I'm working on my second year of applying for art shows and I'm trying to expand on both locations and the prestige of the shows I am applying for. One thing I'm finding is that some of these shows are requiring signed and numbered limited editions. I do sign all of my images directly on the print in case of the customer changing the matting.
As for the limited editions I find this to be somewhat perceptual. I can easily set an edition limit that is really unlikely to be reached and yet the photograph is a "limited edition." Beyond the art shows I'm looking towards gallery and art consultants as another outlet in which case limited editions would probably appear more appealing.
Beyond the obvious of keeping track of the edition number for each print and I believe providing some sort of certificate, I'm not familiar with this process and it's limitations. For those of you that do offer limited editions I'm sure this is a no-brainer but I'm interested in your feedback.
The first thing that comes to mind is; what restrictions-if any- are there on other uses of these images. To the point; can I still use these images for other uses such as stock, licensing, book/magazine usage and small promotional items like calendars and screen savers etc.
Rob
Posted by David Bostedo on March 28, 2009 at 3:50 PM
Hey Rob, most top shows do require that you do limited edition prints, but I know a few photographers that do the same shows I do and don't do the limited edition, and have never been question by the people running the shows or their customers.
With most shows I've never even met the people who run the shows, as they don't come around and even say hi how you doing, let alone check to see if your selling limited editions. Only way they would even know is if another artist complained.
At the shows most people are not even aware or care that its limited editions. They're more interested in if it matches the carpet, drapes, color of the walls, they don't buy it based on the fact that its a limited edition. We're not famous so the limited edition doesn't have a lot of value. On the exception I have a few customers that think its a big deal. One customer calls me if she sees me post a new image on my website and ask if the number one print of the edition is available. She has many of my number one prints.
I do follow the rules and do the limited editions, even though I think its a waste of time, as like I said most customers really don't care. I set mine at 150. If I have an image thats a good seller I will usually only sell about 50 a year, so it would take me three years to sell it out. I don't want to carry an image more than three years as you need to rotate your stock so customers are not seeing the same thing each year, and you should have new images each year that you will be shooting that will take its place.
The limited edition just lets the customers know that it's not sold by the thousands through Walmarts. Most photographers I see set the number anywhere from 150 to 750.
Most galleries will ask if your work is limited edition and they will generally want limited edition. So you have to decide before you sell any print whether you're going to make it a limited edition, as you don't what to sell twenty of them and then decide to make it a limited edition, as some customer that bought one will see it now as a limited edition, and may question why theirs isn't.
I would do the limited edition just so your covered if you decide to sell to galleries, and then your also in compliance with the art show rules so you don't have to worry about it.
Hey Rob, I forgot to mention that many photographers play games with the limited edition as they may sell 150 in the 18X24 size, and then sell another 150 in 8X10 size, and another 150 in 11X14, and so on and so on. Some will set the limited edition number, and sell only to that number regardless what size it was sold in, this is how I set mine.
Hey Mike,
Thanks for the info, I agree that if doing limited editions it should be irrelevant of the size. As you mentioned, jumping in after making some sales would be an issue for me on a small scale, last year was my first real push at making fine art prints after a few years of magazines, calendars and contests. I did make a few, and I stress FEW! sales last year; probably not enough to raise any eyebrows should I start limited editions. I wouldn't be doing this to justify a higher price for the work so much as doing it for long term goals of possibly gallery representation.
For your "certificate" is this something you designed for yourself or is there a boilerplate certificate out there that can be adapted to almost any situation? This may be answered in one of the threads you provided, I'm still working on reading through all the debates on this topic. i never realized this was such a hot topic when I asked the question!!
Hey Rob, I don't do a certificate as like I said most people at the art shows are more interested in the print matching the colors of the room it's going in, rather then if its a limited edition. I have become friends with many of the photograpers in the art show curcuit and none of them I know offer certificates. If I thought it would help sell the print by offering a certificate I would do it, but their motivation for the purchase is not based on it being a limited edition. The number 1/150 on the front of the print lets the viewer know it's a limited edition. Maybe it would mean more to someone buying in a gallery, but I don't offer a certificate there either and I've never had a gallery owner ever say customers aren't buying your images because you don't offer a certificate. I'm not saying it would hurt to do it, just don't think it will make any difference in making the sale.
