Digital frames and borders on prints?

lifesdisciple · December 17, 2006

I would like others opinions on this. I have several galleries on my site. Some where you can purchase prints and others you can not. I have been thinking about making a "print" gallery where that would be the only place to purchase and the prints that would be for sale in there would have borders and such. Like instead of just the photo. It would be the photo with a thin border placed on a black or dark background with my signature underneath the photo. A little more Artisitc/print like or bad idea? This has been driving me bonkers for a while now. I was hoping starting this site would help me sell more prints but I have yet to sell one. Has anyone else had any luck selling prints online? If so, whats your secret? Any and all suggestions, advice, and or comments are welcome and greatly appreciated. Thanks. :scratch

3rdPlanetPhotography · December 21, 2006

Hello my friend... I've checked out your photos and they are very nice but here is the reality of selling photos.

I tend to sell a good amount of photos because I'm shooting things like weddings and portraits and those kinds of "events". These are events that people purchase because it's about them. The fact is "people" sell.

I have yet to sell "one" photo of anything besides a photos of someone that they wanted for their album or wall. I haven't come across anyone that's surfing around for photos of cars, barns, landscapes, etc...., HOWEVER, that doesn't mean those people don't exist. They do but they are far and few in between.

I've seen several people such as yourself put up some outstanding photos. Photos that I'd be proud of myself, but then they find that it's hard to sell photos of other than people. Now I'm sure some will post against me here and say that I'm wrong because they have sold something other than "people" photos. That is true. They do sell if you are in the right market and know where those people exist. I think those would be considered "stock" photos and there are places and sites where companies and such search for such stock photos. That may do you better.

Don't let this sound like

. Just my opinion.

Good luck and we'll help any way we can.

Scott

Scott_Quier · December 21, 2006

lifesdisciple wrote:

I was hoping starting this site would help me sell more prints but I have yet to sell one. Has anyone else had any luck selling prints online? If so, whats your secret? Any and all suggestions, advice, and or comments are welcome and greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I've known for a while that my landscape/scenery/etc photos were good to excellent (my wife says they are excellent, I say that just qualify as good) and that marketing them would be difficult to impossible, given the huge numbers of other such photographers on the net.

All of my sales, so far, have been of weddings and portraits and sold the people who hired me (or their family).

If you haven't already read it, you might find some useful information in this thread (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=46939), paying particular attention to Andy's post.

I hope this helps, but fear it didn't.

System · December 26, 2006

I've sold a couple of random images to random people. They found me and liked what they saw...voila! I can only surmise that there are people that surf smugmug / dgrin and actually do buy images. That said, finding ways to get your images to stand out amongst the millions is nearly impossible. FWIW, the more active I am about promoting my images on the forums the more hits my smugmug site gets. The sales I've had have been during the highest traffic periods to my site which are always my most active periods on dgrin etc.

photogmomma · December 30, 2006

Well, one thing you definitely need to do is watermark your photos! It's as easy as pie to do a print screen and put your photo as my screen background and you'd never even know it! (They are right click protected and I can't get to originals, but I can still print screen and get one for a small print or use other places....)

Next, market yourself! (I haven't read the link Scott posted so if I repeat myself, sorry!) But print out a bunch of your best photos, frame 'em and then try to sell them at art fairs. Advertise yourself in the paper, local coffee shops, etc, etc, etc. Donate a photo up for a non-profit auction. See if there are other places you can place your photos. And include your web site with every single photo you have up anywhere - whether in the description, a tag on the back, whatever. How will people know about you if you don't tell them? And tell them where to go?

Create postcards, calendars, smaller prints that are matted, things along those lines and put them in some local shops - with your web site on the back.

Get a hook. Do something that no one else does that gets people to your site. I have a Crested Butte section that is more for fun that shows what it's like to live here - and I have a bunch of your standard outdoors photos. The competition here is VERY fierce in that category so I'm trying to stand apart by doing something no one else does.

Does it all work? I don't know. I have sold a few non-portrait photos - some for prints in people's homes, some for Christmas cards (they purchased a digital download), but that's about it. I haven't really advertised my work as I'm really trying to concentrate on my portraits, not my outdoors work. But those few wouldn't have sold if I didn't promote myself!

HTH! Good luck and let us know what works for your photos. You've got some very nice stuff so I'm sure you'll sell some.....

Digital frames and borders on prints?

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