The (un) economics of photography

You know, it has been a long time since I made my living from photography. Thank heavens for that because I would be pretty broke if photography alone paid my bills. It is the start of the art show season for me, and I spent this past weekend at two shows in Wisconsin. It was a perfect weekend but that is where the good news stopped.

Let's review the budget for the weekend. I worked hard to make a few new prints for the shows, but I had printer challenges and had to clean my printer twice before I could get clean prints. Each time I hit that button it costs $75-100.00 worth of ink. I probably spent $75 on the prints, and I bought $140 worth of frames. My share of the entry fees for the shows was $65, and food and gas for the weekend was about $85.00. Conservatively I spent $515 to prepare for these two shows. Some of that, perhaps around 40% of that amount, is for expenses that will carry forward, but at a minimum this weekend cost at least $300.00.

But wait! The whole purpose of the weekend was to sell some of my artwork and I did. I sold one framed print for $40.00. Now I am not an accountant by any stretch, but even I can see that it is not a good business plan to have expenses that are seven times my revenue.

I have never really thought that I needed to even break even in all of this. I have too much fun doing this, or at least I have too much fun taking the pictures. But there are other costs which I am not sure I can afford. It is brutal to be at a show where you sell virtually nothing. It is difficult if not almost humiliating to experience this. It introduces or it really reinforces the self-doubt that lurks just below the bravado of all artists.

I have to think about what I have to do to sell photos. Am I willing to make tiny little photos of out-of-focus flowers or chipmunks? They were big sellers at one show. Could I sell .19 cent prints from Wal-Mart at three-for-ten dollars? Well, there are always those shots of old barns... Maybe I can make a photo with a barn, a flower, fall leaves, and a fuzzy animal. I would be rich.

I am not willing to go quite that far, but if I am going to do this art show circuit, I have to do something. I have to think about what I am willing to give up (or change) in my "art" to be commercially successful or at least a bit more successful. Of course I am laying all this on the fickle or unsophisticated eye of potential clients. Certainly my photos are perfect, so it must be the clients' fault that my pictures aren't selling. or, it could be, perhaps or even probably, that I just need to take better pictures...

I'll work on that.