Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape:

One of the hoariest old chestnuts in photography is the statement immediately above. Every time I read it chills run down my spine. It seems that whenever someone asks on an online forum whether lens A or B is superior, or if camera A is better than camera B, someone drags out this ancient aphorism. Its purpose, I suppose, is to show superiority of intellect, but basically it’s just plain wrong-headed.

Amen!

While I doubt I’ll act on his suggestion, Reichmann say that the next time someone says this we might want to “whack them upside the head and tell them to stop being such a simplistic dolt.”
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I wrote a short bit yesterday about examples of a new way to buy/sell photographs online. As if on cue, there is a short post today at Art & Perception on this subject:

My first online art purchase

Today Paul’s print arrived in the mail. I was not sure exactly what to expect, because Paul uses an Epson printer to produce his prints, and I had no idea what the result would be. Now that I have it here, I am surprised but pleased with the result. The print is crisp (despite my lousy photo of it above) and has lovely gray tones. It is not like a “normal” photograph, however — it is matt rather than glossy. This does not diminish its beauty, but does give it a different feel — say, like a fresco as compared to an oil painting.

Am I ready to “upgrade” to the 40″x50″ print for $2500? I’d like to Paul, though I’ll have to wait on that one. But I am most encouraged with my first foray into the online art market.
– Karl Zipser [Art & Perception]

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I wrote a short bit yesterday about examples of a new way to buy/sell photographs online. As if on cue, there is a short post today at Art & Perception on this subject:

My first online art purchase

Today Paul’s print arrived in the mail. I was not sure exactly what to expect, because Paul uses an Epson printer to produce his prints, and I had no idea what the result would be. Now that I have it here, I am surprised but pleased with the result. The print is crisp (despite my lousy photo of it above) and has lovely gray tones. It is not like a “normal” photograph, however — it is matt rather than glossy. This does not diminish its beauty, but does give it a different feel — say, like a fresco as compared to an oil painting.

Am I ready to “upgrade” to the 40″x50″ print for $2500? I’d like to Paul, though I’ll have to wait on that one. But I am most encouraged with my first foray into the online art market.
– Karl Zipser [Art & Perception]

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Mike Johnston (The Online Photographer) and George Barr (Behind the Lens) are trying a new approach to online print sales. The details differ, but they both offer essentially a “print of the week” (or month) – an unmounted, modest sized version of a selected print sold at a very reasonable price.

There are a lot of interesting aspects to this, and benefits for both photographers and buyers, including:

• The costs of producing a single print on demand are greater than some purchasers might imagine. These costs are less burdensome when multiple copies of a print are sold, meaning that a lower price is possible.
• Potential buyers who have only seen the photographer’s work on the web can obtain a sample print at a reasonable cost before purchasing larger and more expensive prints.
• This approach could be particularly workable with web sales, connecting the online gallery to interested buyers.
• This bypasses gallery sales (and the benefits and costs of that approach), but it could actually increase recognition (and sales) of a photographer’s works there as well.

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