Limited Editions

Customers quite often ask if a print is a limited edition. This time the question is an informed one and my answer that no, they are not, is clearly unsatisfactory. Even my daughter thinks I may have to give in and limit the editions. Her arguement, after discussing it with other artists and customers and friends, is that the publishing industry has done such a selling job on the necessity for collectors to purchase limited editions, that it is now the standard.

Perhaps if they thought about it, they'd realize the following:

1) none of he great photographers of the past limited their editions - hell, you can still buy Pepper # 30, and boy am I tempted. Ansel didn't, Edward didn't, not Strand.

2) the customer loses because the price is dramatically higher - the real beneficiaries are the galleries. The photographer loses because if it does turn out to be a popular image, he's going to kick himself. Imagine if Ansel did put a limit on Moonlight Over Hernandez. The gallery on the other hand, doesn't care if a particular image runs out - on the contrary - if the price is fixed, they sell all the better towards the end of the run, if as happens often, the price goes up towards the end, then they reap the benefits, and when the series runs out, well they just move onto another photographer.

3) For the most part, for the majority of photographers and for the majority of images, it doesn't matter one toot - they were never going to get to the end of their limited run anyway. For the one or two images from really good photographers that are that popular it's conceivable that it's a problem, but I doubt that even the most popular images sell into the hundreds, not fine art images anyway.

The people who most 'need' limited editions (other than the galleries) are the investing collectors - the people who don't want an image for itself, rather as something to be held for a while then sold, rather like gold mine shares. the odd thing is, I suspect they are shooting themselves in the foot here.

Lets say they have $1,000 to invest in photography. They can purchase one limited edition print or 10 unlimited prints. Assuming equal care in selecting each of the images, I'd bet on at least some of the 10 returning enough on the investment to outperform the single limited edition print.

Does this mean I'm not going to limit my prints. Unfortunately I think that will have to be a question for the market to decide. Were I a full time photographer, I think I'd keep prices low and forget limited editions. As someone with a full time job though and worn out from two years at the Farmers Market (working 7 days a week), I'm going to have to rely on galleries to get my work seen, so...