Posted by Jim Bullard on March 29, 2009 at 12:46 PM
The notion of 'an edition' comes from fine art printing where the plate or litho stone could produce "X" number of prints before the original (the plate itself or drawing on the stone) deteriorated to the point that it no longer produced good prints. With wet printing of photos, limiting editions made some sense in that reproducing the same dodging, burning, etc. over many prints could get quite tedious. "How many times do I really want to do this with this print?" was a valid limit at least from the photographer's POV. FWIW Ansel Adams never did limited editions and his later prints often differed significantly from earlier ones. Because of the market has come to equate "limited edition" with higher value of individual prints it became a mechanism for artificially raising the value. It is worth noting that lower numbered prints within an edition are often valued more highly than higher numbered prints of the same edition. I'll get back to that shortly in explaining my approach.
Digital printing has for all practical purposes eliminated hand work from editions. Once the adjustments to the image are made and saved to a file, printing "X" number of prints is a matter of telling the computer how many to run off. No plates or drawings on a litho stone to wear out and no tedium of repeating over and over precise D&B in the enlarger or exacting development procedures. Just type in a a number and press "Enter". It seems to me that in a digital age limiting editions is purely artificial, a throwback to earlier technology. Doing it for purely marketing reasons (i.e. I can charge more), it seems disingenuous to me to limit my sale to 50 or 100 prints of an image when I know I'm unlikely to sell that many anyway. Then there are those who print only a portion of an edition to see how it sells, say 10 out of 100, then print more after that groups sells. Is a print truly # 1of 100 if only 10 are ever actually printed? Does that make prints from incomplete editions more valuable than their original price despite the fact that the artist was unable to sell more than a portion of the prints? What constitutes a limit? I've heard some argue that when an edition from a B&W negative was complete the photographer should cut up the negative and attach a piece to the back of each of the edition prints. Should the file used to produce a digital print be erased from your computers so that it can never be printed again? There seem to be as many answers as there are artists and photographers.
Consequently my compromise to those expecting "numbering" is that I date and number each print (generally on the back) as I make them but I make no pretense that I will stop printing the image at a predetermined number or that I will never license its use on a greeting card, poster, etc. The consecutive numbering and dating allows those concerned about the print as an investment to judge whether it is a low enough number to grow in value or not without entailing undue or make believe limits on me. My signature, hand numbering and dating assure the buyer that the print is an "original" (made by me not someone else).
Posted by Ross Warner on March 29, 2009 at 1:15 PM
If it helps your sales a limited edition is a good thing. If it hurts your sales it is bad. This is predicated on the assumption one it trying to sell images. I guess there are photographers out there that enter contests to just feel good if they win and have no intent of making any money from photography. Taking money may cheapen the aesthetics of the photograph. My question is which is the better photographer; The one that wins contests but never sold a photo or one that makes a great living selling photos that never even placed a contest?
I debated about this for a long time recently.. I started doing limited editions, but found it restricting, it meant I couldn't give prints to friends and family without taking a hypothetical loss in future sales, along with all sorts of other annoying things to keep track of. I talk with Marc Adamus about it, as well as a friend of mine who is an art collector that is considering opening up a gallery - he suggested the following, which is roughly what Marc does, and what I decided was best for me career and options.
Offer open edition ink jet prints up to a certain size (signed, dated of course) (at the moment I have mine set at 20x30, because that's a nice size... and I can print it easily at home). Then, if you need a 'limited edition' print, set those as bigger sizes, say 30x40 or so, on lightjet paper - which clearly distinguishes it from the open edition prints. Of course you have to be very clear with your customers what they are getting, but most people simply don't care whether they are limited, so why preclude them from getting a print by setting the price high enough to make up for the limited sales? For what it's worth, my friend the art collector who wants to start a gallery thought this was the best approach as well... but who knows what other gallery owners would think.
Discussion
8 repliesAs for the limited editions I find this to be somewhat perceptual. I can easily set an edition limit that is really unlikely to be reached and yet the photograph is a "limited edition." Beyond the art shows I'm looking towards gallery and art consultants as another outlet in which case limited editions would probably appear more appealing.
Beyond the obvious of keeping track of the edition number for each print and I believe providing some sort of certificate, I'm not familiar with this process and it's limitations. For those of you that do offer limited editions I'm sure this is a no-brainer but I'm interested in your feedback.
The first thing that comes to mind is; what restrictions-if any- are there on other uses of these images. To the point; can I still use these images for other uses such as stock, licensing, book/magazine usage and small promotional items like calendars and screen savers etc.
