Does anyone exhibit and sell street photography?

Wondering if there's a market for contemporary street photographers?

if anyone cares other than those who do it.

 

thanks,ken

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007pFc

I've been wondering the same myself. LOL. I think the answer is there is a small market for print possibilities and I suspect that the starving conceptual gallery here and there may take a flier, but unless you're famous or better yet famous and dead, commercial galleries will pass.

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007pFc">link</a>

i've seen recently an exhibition of antoine d'agata, called 1001 nights. Lots of those photos are in fact kinda street photography.

I think it depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you see street photography as a full time occupation with photo's in a multitude of galleries and numerous published books I think that is quite difficult to almost impossible. If you, like myself are just looking to get your photos "seen" at a few venues and possibly sell a few photos a year I think that is quite achieveable. I have started recently trying to get my mostly B&W street photos "out there". An exhibition gallery locally (for lack of a better description) has open callings on certain themes. I entered some photos in their "Moments-Slices of Life" theme and got one accepted. It is a small gallery <a href="http://www.steppingstonegallery.com/index.htm">STEPPING STONE GALLERY</a> maybe room for only 25 or so 8X10's. Approximately 50 people entered photos so I am excited they chose one of mine. <P> I have a meeting with the chairman of the fine arts dept of my alma mata and they have a gallery. It is difficult to have a show I've heard but after sending half a dozen jpegs of my work they are interested in meeting me. So I am working on my portfolio. Also my township (which includes 750,000 people) has an arts council that once a year has an event (this Oct) where people show their work to people from the local banks, office buildings and libraries and I'm told a lot of artists/photographers get their work placed on a rotational basis in half a dozen or more places in the course of the year. <p> So like I mentioned at the beginning of this posting it all depends on what you are looking to achieve.

I'd like to get some of mine out into the public sight as well. Many independent, smaller cafes often exhibit photos and other artworks from local folks. Some libraries I've been to also had local photographers works on the wall.

The major problem I see is the dreaded model release. From what I can gather from reading books on photography law, it's legal to photograph someone in a public place, but to display such an image requires a release. Now let's have a show of hands. Who among us gets a model release from everyone that happens to be in a shot? With todays litigation happy society, one really takes a chance with displaying and/or selling such photographs.

Cheers,

Marc

Marc, I don't think you need a model release of someone in a public venue if you don't exploit them for commercial purposes. For instance to use the image of the person to sell some product or service. I think you can also sell the photo for "art purposes" and certainly can be exhibited in a public or private gallery. This topic has been brought up before and maybe someone can explain it better or correct me if I'm wrong.

Gerald's essentially correct re: model releases, although the law obviously varies by country. I would be more concerned w/pix that prominently include a corporate logo or trademark (hard to avoid nowadays, though).

I hope you guys are right. I can't remember where I read this, (probably this forum) but somebody wrote that many places won't display photos of people unless a model release can be produced.

Regards,

Marc

Gerald: interesting that the netsite you referred to has only one link at the bottom of the page. When going to that link its main effort appears to be exclusionary through credentialism, inferring that if you are not "educated" not "degreed" or not engaging in a degreed activity, you are not eligible to join their elite club. My premise is that this kind of behavior is deadly to photography through its intolerance.

One potential market no-one has mentioned yet is <b>illustrated articles in photo

magazines</b>. As candid "street" photography is hard to do at the best of times, let

alone today in "The Age Of Paranoia", it's not a too-often covered topic.<p>

 

With this in mind I approached an Australian magazine a few months back with an idea for

a "street candid photography" article. Got it accepted without trouble. 2200 words, 8

photos - due to be published in July this year.<p>

 

Andrew N <<a href="http://4020.net/unposed">4020.net/unposed</a>>

John Falkenstine, you have no idea what you are talking about as according to my count there are 15 links on that page. Including a program with your kids (no credentials necessary), a Sunday program for photographers to get together (no credentials necessary), a list of member and participating photographers (no credentials necessary as I am a participant), three contests (where there is no mention of any necessary credentials, again I participated on one )and numerous other links with no credentials necessary. If you took the time to read the last link you would have seen that the gallery is looking to promote serious younger photographers and for whatever reason thought someone committed to a formal photographic education was important. After seeing this and many of your other posts on PN I think it is time to clean the wax out of your computer mouse.

<i>I don't think you need a model release of someone in a public venue if you don't exploit them for commercial purposes.</i><p>

 

This isn't the only restriction. You have to be very careful about showing people in a way that could be considered defamatory. For example, showing a person exiting from a porno shop and titling the photo "Porno customer" when the person was delivering a pizza would be considered defamatory.

Jeff, from what I've "heard" on the internet you are correct, I forgot to add that.

Sorry, my computer was unfriendly and only reacted to the last link at the bottom of the page.....

However, after reading your post I went back to that link and re-read it. My viewpoint, "waxy mouse" notwithstanding, stands on that particular link. A monetary contribution also appears to be part of the entrance qualifications...

John, I thought "waxy mouse" was funny. I couldn't help myself. Sorry.<p> I don't know about the rest of the country but on Long Island, NY there are a few of what I call "exhibition galleries" or "cooperative galleries" where there seems to be more interest in getting work shown than actually selling prints. Although photographers want to do that also.<p> Usually there are a dozen or so members who support the expense of the gallery in some way. Not exactly sure how. They usually get the right for a solo show some time during the year which is the case of one of the current shows "Time Square Lights" Fred is a member. They also have open competitions. In my case the topic was "Moments- Slices of Life". My understanding about 50-60 photographers submitted entrees and 16 photos were selected. In fact a regular PN participant on the Leica Forum was selected but unfortunately he couldn't get his photo printed and framed in time. (The photos were sent via jpegs). I offered to print it for him. The $50 fee for "winning photos". $800 in total for the 16 prints probably doesn't even pay the rent for the month the photos will be displayed. There are a bunch of really helpful people there and I thought the $50 very fair.

2 Monts ago, I almost rented this vacant downtown store. Rent was low, front of unit is completely trimmed out in stainless steel, the showcase windown raises up electrically into the ceiling. MY intent was something along street photography lines...But...caution prevailed. Everystore in this unit has gone belly up for the last 10 years....<div></div>

I have several years worth of recent issues of the "Ibid" catalog of b&w-only stock photography. The catalogs feature every variety of photographic styles you can imagine, from formal portraiture to staged action shots, etc.

 

What also impressed me is the amount of street photography, also in various styles. So, apparently, "Ibid" at least believes there's a market for street photography.

Were you thinking of a gallery to show street photography? The galleries I was talking about are in a busy village. But to save rent money they are second floor walk ups. Two small rooms the large one about 12X16 ft and the smaller one about 10X12 ft. On the weekends the streets are busy and people will see the small sandwhich sign on the sidewalk and walk up the stairs. They are closed during the week.

Pretty well same concept. Downtown Tucson is busy M-T until about 2:30. Weekend mornings only derelicts and stray tourists, especially japanese. (Looks like a REAL ghost town) But...evenings it hops. My plan WAS to stay open weekends till midnite...oh well....