Print Prices

For two years I have been selling my prints at the local Calgary Farmers Market and doing so at very reasonable prices. Currently my standard size prints on 13X19 paper are $69. My expenses for the weekend are $500 so I have to sell 8 prints a weekend to break even, more if I actually want to offset some of my equipment costs or to pay me back for the large amount of time I take running errands to support the market (paper, foam core, etc.), making and packaging prints and working at the market itself.

Yesterday I sold 6 prints and with what my hired assistants did on Friday and Saturday, we actually made a little money this weekend (we don't always break even).

Last week I was contacted by a gallery in Toronto for a possible show this Fall. Out of curiosity I did up a spreadsheet for print prices and breakeven points and it was quite an eye opener.

Here's how galleries typically work. They take 50% of the total sale price on prints. So if I make and show 10 prints and half sell (which is generally considered a success), and as these are large prints they want to sell, if they are priced at $1000 each, the gross take is $5000 of which the gallery gets $2500. Now, they also do the matting and framing for me, all be it at discount, say $200 per image so total cost to me (not shared) is $2000. There are show costs and stuff, $500, cost of making prints (about $50 each if I can make them myself, a lot more if I have to get it done commercially) - so cost is $500. So before the show opens, my expenses are $3000, not including travel to the show opening.

If five prints are sold, I get $2500 but my expenses were $3000+ so if I have a successful show, I lose $500. Mind you, of the $2500 the gallery gets, they have to pay rent, utilities, supply staff and amortize the renos on the gallery space so I don't begrudge them their share.

Bottom line, photographers don't have shows to get rich. They have other jobs to support them (I'm a family doctor), or they run workshops, take commercial assignments (Ansel Adams did commercial work through most of his carreer, Edward Weston ran a portrait studio.

So, I expect to lose money at this show, but hope for exceptonal sales so I can actually come out ahead.