Street photos put to other use

I live in a poor part of the country, with not much of a population. Here, some of the everyday (i.e., affordable to many) restaurants and bars put up displays of people's art work/photographs, for sale. I guess it works, and costs the restaurant/bar nothing. Have you approached any of them? It could be a new business model.

Coffee shop? WTF?

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You could also do it Bansky's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/arts/design/24arti.html?oref=login"> <u>way</u></a> too.

I think my second question was poorly phrased. I know there are places that we can place street work into, like coffe houses, second string galleries and the like, but my question was more to the point whether anyone has had success getting their street work into what I would call the first tier media, the national print art/photo mags or galleries that ask and get $500-$1500/print? I'm not looking to make money at this, as this is strictly an avocation. But the economics of printing/framing plus commission make a sale of less than $400-$500 not really feasible.

 

My experience with galleries has been that street work is not really seen as a viable economic proposition. The only way that most legitimate photography galleries (distinguished from the places that sell good-looking, bland nature pics) command enough per print is to convince the buyer that the photograph is "art;" street photography, unless it has a name cachet, is really not thought of as "art", ergo it's difficult to get placed.

 

What I really did find ironic is that some people I know liked the Hollywood idea just fine as "art", even though all these are color-corrected straight street shots with a bit of text.

I dunno, first thing "I" would do if they were my pics is ask myself if adding text to a pic that doesn't work will make it work. Sort of like planting trees in front of architectural mistakes.

 

Some of the pics in the series seem to me like they work well with out the added BS.

Street photos do better in magazines and books and on the internet than on walls. It's just a fact of life that one has to live with. Galleries want stuff that will sell. Cafes and other non-gallery venues are often much better because they don't care if something will sell.

Call me old fashioned, but I like many of the shots in Andy's folder ... as is -- as photographs. To me the added verbiage detracts, if not immediately, then certainly over time as I look at an image again and again.

 

To me, the added in-frame 'captions' constitute a shtick or a spiel -- too contrived for my taste.

 

Back when Phil Jackson was coaching the Bulls, and some of the time-out and half-time stunts and fillers were getting a bit wacky and a tad tasteless, he said [not an exact quote], "What's wrong with just playing basketball?" Back then, of course, Phil had a pretty good team on the floor.

 

Here, I think Andy has a good set of photos on the board. Don't get me wrong, if a gallery wants them with the kitsch of captions, and the art-buying public buys them, or as a result of the captions, buys more of them, that's fine with me. I've been wrong before.

Yes, Andy -- Ian McEachern does it on regular basis -- he's a nationally recognized photographer and the interest in his work picked up tremendeously and only recently -- I think the best is ahead of him. As to me, I am a regular contributor to art magazines (mainly universities) and have been selling prints for a price that would amount to a nice revenue if it happened every week (Bruno, don't sell yourself cheap). I'd like to get more serious about putting that book together but I have always been and want to stay an amateur -- I love photography too much to start selling what's marketable and sale-able (if that's a word).

Eugene Z -- hah, thanks. Actually, that was in Brest, but maybe I will happen to be in Minsk in August, I don't know.

Banksy is a friend,accept him and his work.

you know I ain't got no principles.

i think we have different ones, that's all to it.

Yikes.

Art?

Good luck with that.

Anyone seen the movie Pecker? To me the word "art" stinks to high heaven.

Ok...

 

...so you think that I should rise my prices? Any suggestion for 30x40 cm (12x16 inches) FB prints? How much am I allowed to go down for RC prints?

An Indian photographer spoofed Bollywood in a manner like yours. Fun stuff:

 

http://www.annumatthew.com/Portfolios/Bollywood%20Satirized/Bollywood.html

I suppose it also gets down to what you classify as street photography. At the farily recent L.A. Photo show, which is many of the "big" phtographic galleries in the country selling work direct to the public in an expo sort of format, quite a lot of the photographs being sold were what I would consider street and many more documentary type. True many of these were from the 50s 60s etc. The photographers were all the usual suspects.

Andy -

 

I quite like the photographs. I think the pix look rather cinematic on their own. Noice.

 

The typography, on the other hand, sucks. : )