Financing the Cost of Attending Workshops

[Ian Grant]

corners, guys.

You BOTH are right. Just yelling past each other.

Ken Norton
www.zone-10.com

He's kissed & made up to the OP now, and maybe will go do some thinking about why he attacked the OP with such vitriol without reading the OP's posts properly.

I was just whiling away time writing DVDS of the commercial work I shot over the weekend

Ian

[frednewman]

Hi lilmsmaggie -

I agree with what RalphLambrecht said. I started teaching BTZS (Beyond the Zone System) and Introduction to the View Camera workshops with Phil Davis back in 1995. The students were all serious photographers who wanted to improve their craft. They were from all different professions and photography was their passion. I now do mostly private workshops and most photographers come to my workshops because they are not happy with the quality negatives. My first private workshop happened when I got a call asking when the next BTZS workshop was and it was a few months away. The photographers was not happy with the quality of her negatives and she said I can't wait that long and she came out a few weeks later. Basically as Oliver Gagliani said about his workshops is that he could share his knowledge gained by trial and error over many years with his students to speed up their learning.

I find that learning BTZS can be a bit hard but some students do well when shown step 1, step 2 and the rest of the steps and then they understand what you are trying to teach. I saw that early on working with Phil Davis and the reward was when you saw the student start to understand what you were teaching - that was the reward for the teacher. I'm with Oliver Gagliani - it is very gratifying to be able to share your knowledge with your students.

Fred Newman

[chriscrawfordphoto]

He's kissed & made up to the OP now, and maybe will go do some thinking about why he attacked the OP with such vitriol without reading the OP's posts properly.

I was just whiling away time writing DVDS of the commercial work I shot over the weekend

Ian

Your a lying dishonorable ass. I never attacked the OP, I told him what I thought he should do, and I stick to that. As for your other lying post about attacking my work, you certainly did and anyone who has any intelligence and honesty knows it.

[keithwms]

Why all these pages of back and forth when the answer is clear: if you want tips on how to sell prints then why not simply look for a workshop including that topic. No? If it doesn't exist then try to arrange it.

The whole point of a workshop is that it has a program and reliable experts contributing to that program. If that program includes a discussion of how to move prints, well then sure you can hope to recoup losses through what you learn.

But... most workshops of which I am aware are about process, not marketing. Marketing would be really hard to cover: the marketability of people's output, their price points, their overhead expenses and their proximity to art investors are all so wildly different. There is also that central issue that no one wants to talk about: their actual profit. Everyone is happy to talk about the $500 print that sold last year, but what about the multitude of other prints that cost way more than $500 to make and sit on the shelf. How many people at a workshop would actually disclose all their gains and losses and do the math? Not many. It's an uncomfortable topic for most people. Good luck finding guidance on that!

[Greg Davis]

For a workshop discussing how to sell and market your work, look for one run by Mary Virginia Swanson.

[Exeter2010]

Well this, if not interesting, then at least entertaining string seems sure to be IXnay'd by the ostensible APUG moderators before too long, what with all the crapshooting and all.

Before it does, and for what it's worth, I think Mr. Grant, by degrees, was attempting to get Mr. Crawford to consider the possibility that some of his "advice" to the OP could easily have been misconstrued as not much more than a series of negative, condescending remarks about whatever anyone who ISN'T a "Professional Fine Art Photographer" had to say on the idea of getting some recognition and possibly some remuneration for one's hard work.

Since Mr. Crawford, who is apparently unable to tolerate any sort of criticism himself (since he has, after all, already attained the status of PFFA and is therefore beyond reproach - kinda like tenure) and since Mr. Grant was unable to get his point, or more aptly his admonition, across to Mr. Crawford to TONE IT DOWN A LITTLE and subsequently calling him to the carpet (for which I can hardly blame him) to put his money where is mouth is, this string, or at least this component of it, has degenerated into not much more than a schoolyard name calling contest; not to mention inciting my own propensity to engage in run-on sentences and soap-box opining about the entire state of things as they have become in this formerly somewhat civil and engaging discussion.

I'm going to my darkroom now to catch up on some work....

[Bob Carnie]

I miss Jorge and Blansky

[Curt]

I'm new to LF photography but already, I can see my potential in selling quality prints as a way to gain more experience and cover the cost of attending a workshop. Let's face it - workshops are very expensive. If I could sell a print or two, to pay for a workshop, it would be more than worth it to me.

I just finished a 1-week workshop that was inexpensive compared to the costs of a lot of workshops being offered and it was well worth the money I spent. If one attends one or two workshops a year, the cost of the workshop, plus travel expenses, hotel accommodations, and food quickly add up. One could easily spend $1500 or more on a single workshop not including travel, food and lodging. And in my case, the cost of a rental car.

So if you've spent $1500 to gain the knowledge to produce a fine print - where's the breaking even point for selling the artistic byproduct (print, etc.)?

Knowing ones potential market and pricing accordingly, really means knowing your potential target clientèle. I think it is just as easy to under-price one's work as it is to over-price it. Undercutting yourself is not a good idea, so how do you find a balance between the time and work you put into making a print, and offsetting those cost in the selling price? How much is your time worth? Your creativity? I think the materials cost is much easier to figure out.

Also, at this stage in my photographic development, I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time in the traditional darkroom. I think scanning film negs and making prints from digital negs would be my best option. I'm way ahead of the curve in setting up a digital darkroom versus a traditional darkroom.



So my question is this: How does one promote themselves in such a way, as to finance attending 2 maybe 3 workshops a year?

There is site called Hybridphoto that can fulfill that best option of making prints from digital negs since you are way ahead of the curve in setting up a digital darkroom.

[SuzanneR]

The tone of this thread wasn't great from the start, and has clearly gotten worse. I think the OP has plenty of responses, so in the interest of keeping things cordial, I think it's time to move on. A round of drinks on me.