talent

Posted on May 15, 2011 by

Before we get any deeper into the wisteria of developing an audience for your work, let me remind you (and me) of one simple fundamental.

Fine Art Photography is not about your talent. It is about pushing yourself beyond your given talents and into the core of your character.

Once your work reflects your character, which in turn drives your themes and passions, you will find that attracting and maintaining an audience is rather straightforward. However, getting to your core— not so easy. It is a process of failure and pain, but also a process of great joy as you discover what is significant for you and your audience.

Now back to this stuff about Galleries. From my last blog and case study it should be apparent that a Gallery Exhibition is not an audience development tool, but a retail sales channel where your audience can participate with you and your work. Gallery operators make their living selling art, and until your work has some level of recognition and audience support from other sources, most truly professional galleries will have little interest in your work. They have developed their own audiences of collector/owners who have certain tastes, needs, and make purchases at various price points. Their audience buys for aesthetic and investment value. The gallery owner wants to satisfy and expand his/her audience and choose works for that purpose. If they happen to advance your career, then well and good, but they certainly do not get up in the morning thinking that today is the day to launch a new artist into fame and fortune.

A Case History

To that point, here is a case history that came to me via a blog wherein the author, a recognized fine art photographer, accurately laments the high cost of producing gallery shows and the poor return on investment. In today’s tight market, she bears the cost of frames, the cost of travel to Photlucedia and other gatherings to meet people who may want to exhibit or publish her work, has to deal with limited investor owner interest in her current shows, and slow paying gallery operators when some of her work does sell. She bemoans the Internet and the fact that serious and non-serious collectors alike can buy prints for as little as twenty dollars and that the market for both groups is shrinking. She is right about all of this, but after visiting her web site, it is obvious that she has chosen or perhaps accepted a Narrow Market audience development plan. Beyond viewing her images on line, we have no way to participate with her except by visiting several galleries that stock her work, which limits her audience participation to one Port of Entry.

So, should she or you give up on the gallery channel?

No way, but I would encourage her to open many more ports of entry for greater audience participation in light of these gallery industry statistics.

  • The number of galleries that market fine art photography is inversely proportional to the number of fine art photographers who want to exhibit.
  • The number of gallery operators that have a viable owner/collector base and know how to run a professional operation is approximately 30 percent of the total number of existing galleries.
  • The lifespan of the average photography gallery is one-half life of a restaurant, a business segment with the nation’s highest failure rate.

These are grim statistics, but they do not mean that the gallery channel is not viable and vital. They simply mean that you need to keep this channel in perspective, and understand that it is only one ‘Port of Entry’ for your audience to participate with your work.

Audience Ports of Entry

Until recently, the music industry supported a business model that favored selling oversized CD packages for $20.00 a copy. Today music companies as well as the artists themselves sell songs via the Internet to our IPods and smart phones for 99 cents each or entire albums for eight bucks. Audience participation has skyrocketed; the music industry and performing artists are thriving. The Narrow Market CD is gone, replaced by a Universal Market plan that provides many Port of Entry for audience participation; free radio and on line listening, subscription listening (Pandora etc.), DVD ownership, and live concert participation which generally includes a constellation of collectable items.

In the next blog, we will explore a fine art photography business model that will get your work ‘out there’ to as large an audience as possible via six distinct Audience Ports of Entry.

Until then, I wish you Joy as you shoot to your core.

 

Before we get any deeper into the wisteria of developing an audience for your work, let me remind you (and me) of one simple fundamental.

Fine Art Photography is not about your talent. It is about pushing yourself beyond your given talents and into the core of your character. Once your work reflects your character, which in turn drives your themes and passions, you will find that attracting and maintaining an audience is rather straightforward. However, getting to your core— not so easy. It is a process of failure and pain, but also a process of great joy as you discover what is significant for you and your audience.

Now back to this stuff about Galleries. From my last blog and case study it should be apparent that a Gallery Exhibition is not an audience development tool, but a retail sales channel where your audience can participate with you and your work. Gallery operators make their living selling art, and until your work has some level of recognition and audience support from other sources, most truly professional galleries will have little interest in your work. They have developed their own audiences of collector/owners who have certain tastes, needs, and make purchases at various price points. Their audience buys for aesthetic and investment value. The gallery owner wants to satisfy and expand his/her audience and choose works for that purpose. If they happen to advance your career, then well and good, but they certainly do not get up in the morning thinking that today is the day to launch a new artist into fame and fortune.

A Case History

To that point, here is a case history that came to me via a blog wherein the author, a recognized fine art photographer, accurately laments the high cost of producing gallery shows and the poor return on investment. In today’s tight market, she bears the cost of frames, the cost of travel to Photlucedia and other gatherings to meet people who may want to exhibit or publish her work, has to deal with limited investor owner interest in her current shows, and slow paying gallery operators when some of her work does sell. She bemoans the Internet and the fact that serious and non-serious collectors alike can buy prints for as little as twenty dollars and that the market for both groups is shrinking. She is right about all of this, but after visiting her web site, it is obvious that she has chosen or perhaps accepted a Narrow Market audience development plan. Beyond viewing her images on line, we have no way to participate with her except by visiting several galleries that stock her work, which limits her audience participation to one Port of Entry.

So, should she or you give up on the gallery channel?

No way, but I would encourage her to open many more ports of entry for greater audience participation in light of these gallery industry statistics.

• The number of galleries that market fine art photography is inversely proportional to the number of fine art photographers who want to exhibit.

• The number of gallery operators that have a viable owner/collector base and know how to run a professional operation is approximately 30 percent of the total number of existing galleries.

• The lifespan of the average photography gallery is one-half life of a restaurant, a business segment with the nation’s highest failure rate.

These are grim statistics, but they do not mean that the gallery channel is not viable and vital. They simply mean that you need to keep this channel in perspective, and understand that it is only one ‘Port of Entry’ for your audience to participate with your work.

Audience Ports of Entry

Until recently, the music industry supported a business model that favored selling oversized CD packages for $20.00 a copy. Today music companies as well as the artists themselves sell songs via the Internet to our IPods and smart phones for 99 cents each or entire albums for eight bucks. Audience participation has skyrocketed; the music industry and performing artists are thriving. The Narrow Market CD is gone, replaced by a Universal Market plan that provides many Port of Entry for audience participation; free radio and on line listening, subscription listening (Pandora etc.), DVD ownership, and live concert participation which generally includes a constellation of collectable items.

In the next blog, we will explore a fine art photography business model that will get your work ‘out there’ to as large an audience as possible via six distinct Audience Ports of Entry.

Until then, I wish you Joy as you shoot to your core.

 

Posted in Developing an Audience | 3 Comments