First of all, nearly every photographer I admire uses open editions. It’s just a natural medium for photographs. Limited editions make total sense for many traditional art forms, where the master image degrades with each printing. But one of the pleasures of photography is that you are not limited in the number of prints you can make from a negative. And this is even more true with digital photography where the master file never degrades.

Second, my technique and skills are constantly improving, as is the technology I use. Whenever I make a print, it represents the best I can do at that point in time. But every year, the software I use gets more sophisticated. Every year, my ability to use those tools gets better. Every year, I learn new techniques and get better at old ones. And because of this, every time I revisit an old photograph, it gets better and closer to the vision I originally had for it. If I limited my editions, this avenue for growth would be shut down, which would be unfair to both me and the buyers of my art.

Third, it just doesn’t make business sense. Limiting editions would just limit my potential for making money. And my goal is not just to make art, but to make a living from my art. Artificially limiting my ability to do this is just taking money away from my family.

Some argue that limited editions are more attractive to collectors, because they are better investments. But you want collectibility? Buy Pokemon cards. You want an investment? Buy some stock. You want art? OK, let’s talk! No one who has bought a print from me has ever asked about limited editions, edition size, print order, or anything. They buy the art, not its collectibility.

Barney Davey has been advocating against limited editions of prints, and is much more eloquent on this topic. Go read what he has to say!

P.S. You should follow me on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

why I do open editions

…I told myself, “Steve, focus all your effort in that little overlap and don’t ever go outside it. Don’t work on stuff you love that you believe is totally uncommercial. And don’t work on projects that you imagine will sell but that you hate. Stick to the sweet spot.”

It seems like a logical and sound business practice: find the sweet spot between making what you love and making what will sell, and build your business around that overlap. Brilliant! Should work, right? Yet, seemingly, no. Pressfield continues:

Here’s the interesting part: it didn’t work…. nothing really clicked for me until I gave up completely on hitting the overlap and just did what I loved, even when I thought nobody else in the world would be interested.

I have found the same thing to be true in my art career. I am drawn to make very abstract images, photographs that make you question what you are seeing. Yet my more representation pieces, photographs that are obviously of a flower or a leaf, seem to sell better. Logically, I should limit my abstract work and focus more on those representational photographs. Yet this method tends to backfire. My work stalls, my creativity dries up, and I find myself neither making work nor selling.

After thinking about this for a while, I realized that there are a couple fundamental flaws with trying to build a business in the sweet spot between your passion and marketability. First, it assumes that you can predict what will sell. And second, it assumes you can control your creativity.

Predicting what will sell based on what has sold is tricky, if not impossible. You may think you know why one type of art is selling better, but the truth is, you probably don’t. You could just be unintentionally marketing one type of art differently. Maybe you’ve been promoting it longer, or it just found its audience faster. Or maybe those works are just easier to market online (for example, it is much easier to describe a representational work for Google than an abstract one). Or you could be completely wrong about why these are your best sellers. I assume my representational photographs sell better because they are easier to understand and appreciate. But I could be wrong: maybe the photographs that sell better have nothing to do with abstraction vs representational. Maybe it’s the colors I am using in that series, or the subject matter, or the technique. Or maybe there is no real pattern at all to what sells vs what doesn’t — I mean, it’s not like I’m selling on a scale that makes any statistical analysis very valid.

Since it is so difficult to accurately predict what will sell and why, constraining what I create based on my best-guesses is foolish at best. Assuming that I know why these pieces are selling may cause me to overlook other qualities in my art that are attracting collectors. I may think I’m being market-savvy, but I may just be shutting out my next big seller.

Likewise, it is foolish to assume that I can control my creativity. If I say “ah, this type of art is selling so that’s all I’ll make”, I am profoundly misunderstanding my own creative process. My creativity is not a machine that can be tuned to a certain profitable frequency and switched on. It is messy, chaotic, and exploratory. My creativity needs to experience some freedom in order to function. Trying to limit my output to a certain style would quickly damp down my ability to create anything.

One of my 'crazy' abstract photographs. This one is of tree bark (if you couldn't tell.)

