The Art of Fine Art Photography: A Guide to Breaking into the Industry

When it comes to the photography industry, there are certain opportunities and avenues that stand out as particularly important for those looking to break into fine art. One such opportunity is working with top galleries, particularly Howard Greenberg, which is considered one of the top galleries in the industry. However, getting your work into this level of gallery can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, without extensive experience and connections.

For those who are just starting out, it's essential to look at local galleries and those in New York that may handle up-and-coming photographers. This is a great way to get your foot in the door and start making moves in your career. However, it's crucial to note that even with these opportunities, the fine art world can be highly competitive, and success is not guaranteed.

Another important avenue for fine art photographers is through publications and magazines. These platforms provide a unique opportunity to showcase your work and connect with other artists, curators, and collectors in the industry. One notable publication is LensWork, which serves as an excellent resource for discovering emerging talent in photography.

When it comes to creating a portfolio, many people focus on showcasing their existing body of work rather than highlighting their future goals. However, this can be detrimental to your success as an artist. As Alex so astutely pointed out, "your portfolio should be more about the work you want to get and less about the work you've already done." This means that when selecting images for your portfolio, it's essential to prioritize those that best represent your artistic vision and goals.

Ultimately, having a strong online presence is crucial in today's digital age. A well-designed website can serve as an extension of your physical portfolio, allowing potential buyers, collectors, and curators to explore your work in depth. When it comes to creating a website, it's essential to focus on showcasing your artistic vision rather than simply listing your past clients or exhibitions.

For those who are serious about pursuing a career in fine art photography, the gallery route can be an incredibly rewarding experience. As an artist, you have more control over the creative direction of your work, and there is often a greater sense of artistic fulfillment that comes from working with a gallery. However, it's essential to remember that this path is not without its challenges.

The fine art world can be notoriously difficult to break into, and success is often fleeting. Many artists struggle to find their footing in the industry, even after years of hard work and dedication. It's essential to approach this field with a clear understanding of what it takes to succeed and to be willing to put in the time and effort necessary to build a strong body of work.

One final thought from our conversation is the importance of networking within the fine art community. While building relationships with other artists, curators, and collectors can be crucial for success, it's essential to focus on those who align with your artistic vision rather than simply trying to curry favor with others in the industry.

