Photography Prints

Hey guys, Andy here. In a previous post I mentioned I had started to sell photography prints and I believe it is worth explaining why. During my career as a photographer I have sold prints irregularly with little sustained long term interest. However a combination of factors has led me to offering prints at A3 and larger. So what happened and why now?

I am a child of digital photography; I was not able to get to grips with film and it was only through digital that I was able to turn my interest from a hobby into a career. However printing my work never interested me; at the start of my photographic career I could never decide on a final product, I would edit an image and then re-edit on subsequent visitations. Hindsight being Elvis, I attribute this to speed; I used to rush through the post production process and not devote adequate care and attention. Secondly the look, the texture and the overall quality of a printed photography used to hold no interest for me; if I saw an exhibition my interest lay with the subject matter and not the physical printed product. Additionally the images I was taking of a cloth weaver and their looms, a tailor hand sewing a button hole, a shoemaker making a shoe last; the appeal of such niche subject matter to a broad audience, to purchase such work to be shown on living room walls, is scant. The print market for my work was small.

So why now and what has changed? Despite my best efforts my previous workflow meant a high shoot rate, taking multiple frames, resulting in heavy time investment in post production. And as my photo rates were based off shoot time and not post production time, I viewed time spent in post production as a necessary evil.

In 2019 I reconsidered my photographic offering to focus on portraiture. Control of a shoot had the extra benefit of allowing me to control my workflow. Having worked at speed for a decade, to capitalise on ‘now’ in the world of digital and social media, I decided I did not want to continue to play that game. I decided to slow down and it made me realise the quality of my edited work was not as good as it could have been. I have no desire to take hundreds or thousands of photos on burst and railroad myself into spending time afterwards sifting through the rubble trying to identify the gems. I now spend time during the shoot to craft that gem. This equally applies to my post production; in the past I spent, on average, 5- 10mins editing and post producing an image. I now spend a minimum of 20 mins, and often longer, per shot assessing and scrutinising every detail. I decided I did not want to have countless digital images that would not see the light of day. Rather I wanted to invest time to create photography that has value. Furthermore I prefer not to spend time online if I do not have to; I do not enjoy endless doom scrolling on my phone and when possible I prefer not to look at screens. The end point of this path is the creation of photograph art prints. A print is tangible, it is real and viewing a photography art prints are a different experience from viewing the digital versions.

My entry into printing is also a reaction against NFTs. I do not believe an NFT is a work of art. As the name indicates, it is a token attached to a URL/ IPFS for a digital asset that can be copied and duplicated. A digital work it has no scarcity; exemplified by a simple ‘right click save’.

Photography art prints are an extension of where I find myself as a photographer. I am not in a rush to create a photographic equivalent of fast fashion, rather my whole approach to photography is to slow down and invest the time to ensure it is the best I can achieve. I accept this will work for neither all photographers nor clients however as I strive to continue to improve, this is where I am today.