Mike Moats

Tiny Landscapes

Comparing Photography To Other Art Forms

I was at the movies the other day and while the previews were running I was thinking how cheap it was to go to the movies.  To me movies are a form of art just like photography.  I would consider actors as artist, the writers as artist, the directors that films the movie, all the set directors, lighting people, everything that goes into that movie in my opinion is  artistic.  The movie makers spend millions upon million of dollars and the product they produce is created by some incredibly talented artist.  So with hundreds of people and millions of dollars to produce this one piece of artwork why are they selling it for only $8.00 to view and when it comes out on DVD it may run $20.00.   photographers go out and capture an image, do a little processing, let a printer do the work to make the finished product and then they want to charge $500 to $600 for a 30X40 gallery wrap.  Photographers want more for an 11X14 print then the cost of buying the DVD of a movie.  This doesn’t make any sense to me, this is way out of balance.   Why don’t the movie companies do like the photographers and sell the DVD for $500 or $600 like the photographers are asking for when they sell that 30X40 gallery wrap.  It seems much more logical since the movie cost millions of dollars and tons of people to make it happen.  Why do photographers think their art has so much value for so little effort and a piece of photo paper.  How many people would buy that movie if it was 500 to 600 dollars.

I also looked at the music business. The musicians which I also consider artist have to take the time to write all the songs for their album, rehearse all the songs, go into the studio and record.  They need producers and techs to work the recording equipment to get that perfect sound.  The record companies spend huge bucks to pay all these people and to produce the CD’s.  What does it cost to you and me, about $16.00.  They would have every right to charge hundreds of dollars for this artistic product , but they don’t.  Would most pay hundreds of dollars for the latest CD, I doubt it.

If the movie people and the musicians charged what photographers charge for their art they would also become staving artist like most photographers.   Are staving artist starving because they charge too much for their art?

Advertisement

December 22, 2009 - Posted by | Art, How to Sell Nature Photography, Macro Books, Macro Boot Camp, Macro Composition, Macro How To Books, Macro Nature Photography Books, Macro Photography, Macro Photography book, Macro Photogrpahy, Macro Tips, Making Money With Nature Photography, Michigan Nature Photography, Michigan Photo workshops, Mike Moats, Nature Competition, nature photo workshops, Nature Photographers, Nature Photography, Nature Photography Books, Nature Photography E-Book, Nature Photogrpahy Online course, North American Nature Photographers, Online Nature Photography Workshops, Online photogrpahy workshops, Photography, Photography Books, Running A Successful Nature Photo Business, Selling Articles To Photo Magazines., Selling At Art Shows, Selling In Art Galleries, Selling photography, Uncategorized

25 Comments »

  1. Not sure that is apples to apples, Mike. The actors, the writers, the directors, etc. make their millions whether the film ever sees the light of day. Sure there may be royalties above and beyond but they aren’t giving away their services. I would think the analogous type of situation for the photographer would be something like I sell my image to Ikea for pick a number ($5,000; I need a new camera). Ikea in turn mass produces prints and sells them for $25 each. Once they have sold 200, they are making a profit on my image. My image is selling cheap at $25 but I have my $5K. Slug in whatever numbers you want.

    Is that a more parallel situation?

    Comment by edvatza | December 22, 2009 | Reply

  2. I would argue artists are starving for many reasons, but not because they necessarily charge too much.

    You’re comparing apples and oranges. The music and movie industries operate in an economy of abundance while fine art photography operates in an economy of scarcity. Scarcity creates demand and higher prices versus abundance relies on broad appeal and lower prices. The difference of course is that music and video companies have incredibly well defined distribution & sales networks that optimizes their ability to cash in on an economy of abundance. Photographers in general are individuals or small sets of individuals who have no such network of distribution. While the Internet is widely touted as the means for photographers to decrease costs and expand distribution it pales in comparison to what the music and video industry can do. One other thing that you omit in your observation is the massive lobbying effort that these industries conduct to protect and extend copyright law in their favor often overpowering those they feel are threatening their intellectual property with massive costs associated with a prolonged legal battle. On the other end of the spectrum independent artists are left to scramble to protect their intellectual property with minimal support and incredibly great legal costs.

