Pricing

I have read numerous places and overheard and been a part of many conversations about pricing.

The most common things I have heard are: women, women artists, all artists in general fall subject to underpricing their work and that higher pricing adds value to your product.

Now I agree with both of these statements to some degree but they just don't seem to sit right with me and my photographs for some reason.

My passion is photography and making jewelry. I get unmeasurable joy out of sharing these passions with people who buy my work. Nothing pleases me more than imagining my art adorning the walls and bodies belonging to beautiful souls who connect or get something from it. I am not really interested in marketing to someone who wants my work just because the price is high enough to tell them it has value. I want to have prices that feel fair to me and my efforts. I am pretty happy with my jewelry prices for the time it takes to make the pieces and the cost of supplies. I am not as sure about my photograph prices.

I can't get out of my head that my Cotton Candy Photograph has been looked at over 800 times and featured in a few spots online yet it has not yet sold. Why is that?

It makes me a bit sad. Yesterday we went to an arts fair. There were a lot of customers milling around. I was particularly interested in seeing the jewelry and photography booths of course:)

I liked most of the photographers work. It was a juried fair and the photographers had good displays and work.

I was surprised (and it may have been a unique occurance to this fair-I am not generalizing or making an assumption that all photographers at all fairs are equal) that the photographers there were sitting or standing in their booths looking miserable. There were lots of people looking at the photographs and then walking out without making a purchase. Their prints in bins had grungy worn labels from being handles over and over. Most unframed matted photographs were between $40-75 and the framed photographs were upwards of $175. I didn't see lines forming or sales coming out of their booths. I saw a lot of people walking out empty handed.

It made me think about how pricing works. About what I would want my fair experience to be like if I decide to do one in the future. Do I want to price my work at what people say is "the right price-the desireable price", and then sit around waiting for that one person who may buy? Or do I want to see the joy and light on peoples faces as they walk away with a photograph that moved them that they will hang on their wall because it was priced at a cost they felt they could afford for the amount of joy it brought them?

I truly truly want to have people enjoying my work. I still have so much to learn about taking photographs and am unknown. I know that there are photographers that are very skilled and very very busy selling prints at high prices because they are in demand. They have been noticed by many people and their prices reflect their popularity. I think this is fabulous and I would love to be there too someday. It means people derive that amount of pleasure from having one of their photographs-to pay that price.

But until I get that sort of popularity and demand I want there to be movement and sharing occuring with my work. I don't want to have all the stickers on my work getting grungy from being handled over and over but never bought.

Now if I was selling my original drawings or only one print of each photograph well then the price would be higher. If I was in the darkroom developing my prints by hand or having the film scanned then of course the prices would have to be higher.

But I can order multiple prints for a reasonable cost. I am not swamped with business to the point where I need to increase my overhead (more hours of babysitter) to get all my orders out.
When that happens an increase in price will be warranted.

But right now all I want to do is share the joy my photographs bring me.

So to begin I am putting 3 prints on special in my shop as an experiment. I am also changing to all prints having free shipping.

I am going to see what the response is.

Maybe it will make sharing my joy a bit easier.

Namaste

edited to add***** I have been fretting a bit about this post since writing it. I feel some unease that the words didnt fall on the page as they are in my mind. That I have come across wrong. That maybe my work isn't selling because it sucks-yet I can't write that here because all you lovelies keep listening to my insecurities and giving me your support.

I was comforted this evening to know that I am not alone in some of these thoughts and worries. Nina at Ornamental and Christine over at swirly girl....thank you for being open and honest about your journeys. They brought me comfort tonight.

"I have very mixed feelings about the idea of trying to pursue a level of success that will ensure that many people cannot afford my original work. I am not interested in undervaluing the work I do, but I feel like I am straddling two worlds, or maybe the better term is two mindsets - one, which I lived by for a very long time, was about wanting to share my work as widely as possible and earning an income was all about volume. The second is also about wanting to share my work as widely as possible, but earning an income is more about developing a strong enough following as an artist that my work commands higher prices and therefore volume is not the goal. " Christine Mason Miller