Passages From The Panel – Part 3.

Here’s the final installment of my responses from the Guardian’s ‘Ask The Experts’ blog from a couple of weeks ago. Just the one question and answer this time, but it was on a subject that I felt most able to give advice on; The question was posed by a man writing under the pseudonym of woah. I’ve edited my response slightly to correct spelling mistakes and restructure a couple of sentences to make them more comprehensible; my original reply was written hurriedly during the energy of a live blog.

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About 20 years ago I had two exhibitions of portraits, one of them in London. From this work, I sold several portraits to public galleries – including 2 to the National Portrait Gallery in London. Back then I also sold a large 40×40 photograph to one of the guys in Wet Wet Wet, did an album cover for another band and ….. stupidly got stuck in a job I hated, that led me to stop creative work, but which I needed to do to pay the bills. This was important to me back then and I couldn’t give up the day job.

Now, however, I have. In fact, I’ve been house-husbanding for 6 years and want to pick up the threads of Fine Art photography, create new work and make a contribution to the household budget as well as take responsibility for childcare such as school drops and collects. I live in London and am a bit lost about where to start. Advice welcome, thanks.

hi woah;

like every other avenue of photography, fine art photography is super hard to establish yourself in. I feel more qualified to talk about this than other aspects of photography as its the field that I have invested most of my time and energy into.

Here’s the harsh reality. in 3-4 years of devoting myself to long term photographic projects, I’ve definitely spent more money on the pursuit of photographing them than I have made money back from print sales and syndication. Right now i’m comfortable with this, as it’s effectively my passion and what is going to keep me interested in photography long term.

Getting to the stage where you can attempt to make a final project edit can be a long and expensive process..

If you are intending on continuing in your role as a house-husband and making fine art photography, my main concern would be (a) what are you going to photograph and (b) that your wish to contribute money to the household budget may be a bit optimistic if you’re intending to do this through print sales; I don’t know anything about your photography, I just know that its hard to sell prints!

Selling your prints through a galley is really tough to break into. Independent galleries are inundated with fine art photographers trying to get representation.

If i were you, this would be my game plan…

1. work out what it is you want to photograph.
2. photograph the hell out of it.
3. edit your work down to a solid portfolio that you feel represents what you are trying to achieve.
4. show it to people.

Here’s where it gets interesting; Its hard to see people with your work! the established route is through whats called ‘portfolio reviews’.

Diane Smyth and Olivier Laurent (on the panel from the British Journal of Photography) can tell you a little more about this, but basically there is a worldwide network of photography portfolio reviews, usually attached to photo festivals, where leading figures in fine art photography (curators, art buyers etc) gather to review the work of photographer who pay for the privilege of showing their work for set 20-30 min sessions. generally you would pay anywhere between £200-500 for 5-8 portfolio sessions.

This is a big commitment, and I would only recommend doing this when you are really happy with the work that you have and have a lot of confidence in it. For what its worth, I’ve won a couple of big awards and have been working on my own projects for 5 years, but am still not ready to shell out money on a portfolio review session. Hopefully that gives you some perspective.

However – In London there are some cheaper options to get your first portfolio review. Contact Editions run free monthly portfolio reviews for photographers at venues around London, and invite really good guest reviewers along. The BJP have really good value folio reviews at their Vision event that runs every November, usually at the Business Design Centre in Islington.

Folio reviews have a dual purpose – when you are at an early stage in your career, you can use them to gain a sense of direction for your work and gain valuable advice. Later in your career, they can still serve this purpose, but more importantly they give you the chance to forge long term relationships with people in the positions of power within the industry. I have several friends who have invested money in folio reviews, and are now collaborating creatively and professionally with the people who reviewed their work.

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Reading through my response a week or so later, I realise that I only discussed one route into fine art photography , and in some ways it’s quite a formulaic and well trodden path. There’s got to be other ways to succeed; added to this, people gauge success quite differently, and not necessarily in financial terms. I’d be interested to hear other peoples experiences and suggestions:

• How have you made headway into the world of exhibitions and print sales? has it been rewarding personally, financially or both?
• Have you taken part in a portfolio review, and would you say it was a worthwhile experience?

 

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