    One other item that you greatly underestimate is where these industries acquire their wealth. Box office receipts and DVD sales are but one piece of the pie. They also receive royalties and licensing fees from cable and TV replays building on a broader network of advertising and cable subscriptions. Their revenue model is quite broad while the revenue model of photographers is quite narrow.

    Interesting thought none the less and a good exercise in thought on pricing.

    Comment by Jim Goldstein | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  3. What a weird article, you really can’t compare the two industries Mike.

    Comment by Chris Ridley | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  4. Er.. Are 400,000 people going to buy your print? Do you produce only one or 2 prints a year?

    Movies and music are numbers games. Fine art print is exactly the opposite, you pay so that there are less numbers. And that rarity is what adds value.

    Comment by Sean McCormack | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  5. Lets see how far photographers go charging to allow people to see there pictures.. £5 a go and no peeking before hand and you only get to look at it for three hours. We might offer to show some selected pixels with a sexy deep voice talking about the ‘the view of a lifetime coming soon to a wall in your community centre’.

    Anyway, all those photographers sell hundreds of their pictures in one go for about double the price of a single film ticket (and you get to take them home!). The product is called a ‘book’.

    Alternatively, you could try buying the rights to display your purchased movie DVD in a public place (lets say on a restaurant wall). I bet you that costs a tad more than $8.00.

    Comment by Tim Parkin | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  6. The best photographs capture a moment that is at least somewhat unique. The best ones reflect the photographers unique vision, her eye. And that vision reflects what Emerson called the “genius” of the photographer — in this case genius meaning that the vision captured has at least quasi universal appeal.

    Done well this is difficult. So is movie making if its really good. But we labor to small audiences, most of us. I’m a fan of Joel Meyerowitz — now he plays to a larger audience and gets like $1200 for an unframed unmatted 11 by 14 (this was 12 years ago — don’t know what he is getting now). His skill and vision is almost as extraordinary as he thinks it is so he keeps getting great gigs and can charge big bucks (he is also expert at self promotion). The rest of us get small ones opportunities (our own issue I think). If I sell $500 worth of photography in a month I feel pretty good. $1000 and I’m ecstatic!

    If I could find a way to get $5 for a print but sell it thousands of times I would do it. But my gallery attracts maybe 50 people a week if I’m lucky so that’s my world. Maybe next year I’ll do more selling on the web — then I can charge less than the movies do — if I can attract oh say $5,000 potential buyers. But even so getting 10% of those who pass through to buy is the trick. Got any ideas, Mike?

    Comment by frankwinters | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  7. Hey Jim, first thanks for taking the time to comment.

    As I write this I’m looking at about a dozen framed prints of art(and it’s not mine) hanging on my walls. Everybody’s home has some kind of art on their walls in every room. They do have way more music and movies then they have framed art work, but that’s because it cheap. Whould you have very many music CDs or Movies if they cost hundreds of dollars each. It’s not that people wouldn’t buy more photography, it’s just to expensive for most people’s incomes.

    I see many of the young people buying their art at Ikea, Kirkland, Walmart, etc. Walmart sells a 24X36 gallery wrap for $29.00. Ikea sold 15″x15″ photography of beach scenes for $5.00. So the art world can compete in price with movies and music if it’s done on the same high volume level.

    We are losing the baby boomers that supported the arts as they age and have all the art they need. We need the younger generation that have bare walls for art and they are having a tougher time surving then their parents and grandparents did. They can’t afford the high price of art, and we need to look at lowering our prices making it more affordable for everybody.

    Some would say that by selling cheap you are degrading your art. Do you think the actors and musicians are degrading themselve by selling cheap, heck no it’s a great product at a great price, because it can be massed produced doesn’t mean it’s not good art.

    I can press a button on my printer and reproduce my images like a production line. How much value can that have, just like movies and music are sold cheap because of the mass production.

    Flickr has 2 billion (yes billion) photos on it, facebook posts 850 million images a month, and billions more images on places, like pbase, all the nature sites, all the artist sites that sell photography, royalty free images, better photo, photo.net. and on and on. This doesn’t included the billions upon billions that are not on the internet.

    They is a overwhelming amount of photography out there and eveybody is a photographer, so supply and demand says to much supply here, prices need to go down.

    You can buy a Canon G10 and make your own great images for less then some photographers sell a 24X36 gallery wrap.

    And yet I see photographers selling for some amazingly high prices.

