Super Limited Editions?

[bill t.]

Was wondering if anybody has any thoughts or experience with the effects of holding editions down to maybe 5 or 6 pieces, and of course jacking up the price.  And has anybody ever tried an edition of 1 photographic print?

Have heard that suggestion recently from gallery types and others in a position to know.  Seems to be common for the big names, why not us lower-downs?

Thinking mostly of very large pieces, seems like it should be easier to ask huge prices for huge pieces, right?  What kind of spin would you have to put on a piece to get away with this?

Of course one can always simply try.  All that can happen is to wind up looking like the biggest pretentious jackass in town.  Might be good to do a little research at first, I await your comments.

[Geoff Wittig]

Was wondering if anybody has any thoughts or experience with the effects of holding editions down to maybe 5 or 6 pieces, and of course jacking up the price.  And has anybody ever tried an edition of 1 photographic print?

Have heard that suggestion recently from gallery types and others in a position to know.  Seems to be common for the big names, why not us lower-downs?

Thinking mostly of very large pieces, seems like it should be easier to ask huge prices for huge pieces, right?  What kind of spin would you have to put on a piece to get away with this?

Of course one can always simply try.  All that can happen is to wind up looking like the biggest pretentious jackass in town.  Might be good to do a little research at first, I await your comments.

Near as I can tell, it's all about marketing and 'branding' rather than photography per se. The 'name brand' artists charge outrageous prices for their work because they've managed to create 'percieved value'. This persuades buyers to lay out a lot more cash for that name brand photo than for an equally beautiful image from someone less well known. If you've managed to develop enough of a market for your work that folks are lining up to buy it, then you can start shrinking your edition size and force people to compete financially for the privilege of buying it.

Nice work if you can get it.

[joedecker]

Was wondering if anybody has any thoughts or experience with the effects of holding editions down to maybe 5 or 6 pieces, and of course jacking up the price.  And has anybody ever tried an edition of 1 photographic print?

I'm moving down to ten for new images (previously 21 or 50 depending on series.)  I've been wondering the same thing about 1, I do think that some of my customers defer buying decisions (at times, to infinity) based on the idea that they can always buy one later, editions of 1 would nip that in the bud.

I have one pair of images that I think would make a nice diptych, and I've called that an edition of 1, it is as yet unsold, but it's also quite pricey.  I didn't run into accusations of presumptuousness or whatever, people have seemed in general to accept the idea, that diptych just hasn't found the right buyer yet.

It was my memory that when I went to see a show of Richard Misrach's Golden Gate work that many of the prints I saw there were in editions of four, but when I went to look to confirm that I saw primarily editions of ten.  It may be that he's got an edition of four for prints of one size and a different edition of the same print at a difference size in a different number, for myself, my "edition" is all sizes put together including all fine art prints but not including commercial licensing, etc.

--Joe

[russell a]

Art Sinsabaugh printed his banquet camera contact prints in editions of often three, but occasionally just one.  I assume his motivation was based on how many he expected to sell, not to be able to jack up the price.  This was in a different time than now.  What one chooses to do today is a function of what you and your gallery/agent feel creates the best story for your target market.  Jacking up the price by artificially creating scarcity only works when there is (irrational?) demand to begin with.  I would think that only a "top name" could benefit from such an approach.  From an "investment" standpoint, only the continually promoted top 1% of works show an increase in value over a ten year time span.  A usual practice is to produce a small edition with a sliding scale so that the price increases as the available number of prints becomes fewer.  A strategy could be to offer the first buyer exclusivity for a higher price.  As such a buyer, I would personally be skeptical of such an offer, since instances of cheating are rampant in the art industry.

[bill t.]

A strategy could be to offer the first buyer exclusivity for a higher price.  As such a buyer, I would personally be skeptical of such an offer, since instances of cheating are rampant in the art industry.

The cheating issue was on my mind.  I was thinking that a violation of an edition of 1 promise would be very easy to detect, and possibly thereby lend credibility to such a promise versus say a violation of a 1 of several promise, which is almost impossible to detect.

Editions of 1 might also be a way to allow especially prodigious photographers to field similar images without diluting the value of related images.  At around 8 images a year I am anything but prodigious, would have to charge a lot for those 1-of editions.  But OTOH producing just 8 framed and ready to go images per year might actually make a lot of sense at the production cost level.

In any case I often sell to people who have never before bought a piece of art.  It is surprising how many ask if they are buying the only copy of the image, or if I plan to make other copies of the image.

[photographist]

Matt Seuss (http://www.dramatic-landscape.com/) is actively creating and selling editions of one.