A Stroke Of The Ego

Current mood: surprised
Category: Art and Photography

We finally managed to have a real craft fair without being snowed in. YAY! I did a lot better than I anticipated, but not as great as I had hoped. I ended up selling:

4 framed 8x10’s
1 unframed 8x10
1 3x5 framed set
1 3x5
3 magnets (including 1 from the previous snowed out fair)
and received pre-orders for
6 Framed 8x10’s (including one not related to the fair)

so lets see, this is a total of 16 pieces of artwork I took that are now floating around in other peoples homes. If all pre-orders pay out, I will have made almost $100 in profit. This, this is just gravy. I never really expected to gain a profit. All I had hoped was to earn back what I spent putting it all together. If I consider man hours, I doubt I would have turned a profit. Hehe.

Really all this was about for me was a) see what other people thought of my artwork. And b) see what was reasonable to price my items at. One of the rather interesting things I learned was, you never know what might be appealing. I included several shots that I thought were just fascinating with very little to no interest. On the other hand I included an image I thought was good, but not great and only included it to show some contrast within my work, and guess which one had the most requests? I sold 4 of that one.

Another interesting thing I noticed is I sold more of my most expensive product than anything else. Even the cheap little magnets I made. I thought for sure those would sell like wildfire but no, just 3.

Here is a visual result of my efforts:

This was definitely a stroke to my ego. Everybody just went on and on about how good I am and “what a great eye you have” and “oh my gosh how did you ever capture that!” And “Really? That is right outside the old building?” (most sold print). People were telling me I was in the wrong profession, and that I should be making post cards or working for a magazine. All in good time. Step one: See if people will pay for your work.

Some of these people worked as free advertising for me, going back to the floor while continuing to go on and on about my shots. HAHA Thanks for that if you were one of them. It was really great to know that other people were enjoying my hobby as much as I do.

I thought about putting up a warning sign to the effect of: Warning, I am a complete nerd, and if you get me started on a particular topic I may not shut up. LOL but no I did enjoy telling people where the various shots were, and answering the random questions. Some of them even enjoyed some various anecdotes or stories I had about particular images.

It was like a blog, in motion… HAHAHAHAHA. Ok only a nerd would really get that.

I even got a few requests to do private shoots, so that will be a new fun and exciting adventure. I just have to decide how much I can charge for a sitting fee now.

All in all it was a lot of fun, I learned a lot. I think I sold to my audience really well. I know I need to work on my layout, and work on putting together a book or a portfolio if you will then just printing out blowups of the more popular images, and have a book to flip through for orders. As it was I took up 2 tables, AND an easel with all my images and it may have been too much.