    I have art consultant call me because my product is good and my prices are better then the other artist they work with. The other artist ego I guess won’t allow them to sell for less. I make a 1000% mark up when I sell them my print and a guess that’s not enough for the others. Well let them sit there and stare at their printer sitting idol.

    Look what happened to the stock photography business, how many pros that sold their images to advertizers for big bucks are making a living now. Royalty free images have put a huge hurt on all of them. Who’s to say Ikea, Kirkland, Walmat, Bed,Bath,and Beyond, etc. won’t do the same to the print business.

    If your running a business of selling prints then you better start thinking like a business and start cutting cost of overhead and selling cheaper.

    If you have a good product people can tell and if the price is right they will buy.

    Of couse if your images stink, no matter how cheap it is it won’t sell.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  8. I need a break I’ll be back to omment on others. I got this subject going on three sites and I’m burned out from responding.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  9. The art world does not work exactly like the mass-consumer market, even if the “products” (your term) may appear similar at first glance. “amazingly high prices” are the norm, rather than the exception in the art world. If you are charging much less than others, people are going to wonder why.

    If your goal is not to sell art, but simply wall decor, the IKEA approach is right, but you’ve got slightly more work to do than just taking photographs :-)

    As for the movie prices you quote, those are in fact disguised licensing fees, and not prices for acquisition of original art.

    Comment by QT Luong | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  10. This is an economic problem. Movies in DVD form are commodities. True, they may start out at higher prices of 2 to 3 times more than the eventual price, but they eventually become true commodities and the price is lowered to account for the large size of the market and the costs to distribute them.

    One of the key characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole.

    Prints made by most photographers are not commodities. The market for most photographic prints is tiny. The revenue received for a print must reflect all the expenses incurred in producing the final result.

    True, some prints become so popular that they can be sold in a large market, but that market almost never reaches the size that a typical DVD might reach. When prints become that popular they are reproduced not as prints, rather in books, magazines and posters.

    Comment by David | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  11. Hey QT Luong, Thanks for comment, I don’t see royalty free sites having a problem selling images to advertiser for a $1.00. If your assumption of people won’t buy what seems to cheap, then the royalty free sites would be out of business by now, but they thrive big time.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  12. Hey Mike. You have clearly identified the market you want to exploit (in the positive sense of that word). It is a mass market that wants to buy something to hang on their wall and don’t want to spend a lot of money for it. That is fine – a very valid time-tested approach. Let’s say you sell 200 prints to this market at $10 each. You have brought in $2,000. That’s cool.

    Now I have “fine art” prints (maybe limited edition) that I am selling for $200 each. I sell 10. I have also brought in $2000.

    I contend that I will not sell my $200 prints to your audience but you will also not sell your $10 prints to my audience (at least not instead of the $200 alternative). Your audience is bigger, it needs to be. My audience is smaller but I have to sell fewer prints. Yours is a market-driven strategy. Mine is a product-driven strategy. Yours is akin to the movie ticket you mention. Mine is more like tickets to a Broadway show. Different audiences, different products (at least in perception), different prices.

    Comment by edvatza | December 23, 2009 | Reply

  13. Hey Ed, Thanks for comment. Henry Ford built hand made cars when he started. because they were hand made they were only afordable to the rich which was a small market. He knew there was a huge market of buyers out there, but needed to lower the price to reach that market. Once the assembly line was created lowering his price he made a fortune. Your market is hard to find and is to small to sustain comsistant sales. My market because of the volume will produce those consistent sales. Neiman Marcus positions itself selling to the higher income market and they don’t come near Walmart’s sales. Check the percent of people in america in the high incomes, what is it one or two percent of the population. Because you have a smaller group to sell your imges to you also have the problem of having enough of that small group that will like your style of art. If your trying to sell nature to rich people good luck. It’s been my experience that the higher imcome areas I do art shows are my worst shows. These people tend to buy more of the european art that shows all their friends where they’ve been. They also buy more modern art from high end galleries. Good luck getting into high end galleries with nature photography, they don’t view nature as real art when it comes to photography, they like the more modern art in black and white. Ed, I’m not saying you won’t find a gallery and sell a few couple hundred dollar prints, but you will have a extemely hard time trying to make a living with this idea.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  14. Ed, I forgot to mention. You can sell at high prices without any problem if one, you make yourself famous somehow, or you go spend a fortune setting up shop in the big hotels in Las Vegas like Peter lik did and sell for as high as you want. Peter lik’s business does about thirty million a year, has three galleries in Vegas, one or two in Maui, and I think one somewhere else. These are tourist traps with money, but you will have to mortgage your life to get set up in those locations, and you would be gambling just like the people puttin coins in the slot machines.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  15. Mike, you do not buy anything from a micro site. You license an image (even though the license is royalty-free) there. This might seem a minor difference in choice of words, but once you understand it, you will not make the basic mistake of confusing what I called the art world (which is not dominated by B&W by the way) with a market that is totally different.

