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  #11  
Old 17th March 2009, 06:51 PM
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Martin Aislabie Martin Aislabie is offline
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Default Dave Butcher

Dave Butcher (http://www.davebutcher.net/erol.html) makes a living out of B&W Landscapes - although he supplements his income with Field & Darkroom Workshops & Ilford Master Printer work.

He has a certain style & although it’s not mine, I rather like it

Interestingly, his prints are not mega money and that he claims is the key to keeping your head above water - it’s better to sell £50 prints frequently than £500 prints occasionally.

Although the low price puts some people off (mostly in London) - they want to pay far more - so they can boast to their friends how much they have had to pay

I suggested to him, he should take a few select negs and go into the limited print run market to satisfy the more money than sense London crowd, but he wasn't sure.

Overall Rob, it’s a very select few who can manage to make a living out of non commercial photography.

If you look at Charlie Waite, Joe Cornish & Co at Light & Land, they run a fairly extensive (and expensive) set of workshops – which probably greatly supplements their income or may be even keeps them afloat in the current circumstances.

Ansel Adams only made a comfortable living out his work towards the end of his years and most of the great painters died in poverty.

So if you have plans to challenge Bill Gates on the wealth stakes, fine art is probably not the best route

Martin
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  #12  
Old 17th March 2009, 06:56 PM
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We have a devon photographer who seems to do OK. A fairly unusual collection of prints. I think he works at the selling side pretty hard with fairs, markets and the like. I think that is the crux of it. You will spend probably more than 50% of your time selling and not doing photography,

http://www.premgit.co.uk/
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  #13  
Old 17th March 2009, 09:21 PM
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If John Blakemore needs to cast his net a little wider than landscape alone there is not too much hope for the rest of us mere mortals!
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  #14  
Old 28th March 2009, 09:17 AM
Tom Stanworth Tom Stanworth is offline
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you have to be very, very good and I suspect one of the big (global) names to live off B&W landscape prints alone. I would aim to have many strings to your bow with each contributing.
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  #15  
Old 13th April 2009, 10:47 PM
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Mark Burley Mark Burley is offline
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Just about any... But usually branding, annual reports and brochures etc... Sorry for the delay in replying - only just seen the post...
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  #16  
Old 28th March 2010, 11:55 PM
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Dave Butcher was at Focus 2010 selling prints and workshops at the back of the Ilford stand.

He was saying print sales (2009/2010 financial year) have been up over previous years.

He thought people were perhaps spending money on doing up their existing house rather than moving - so wanted a nice print for the wall.

Martin
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  #17  
Old 29th March 2010, 01:02 PM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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As with any human activity there are folks that make a living and do rather well. Making a 'decent' living only selling trad b+w prints is a challenge, and I would say much easier if..

1 Start young!
2 Network like mad
3 Get your prints 'out there'
4 Get into mags (difficult as most is digi interest)
5 Gift a few good pics for charity do's
6 Publish books
7 Organise events/exhibitions
8 It helps with sales to make 'nice' images
9 Get talked about
10 Make sure you can dev/print/frame efficiently
11 Stay single!
12 Devote all your time to it
As for digi prints selling healthily, I can only go by a mate of mine who sells more prints than me, but his are much cheaper. Also I have to crank up the darkroom when ever someone wants one, he only has to e-mail the lab that has the profiles, and the print turns up in the post a couple of days later.
Selling prints is a tricky bussiness, making a living doing it is trickier. Always was, always will be, but as others have mentioned, the only way to find out is to give it a go.
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  #18  
Old 29th March 2010, 01:11 PM
Neil Smith Neil Smith is offline
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I haven't met a photographer yet who makes a good living out of B/W or colour landscapes without supplementing it with some other income, workshops, lecturing etc, but there might be a few somewhere, I certainly wouldn't want to try particularly as it gets harder and harder as the years pass (because of changing markets)


Neil
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  #19  
Old 29th March 2010, 08:11 PM
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Moving to a country that really appreciates photography will help - France for example!
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  #20  
Old 29th March 2010, 09:29 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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It may not have been representative of the U.K. silver gelatin print buying public but just out of interest how many prints were sold as a result of last years FADU exhibition? Wellingborough is not an unrepresentative town of the current trends in England.

If we assume that all the prints were made by one person and take into account the total time, materials etc that give us a rough idea of the prospects of making a living from prints.

I suspect that there might be a better living from advertising silver gelatin printing plus all the toning and archival gizmos from people's original negs.

There has to be a lot of people who still have old 1940/50s negs who have lost/damaged the orginal prints which were probably contact prints anyway.

Enlarged prints of any size in the 50s cost an arm and a leg!

Mike
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