Rob
NPN Thread 1
NPN Thread 2
NPN Thread 3
NPN Thread 4
Or they might not...but the search box is your friend
With most shows I've never even met the people who run the shows, as they don't come around and even say hi how you doing, let alone check to see if your selling limited editions. Only way they would even know is if another artist complained.
At the shows most people are not even aware or care that its limited editions. They're more interested in if it matches the carpet, drapes, color of the walls, they don't buy it based on the fact that its a limited edition. We're not famous so the limited edition doesn't have a lot of value. On the exception I have a few customers that think its a big deal. One customer calls me if she sees me post a new image on my website and ask if the number one print of the edition is available. She has many of my number one prints.
I do follow the rules and do the limited editions, even though I think its a waste of time, as like I said most customers really don't care. I set mine at 150. If I have an image thats a good seller I will usually only sell about 50 a year, so it would take me three years to sell it out. I don't want to carry an image more than three years as you need to rotate your stock so customers are not seeing the same thing each year, and you should have new images each year that you will be shooting that will take its place.
The limited edition just lets the customers know that it's not sold by the thousands through Walmarts. Most photographers I see set the number anywhere from 150 to 750.
Most galleries will ask if your work is limited edition and they will generally want limited edition. So you have to decide before you sell any print whether you're going to make it a limited edition, as you don't what to sell twenty of them and then decide to make it a limited edition, as some customer that bought one will see it now as a limited edition, and may question why theirs isn't.
I would do the limited edition just so your covered if you decide to sell to galleries, and then your also in compliance with the art show rules so you don't have to worry about it.
Thanks for the info, I agree that if doing limited editions it should be irrelevant of the size. As you mentioned, jumping in after making some sales would be an issue for me on a small scale, last year was my first real push at making fine art prints after a few years of magazines, calendars and contests. I did make a few, and I stress FEW! sales last year; probably not enough to raise any eyebrows should I start limited editions. I wouldn't be doing this to justify a higher price for the work so much as doing it for long term goals of possibly gallery representation.
For your "certificate" is this something you designed for yourself or is there a boilerplate certificate out there that can be adapted to almost any situation? This may be answered in one of the threads you provided, I'm still working on reading through all the debates on this topic. i never realized this was such a hot topic when I asked the question!!
Digital printing has for all practical purposes eliminated hand work from editions. Once the adjustments to the image are made and saved to a file, printing "X" number of prints is a matter of telling the computer how many to run off. No plates or drawings on a litho stone to wear out and no tedium of repeating over and over precise D&B in the enlarger or exacting development procedures. Just type in a a number and press "Enter". It seems to me that in a digital age limiting editions is purely artificial, a throwback to earlier technology. Doing it for purely marketing reasons (i.e. I can charge more), it seems disingenuous to me to limit my sale to 50 or 100 prints of an image when I know I'm unlikely to sell that many anyway. Then there are those who print only a portion of an edition to see how it sells, say 10 out of 100, then print more after that groups sells. Is a print truly # 1of 100 if only 10 are ever actually printed? Does that make prints from incomplete editions more valuable than their original price despite the fact that the artist was unable to sell more than a portion of the prints? What constitutes a limit? I've heard some argue that when an edition from a B&W negative was complete the photographer should cut up the negative and attach a piece to the back of each of the edition prints. Should the file used to produce a digital print be erased from your computers so that it can never be printed again? There seem to be as many answers as there are artists and photographers.
Consequently my compromise to those expecting "numbering" is that I date and number each print (generally on the back) as I make them but I make no pretense that I will stop printing the image at a predetermined number or that I will never license its use on a greeting card, poster, etc. The consecutive numbering and dating allows those concerned about the print as an investment to judge whether it is a low enough number to grow in value or not without entailing undue or make believe limits on me. My signature, hand numbering and dating assure the buyer that the print is an "original" (made by me not someone else).
Offer open edition ink jet prints up to a certain size (signed, dated of course) (at the moment I have mine set at 20x30, because that's a nice size... and I can print it easily at home). Then, if you need a 'limited edition' print, set those as bigger sizes, say 30x40 or so, on lightjet paper - which clearly distinguishes it from the open edition prints. Of course you have to be very clear with your customers what they are getting, but most people simply don't care whether they are limited, so why preclude them from getting a print by setting the price high enough to make up for the limited sales? For what it's worth, my friend the art collector who wants to start a gallery thought this was the best approach as well... but who knows what other gallery owners would think.