    Next, Ed is entirely right. $200 is in no way a high-end price for a photographic print. In fact, my least expensive print is currently $350, and I do not find it that hard to make a living (I also do not license images for less than $150) despite the fact that you’ve probably never heard of me before, and I do not have retail galleries in Vegas or elsewhere. In fact, I do not have to haul my wares to any art fairs, and my week-ends are mostly free, because it takes a lot less work to sell, print, package, and send one $350 print than 17 $20 prints.

    Comment by QT Luong | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  16. Also, in case you’ve missed my tweet, there is nothing new about your approach. It’s been done for years. The products are called “posters”.

    Comment by QT Luong | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  17. QT,
    First, we never determined what size print Ed was talking about when he quoted the two hundred dollars. Is it an 8X10 for $200, which would be high or a 24X36 which would not be as high. He quoted my print at $10 which is an 8X10 so if his was $200 then he’s high. so we can’t debate that without a size.

    You are right that people can make it in the gallery market, and I did point that out with Peter Lik. Tom Magnelson is wildlife photographer that I read does about 11 million dollars a year, so I don’t debate that a few can make it selling at higher prices. As I point out it’s a much smaller market and a tougher nut to crack. Not as many nature photographers can make it in the gallery world compared to the art shows.

    Galleries have very low foot traffic making it tougher to makes sales compared to art shows that can draw $20,000 people at a small show to 500,000 for a large show.

    I’ve been in about a dozen galleries in Oakland county, one of the richer counties in the country and never sold more then an image evey few months (can’t make a living like that)but at the shows I sell many thousands of dollars every weekend due to the volume of customers.

    First, If there is a gallery that will produce consisdent sales good luck getting in as they usually have their established artist already.

    Second, you’re not going to tell me you’re going to make a living off one gallery, so you need many galleries and most galleries don’t want you in another gallery in the same area, so now you will spend a lot of time traveling around finding those galleries that will except nature photography and is a gallery that will sell well, and is in the need of another artist.

    I have a lot of galleries in my area, but very few will even look at nature photography.

    These are tough obstacles to over come.

    You know why there are so many nature photographers in the art show business, because they are all like me, they tried the gallery route and it wasn’t producing enough sales.

    So I don’t say that you can’t make it in the gallery market, just saying it’s a much tougher business to make a living at.

    And for the stock photography market, obviously you will make some sales despite the royalty free sites, but the big guys that made their income off stock are now out pushing workshops to make up the differnce, and now that business is being oversaturated.

    I never said my method was new, it’s a time tested way of selling that’s been around for years.

    Thanks, I’ll check out your tweet.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  18. OT, getting back to my original post about the movie and music business, do you think they could survive selling their CDs and DVDs for $350.00? They would not have to sell as many.

    My thought is if they tried this method they would not survive.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  19. Mike you don’t seem to get what the movie and music industry are actually selling you. This was touched on by someone at NPN. These industries technically sell you a license to use intellectual property. They don’t sell you the actual movie or music. While on the surface it may appear you have ownership of these things the law and terms of use of these products dictate that you can use the music or movies you purchase in a limited fashion. If you host a movie or concert night in any fashion other than for personal use you’ll face legal action. In fact its still a contentious issue to make copies of such work for personal use (DRM, reproduction technology, etc.)

    Your comparison of movies/music to photographs doesn’t work on another level in that the product use and interaction is different and widely varied. Example paying for entrance to see/listen to a movie/concert versus buying a take home product such as a print. Even comparing a CD/DVD to a print is not an equal comparison. A print is home decoration versus a personal use license to watch/listen to a quality crippled reproduction of a movie/music performance.

