Photographers who want people to see their images — and buy them, too — often find themselves clueless about how they can do great on sales. They can’t get exhibitions until they have a track record of sales, but they can’t develop a track record of sales until they get the exhibitions.
It gets that complicated!
One solution is to organize your own exhibition. It’s a solution that takes a lot of work. It will require plenty of preparation. A little expense and some tough marketing will make it all happen. However, it is something that many photographers have done successfully.
The benefits are clear. Your fate as a photographer is in your hands. You won’t have to persuade a gallery owner that your images can sell — and you’ll be able to pocket most or all of the sales you generate, rather than splitting them with the gallery.
If you’re interested in exhibiting in galleries in the future, hosting a successful exhibition can supply the sort of experience that owners look for when they consider taking an artist. And the people who attend your exhibition may well be exactly the sort who can move your career forward.
Here’s a guide on how you can do your own photo exhibit:
Know What to Shoot
When you’re thinking of selling art, there’s no simple answer to what sells and what doesn’t. Tastes vary tremendously, and the market ranges from the avant-garde to the sort of mainstream pieces that even your grandmother would love.
That means you’ve got two choices. You can shoot the images that excite you and hope that there are enough people in your area who share your taste to buy them. Or you can browse your local galleries, see what’s selling and produce images that it appears your local market wants.
Perhaps the most sensible solution is to do both: to find a topic that interests you and shoot it in a style that appeals to local buyers. But when you’re in the art world — and more to the point, when you’re just starting out in the art world — life’s too short to shoot the sort of pictures that don’t give you a thrill.
Find a Good Venue To Hold Your Exhibit
Choosing the images you want to shoot is always going to be the easy part. The tough bit is going to be organizing the exhibition. While the toughest bit of all will be finding a venue.
A successful homemade exhibition really relies on two elements: the right images and the right marketing. If you have the talent and photography skills, shooting the right images should come naturally. The marketing tends to be a little less familiar, but the golden rule is to be inclusive. Make sure that as many people as possible know about your exhibition and are invited. This isn’t a time to be shy.
Begin by putting together a portfolio of your works, and then find a venue to show them. A café or restaurant might be the easiest place to start.
Increasing numbers of restaurants have come to realize that their wall space is also a resource. By allowing local artists to display their works on it, they get some free decoration and appear to be serving their local community. The publicity, too, especially the opening, can help to drive up business and raise their profile.
The pitch shouldn’t be too difficult, either. Café owners are likely to be much more approachable than gallery owners. The latter who will expect you to make an appointment and bring a resume and artist’s statement. Offer a share of the sales price — an amount lower than the 50 percent usually demanded by galleries — and you’ll give them an added incentive to agree.
An alternative to a café or restaurant is to use a private space such as a home or a garage. Some photographers have done this with success, even though it does have its limitations. The biggest is that you’ll need a space large enough to hang your pictures and still allow plenty of people to mingle and view. These kinds of venues also don’t have the built-in foot traffic of a dining establishment.
Plan Your Printing, Framing and Marketing Strategies
Once you’ve found a venue, you’ll need to prepare the images, which will mean printing and framing them. You’ll then need to do the marketing, and this is the part of the exhibition that requires the most work.
You’ll need printed invitations that you can send to key movers and shakers, such as the art critic of your local newspaper, gallery owners, any collectors you might happen to know of, and even photography teachers at your local college.
But don’t stop there. You should distribute invitations broadly to both increases the number of potential buyers and open up new networks that can help you in the future.
Friends are going to be particularly helpful here. They can distribute invitations to their clients, colleagues, family and email lists. Local stores can leave them on the counter where people can pick them up, and any cultural outlet — such a museum, theater or art center — is also likely to be willing to make the invitations available to their members, spreading the word even further.
Announce your exhibit too and where else can you do it better than on social media. You could also write a press release announcing the details of the opening and send it to the local media.
Final Word
Organizing your own exhibition involves plenty of difficult challenges. This includes finding a venue to printing and framing your images and from creating the works to filling the venue with buyers and important cultural figures. But it can be very effective, both for making sales and developing the connections you need.
Whether your exhibition succeeds or fails will have nothing to do with the marketing power of the gallery. It will depend on your skill at bringing people in, and the quality of your photographs.
Be prepared for your very first photo exhibit by collecting the most impressive photos anyone will ever see. Join Colin Smith in his photography tours and showcase your skills by recreating the different parts of the world through your photographs. Check them now.