In conclusion, breaking into the fine art world requires dedication, persistence, and a clear understanding of what it takes to succeed. By focusing on building a strong portfolio, creating a compelling online presence, and networking within the community, you can set yourself up for success as an emerging artist. Remember that this field is highly competitive, but with hard work and determination, you can make your mark in the world of fine art photography.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody Ted Forbes here it's time once again for another episode of The Art of Photography today we're going to continue on with our professional photographer theme and we've done a couple episodes on this now and last time we talked about what it means to be a commercial photographer what kind of opportunities are available how one would go about maybe breaking into that as a business and how we as photographers are affected by just what is generally a changing landscape of how things are done um what I hope you're getting out of this and this is really important to me is that you know you read a lot and in social media and in the news about the Doom and Gloom side of stuff and really I I choose personally not to put a lot of stock in that because you can start frustrating yourself and then what you do is you get upset about things that you can't control and I think that's really important and you see a lot of people vlogging about this like you know the Marissa mayor comment that that she made with with Yahoo uh about Flicker and the whole professional photographer status when she said there's no such thing as a professional photographer anymore you know take that for what you want or you know the whole story about the Chicago Sun Times laying off their Department this is not the first time this has happened a couple years ago I believe it was CNN there was a deal with where major media Outlets are just changing the way they're doing business and unfortunately I think photography can be the casualty of that which is it doesn't make sense it's extremely unfortunate um you and I both value photography it's something we're passionate about so to us this doesn't make sense but what I'm saying is is if I sit here and I focus on this and I do a bunch of Vlog posts on this or I do a bunch of episodes for the podcast we're not solving anything by doing that we just complaining and unfortunately there's nothing you and I can do about what a newspaper does with their hiring practices or lack thereof or firing practices it just there there's not but what we can do and this is you know another thing my dad taught me when I was a kid is that you know you look for the positive side of things and you forget that okay we know that's not working and our business is changing and some of the ways that people used to make a very good living doing things are no more so how do you turn this around how do you look at this pragmatically and and and subjectively or objectively and find something that works for you and we can change things and it's simply going to move in a different direction I don't believe that photography is dead the value of an image and let me start by saying this and we're getting off track a little bit but I think this is important um my friend Jeff who is an uh an artist uh visual artist paints does sculpture work uh we were having a talk and this was about the time that the US troops captured Bin Laden and if you guys remember there was kind of a thing in the Press where the Obama Administration was trying to decide if they were going to release the images of the body or not and I'm this is not a political rant at all I'm just saying that that what the result of that was if you remember was people were like you know the internet was like you know all these spoofs of it that were coming out people were really searching for this and really wanted this information press Outlets were willing to pay millions of dollars for photos if they would leak and the photos were never released um but my friend Jeff had made the comment to me we were talking about this one day he said you know what this this this shows you is even on a non-artistic level or non- athetic level what the value of an image is image still holds an enormous value um it can hit on you emotionally it can hit on you politically it can shape the way you think and those of us that are photographers that have a passion about this and understand it no matter what your orientation politically um might be we can't argue that there still is value in the image now that's the good news on this so anyway so we were talking about commercial photography last time and I want to turn this into fine art photography and and if you remember what I was saying with the difference between the two is in Commercial Art um you decide what you need to get paid to do a job and then you picture to the client and if they hire you you go do it and fine Art's the other way around if you you have to make the work first and then decide what you're going to do with it and and how you're going to sell it and then what it's worth so it's just an opposite way of looking at it the Fine Art world is very difficult and I'm not saying commercial is not I think they're both pretty difficult and we're going to look at this objectively like we did with commercial art and I want to talk about some resources and some Avenues um that if you were interested in going the Fine Art Gallery route what is available and how you do that so we're going to look at some examples today and I want to talk about you know some of the people who are really successful about this but fine art I I want to make note too because you know having worked at an art museum and having seen what Contemporary Art world is like with collectors it is the most bizarre industry on the face of the planet um a lot of it your success is deter by who you know who you're in with um you know is it somebody who's a buyer that has a lot of power um or in influence over other buyers I mean there's a whole weird Network to it and some of it's just luck some of it is who you know and how good a businessman you are um you see images selling for a lot of money in the Fine Art world that are sometimes questionable in quality and taste um a lot of things that are real heady Concepts that aren't really great photos can do really well whereas something that's a beautiful photo that doesn't have a concept to it doesn't do so well sometimes but anyway I want to talk about kind of the state of the Fine Art world and if this is something you're interested in what do you need to pursue that and how do you go about starting that so we're going to go over I'm going to do some more screen stuff and we're going to have a look at this and talk about it some more so come on over and let's take a peek okay so we're going to talk about fine art for a minute and I want to talk about how this business Works mainly from a gallery perspective and so what I want to do is look at a couple different Gallery websites and I want to give you some other resources um just in how this world works um as I mentioned before it's a very difficult thing to break into this this first gallery that I want to show you and there's a reason I'm actually starting with this one this is uh website for Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York and Howard Greenberg is one of my favorite galleries every time I'm in New York I have to go um they do outstanding shows it's free to go to uh you know of course if you'd like to buy prints they can certainly sell you them um but what don't you know what you want to think of when