    Your viewpoint is rather black and white. Pricing is dependent on 4 key variables: Audience segment, Product Type, Market location and Distribution mechanism. There is no one magic combination for these four variables. You can align them differently and come up with viable pricing models.

    If your business panacea is to get your photos in Walmart for sale at a low cost then you’ll be able to fine tune these variables to do so. On the other end of the spectrum there is a viable business strategy to target higher priced sales for a select audience. Numerous people are able to do this. Of course there are approaches in between as well that work.

    Photography is not music or movies. This is an apples and oranges comparison. Your point continue to be what is a viable pricing strategy for different markets. Mixing in music and movies does nothing but muddy the water of that discussion.

    Comment by Jim Goldstein | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  20. Jim, when people buy that movie they believe they own that copy of the movie, you can’t come and take it away because they didn’t buy the rights to the movie. People that buy my images don’t own the rights to my image, they own the copy of that image, Just like I own the copy of that movie. Sure maybe there are some legal stuff that comes with buying that movie as you point out, but what does that have to do with my question could they sell this product for $350.00, and yes I’m talking about a method of pricing a product. Are you saying they sell it that cheap based on all this legal stuff, no that stuff has nothing to do with where the price is set, it has to do with volume. I’m talking about to artistic artforms being sold as products. There’s legal stuff that comes with my images like you can’t repoduce it. forget about the legal stuff.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  21. Jim, let’s put it in a different way, take the photography out of the equation, take out the fact that these industries have already been selling this product to consumers at these low prices. People want to buy a copy of this product, do you think it would sell at $350 and would it have a large enough audience to sustain the cost of making these very expensive products? I think I heard Avatar cost close to 400 million.

    My feeling is no way, but they have a product that can be repoduced very cheaply and sold to the masses, and that sometimes works to the tune of fortunes for some.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  22. Mike my last try at this… it doesn’t matter what the price is as long as you can sustain your business. Music and Movie industries are an awful example to compare photography against. The reason the cost is low for admission or for their products is because they spread out their revenue model to account for other channels of income. If the movie industry relied on ticket sales alone they would not cover their expenses. CD sales are down and have transitioned to online download quickly becoming the norm. Musicians get pennies on the CD/Download and that is why many rely on touring to make their money. The grass is not greener on the other side as you think about pricing with these industries… its worse. In fact the trend of sales is transitioning permanently from hard copy purchases to downloads both for movies and music where controls are more tightly made for use (when and how many times its used).

    The answer to your question is that a diverse revenue stream is what makes the world turn no matter what industry. Focusing on what is charged for a CD or DVD compared to a print is useless. The end products are different, the revenue models are different for each industry and the expectations of use are different.

    Depending who your audience is, how you reach them and the nature of your product you can sell anything for any price. Case in point with Bottled Water, Snuggies, $3,000 designer women’s handbags, or Ferrari’s.

    My advice to you is think not in terms of other industries but in terms of pricing model basics and audience selection. Another great concept to read up on is 1,000 True Fans.

    Have a great holidays Mike and best of luck wrapping your brain around the pricing puzzle.

    Comment by Jim Goldstein | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  23. Okay Jim, we’ll let this one go, thanks for stoping by and commenting. Hope you and your family have a great holiday. Stop by when I post again on pricing, this time just photography related.:)

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  24. You seem to equate the art fair market with rock bottom prices, but from what I hear Alain Briot (beautiful-landscape.com) sells at art fairs (having found like you that the gallery market doesn’t work for him). Yet look at his prices !

    My product that compares to movies are my
    computer wallpaper images: 20,000+ high-res images that you can download to view on your computer. $25/year. Totally different from prints.

    Comment by QT Luong | December 24, 2009 | Reply

  25. Hey QT, the guys I see at the shows selling in the higher prices are carrying most of their stock back home at the end of the shows. Many have had to lower prices to make sales, and it’s been working.

    I’m in the midwest so the market could be different for those selling in the west where I think Alain is probably doing his shows.

    The computer wallpaper is and interestig concept, and sounds like a good price for this, I’ll check it out.

    Thanks for stopping by to comment, and hope you and your family have a happy holiday.

    Check back in a few days as I will be asking about how photographers arrive at their pricing.

    Comment by Mike Moats | December 25, 2009 | Reply


Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

« Previous | Next »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 2,785 other followers