"Good" and "Bad" Photography

[Jose A Martinez]

Have any of the people praising your work actually asked to buy/have a print? To me, someone wanting to own one of my prints would be the highest form of compliment.


Steve.

I totally agree. I still remember the day I made my first sale. It was a family reunion and I showed some photos, just for the fun, and the husband of a niece ask her to tell me if I would sell him one that he liked. It was the best compliment I ever had about my work.

Good or Bad photography hummm... I read this somewere here in APUG quoting Cartier Bresson "you worst photos are the first 10,000", I not totally agree, but I think that it is true that the more you work the best you can be.

[Svend Videbak]

Someone already wrote "contact publishers, see what they thing". Good advice, hearsay is worthless. "You ought to be in pictures!" Uh-huh. "You should be published!" Set up a meeting please.

The publishing of photo books is a strange and difficult business. Publishers will never take on a photo book project from an unknown, no matter how much they like the pictures. Why? Because it's money down the toilet. The name is the thing. I know something about it from the inside.

Recently, a photo book was published in Finland by the country's biggest general publisher. The title and content: "Views of Helsinki" or some such. A big, big, glossy coffee table book. Tip-top production values, very expensive to produce. It was in the bookstores, strongly promoted, stacked up in pyramids everywhere. I grabbed one, flipped it open, full of anticipation. And? Page after page of banal, picture-postcard colour shots of Helsinki. There was a written running commentary of no particular interest. The book is nothing. I couldn't understand it. But then it clicked -- the family name of the photographer is an old and very well-known name associated with the business of art auctioneering. There you go. The photographer approached the publisher with this project, and the publisher took it on because of the name, which is known by the target audience.

[haris]

I would try with exhibition before publishing my work as book or monograph or album. Exhibition is less expencive, you can organize it without anyone (you pay all expences, here if I have photographs already printed and mounted, it cost me about 60 EUROS for good gallery and up for "posh" gallery per day of gallery space including insurance and security personell, catering is few bottles of vine, few bottles of different juices, few sandwiches, all together about 100 EUROS )

At exhibition you will MAYBE get honest opinion and realize should you publish your work.

As Sven correctly said, name is very important, and there are many books of photographs I wonder why they are published in first place...