I also believe that one of the reasons my simpler pieces sell better is because they are influenced by my crazier work. They may feel “simpler” to me, but they have gained a higher degree of sophistication from the techniques and ideas I have learned by exploring the creative fringes. Without my more abstract work, my representational work would probably be flatter, more boring, more predictable. My passion is in the abstract, and I believe that you can feel this passion in all of my work. If I prevented myself from doing this style of art for the sake of my business plan, my passion would diminish, and all of my work would suffer.

So like Pressfield, I have come to realize that trying to base my creation of art on the market is not the right path for me. Maybe my balance is not in the middle between passion and commerce. Maybe the best business model is to pursue my passion, throw all of my energy into discovering what makes my art unique. These pieces may never gain a big enough market share to make money, but hopefully their quality and energy will fuel the reputation for all of my work. And at the same time, I should continue to pay attention to what is selling, as long as I don’t try to chase it. Use these sales as a litmus test for what may be connecting with an audience. Learn from that connection and try to extend that knowledge to all of my work. Hopefully by following the passion, while still listening to the market, I can find a business model that works for me, and helps me make a living in this crazy industry.

–

Notes: I read about Steven Pressfield in an excellent blog post by Jonathan Fields. I also just read a somewhat-related post by Seth Godin, where he discusses: “should I write blog posts that increase my traffic or that help change the way (a few) people think?”

Update 3/30/10: This article was just featured on Empty Easel.

P.S. You should follow me on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

making what you love vs what sells

I know, sounds obvious, right? But with all of the entrepreneurial responsibilities that come with being an artist, it can be easy to forget. You find yourself spending so much time trying to promote your work, gain some sort of recognition, and God willing, sell a few pieces, that you forget that if you don’t make the art, you won’t have anything to sell.

So I’m trying to kick myself in the pants, and get my productivity back on track. Even though the wedding ketubah season is quickly ramping up, I need to carve out a set amount of time each day to turn off the email and Twitter, turn on the music, and create. Or at least try to create. Already this week I have spent every morning in the studio, working on new pieces. But now I need to buckle down, and keep this up. Care to join me?

P.S. You should follow me on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

shut up and make art

It’s tremendously challenging to work for yourself, but that challenge is exactly what makes it worthwhile. The work I did in my corporate days was often hard, sometimes fun, but it rarely rarely challenged me the way my own little business does. Why? That corporate job never pushed me to my limits, or encouraged me rise to a new level of achievement. As hard as I worked at that job, I always felt like I was only using half of my abilities, at best. Whenever I tried to stretch and try new things, or tried to encourage my team to take on new challenges, I was shot down again and again by bosses, managers, and clients. It was a job, but never a livelihood, and never a life.

But working on my own, for all of its stress and anxiety, has always asked more of me than I ever thought I could give. Running this little business always pushes me to use every skill I have, and constantly learn new ones. It leads me into scary new places, and forces me to confront them, to rise to the challenge, and to move forward. It is never satisfied with letting me coast along at half-speed, but constantly forces me to be, entirely, 100% myself. I constantly fall, I constantly fail. I am always questioning myself and my abilities. But by god, I am growing, and learning, and living.

P.S. You should follow me on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

the challenge of being a creative entrepreneur

The new keyword and lightbox features can be found under the description of every photograph.

Keywords: Each photograph is now tagged with keywords that help to describe it (e.g. “mysterious“). Click on a photograph’s keyword, you will be shown all of the photographs that match. Over time, I’ll be adding more and more keywords, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments below.

Lightbox: I have also added a lightbox feature to my website. This is a way for you to quickly create your own collection of photographs that you can save, and later access with a single click. You can also easily share these lightboxes with your clients by simply emailing them a link. You can quickly create any number of lightboxes you like, perfect for when you are searching for art for a number of design projects.

Check out my new features.

P.S. I do all of the design and coding for my website, so if you find and bugs, or glitches in the interface, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could let me know. A website is always a work-in-progress!

P.S. You should follow me on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

New website features: keywords and lightbox