you look at Gallery websites is always go down especially if it's a gallery you're interested in um generally they keep an artist list on here and this is why I'm starting with this because you're going to notice that most of these are huge names um and Howard Greenberg you know they they specialize in you know stuff that's kind of stood the test of time very classic works on ricar Bron um you're going to notice that most of this list um is either well most of this list is very established and most of the list is deceased um however I want to make this point because you know when you get into this business aspect of selling art this is what people collectors are really interested in is they're collecting stuff that you know is usually older stood the test of time I mean there's a there's a lot of photographers who are still alive like um you know guys like Ralph Gibson um you know Mark robau people like that Keith Carter's on here um however those are people with very established careers so this is obviously not a great place to start if you're starting your career but I did want to show this to you because this is essentially um you know if you look at somebody who's very successful in this market this is probably one of the best harod Greenberg and this this is kind of why because they really have their finger on the pulse of what sells now this is what you're competing with so not to be too discouraged we're going to downscale just a little bit um this is Bonnie Ben Ruby's Gallery website and uh Bonnie Ben Ruby oddly is in the same building is Howard grenberg and another one that's well worth visiting it's a smaller Gallery however they deal with more living artists and we're going to click on their artist page and see who they represent and you can go in here and check out all of these people um some a lot of folks I've Ted talked about on the show before people like abalo Morel um you know they again established careers but people who have they kind of have this figured out Joseph Hoffner is another Hoffer is another one um and if you go through and look at some of the galleries of some of this work you're going to notice some threads to it it's not just random images from these artists they're usually series type work um there's a certain stylistic look um you know I think Joseph Huffer does really well because his work really fits into aesthetic that's really popular right now particularly with black and white photography where you have um you know even Landscapes but but you know heavy on the minimalism um wonderful black and white tones the prints are gorgeous I saw this show a couple years ago um at this gallery and uh you know absolutely beautiful work but you can definitely tell that it's not just you know whatever image is up I mean there's a definite style that these artists do and particularly the work that they are showing obviously they're not showing all the work of everybody on here let's look at alod morel's work um they have a bunch of the camera obscure stuff the tents this is newer work but you're going to see a lot of series stuff um you know and you can kind of get a feel for what makes sense for a gallery from a business standpoint and so what they're looking for is more series work um you know it varies from artist to artist but there definitely is defining things that you know you're going to Common threads you're going to see in what's being displayed and I think that's important um so you know you can go through and they've got all kinds of artists of different styles and you'll probably introduce yourself to some new people who um who are really interesting as well so Bonny Ben Ruby is another wonderful Gallery again this is going to be more established people who have had longer careers that are going to be shown here um another one I want to show you this is a Boston Gallery this is Robert Klein's gallery and again I think he deals in probably a mix let's check out who their artist list is here and we can jump to and you can see it's all over the place there's collector work from the 19th century and then there's contemporary work from the 20th century as well so again very established names there's going to be um you know heavy on the history stuff but if you scroll all the way down down to the bottom here you can look at contemporary artists and these are people who are living today and working and you know if you want to go look at Bill Jacobson you can go kind of scope out what's going on here so you're going to see that there's something that again and the reason I guess why I'm trying to verbalize when I'm talking about um you know series work um Define style refinement um you know the minimalist thing is really big now but this is the kind of stuff that communicates to somebody who's not a photographer who would probably buy the work and I think you can learn a lot just by browsing you know successful Gallery websites to kind of pick up on some of that um you know again you can see that the stylistically it's kind of all over the place but you know here's some seascapes and so there definitely is you know something that kind of is packaged if you will now I know that you know some of you may be thinking well we're talking about Fine Art and sales in the same episode here and it is very difficult to do and of course you don't need a gallery if all you want to do is make art but unfortunately there is a little bit of a business side to it when you are dealing with galleries a couple others I want to show that that i' I've been very impressed with go look up galleries in your area and see what they're doing see who they're selling see what's going on um we are very fortunate I live in Dallas and there are two galleries here that I'm going to show you websites of this is photographs do not Bend uh which is a wonderful Gallery again you go click on their artist roster they deal in big names but they also deal in some lesser known names and again you can start to see what kind of aesthetic Works what kind of things sell um you know in terms of black and white and then also color and you know what's interesting is pdnb or photographs do not Bend they have featured artists and I've been over there to see shows of where it's basically displays of commercial work that's been set up to print and sell and so it's a little more open in terms of what they are willing to deal with again you're going to see common threads they've got blossfeld prints and they've some historic stuff because you know that's what keeps their their lights on and in business and you know then they have some more edgy stuff too and that's you know what keeps it interesting and keeps them Cutting Edge um so this is a wonderful photographer David jandro who does you know these kind of close-up macro shots of plants and animals and insects and things and some of these are just gorgeous this mantis um so anyway some wonderful work to go look at and you know go go look and see what kinds of things what kinds of subject matter what kinds of you know you know see what see what this world is all about and what it's moving after image is another one after image is a little more in the line of somebody like Howard Greenberg because they do most of their business with classic stuff however they do carry and I wish their website were a little more complete here um but anyway I've been over there a bunch and they carry some wonderful contemporary artists a lot of guys living in Santa Fe right now who are really doing Cutting Edge work um and you know it's just really interesting to to go see what's going on with a lot of these things and also it's interesting to go over there and check out what they're doing as far as pricing structure goes and you'll see you know certain things and usually it's kind of obvious you know stuff that's classic work that's more rare uh tends to price out higher than stuff that's that's newer but you know again you can go get an idea for this so you know I'm showing you Gallery websites because you know if you're interested in fine art as a business and you're interested in your selling your work it is kind of like I said it's a strange world but it is one that you need to find a way to infiltrate somewhat so so what I would do if this is something you're really interested in is the first thing you want to do is make sure you you have done your research you've seen what kinds of things galleries are handling find a gallery that is hopefully near you and if it's not you know it's willing to travel to go do this um you know consider it a business thing but what you want to do is find galleries that are not too big that might be willing to talk to you somebody you could just say hey can I get 30 minutes of your time to show you my portfolio stress that you're not necessarily looking for work you just want some feedback and some comments you want 30 minutes to come show somebody your portfolio and you would be amazed the feedback you're going to get from somebody like that because a gallery owner is going to be looking at this from a huge business perspective they're going to be able to tell you things about your work that they feel like they might be able to sell or what you need to change to make it something that a gallery might be willing to handle and you know you take it from there and then you you try to establish yourself somewhere and then you try to go up another level and you you keep doing this with galleries another thing is is it's really important I think too well obviously the most important thing is your work the second most important thing is you know I talked about the who you know thing and I think it's really important even though you may feel like you're starting at the bottom to really shoot for the top on a lot of these things um there is an organization called the center for Creative Photography and I've talked about on the show but it's been a while they a wonderful wonderful organization it's part of the University of Arizona and this is this is basically a center that was set up by anel Adams before he died um they have a huge collection of anel Adam Adams prints and it's kind of like a little Museum in a lot of ways it's a research center study guide um once a year they do um you know a big it's it's too small to call a conference but it's more like a discussion on photography everything from printing to Gallery work to what's going on in fine art photographers copyright everything and uh anyway you can go through here and browse through their Collections and see what's going on too but really what I think the takeaway here is is something that is set up like the center for creativity something that is set up like the center for cre Creative Photography as an authoritative resource on this stuff this is important to get to know these people it's important to understand how a curator thinks it's important to understand you know what is it about Fine Art that's attractive and what is it about fine art that makes your work important and that's a big deal and it's really hard to do important work and you know but what all I'm saying is is that these are sources where again knowing people that that work in these places um you know that can give you serious feedback can be um you know a big deal another thing they do and this is the last thing I'll mention is um this is happens to be their auction their annual fundraising auction called in focus and they don't have it up yet and I'll I'll do another little show when they do uh but this is another great way to see who is up and coming in photography right now now let's talk about the other side of an auction auctions generally are fundraisers of some kind and there are art auctions that include photography and there are also photography specific art auctions and some of them you know it's a charity that's benefitting some of it's an organization that's benefitting and there is a little bit of a back and forth on whether it's ethical to deal with auctions or not because the problem with an auction is they underbid the gallery world uh people will wait for auctions because they feel like they might be able to get something cheaper than they would if they went and paid full price and that's a really tough thing for a gallery to compete with anyway as a starting artist as you're you're starting out and you're trying to establish yourself you know auctions are hungry for work and this is a way to get your work seen and get it in the company of of other people you know what I mean uh get it in the company of other established artists so you know these are these are just a couple things you can think about but and you know this is heavy on CCP obviously and you know I I don't think their auction is unethical at all I think it's quite the opposite I think it is um generally something that's very important to the photography industry and it's well worth supporting but these are the kind of opportunities and avenues that I think if you're interested in going this route and getting into this that you look for obviously when we started out we were talking about Howard Greenberg and that's the top of the top it's very difficult that's not a place that's that you're going to start and get your work into but to break that down and take that back a notch and what we've done is we've looked at local Galleries and we've looked at at galleries in New York that will handle um upand cominging people you know then you start to see and piece together how you can start making some moves in a career with this type thing and it's not easy and I don't want you know even though I'm showing you tips this is just barely scratching the surface of what you want to be dealing with um I think also it's important to look at Publications and magazines um it's also important you know there's a um another podcast called lens work uh that is an accompany it's a magazine that is an amazing resource um an amazing way to find out who is up and cominging in the photography world so anyway hopefully this will kind of you know wet your interest a little bit as far as um you know research goes and and you know trying to come up with a plan on on you know how to pursue a career in Fine Art just know that it's very competitive it's very difficult and the work varies sometimes especially on the entry level and you're going to see stuff that's great and you're going to see stuff that is not and sometimes the stuff that is not does very well it's kind of hard to pallet sometimes but that's the Fine Art world so hopefully this gives you a little bit of a clue on some things to start with Okay so we've talked about how the Fine Art World tends to operate and I hope once again like the commercial episode if you are interested in doing this or you're interested in selling your own work in this way and doing the gallery route um I think of the two it can be extremely rewarding um you have a little more artistic control as a fine artist it's a lot harder though too and I do want to say that I've I've had a lot of friends over the years who are fine artists whether they're photographers painters um you know what it is that they're doing visually uh it doesn't matter but it's all the same that it's an extremely hard field to get into there's very little reward and some times when there is reward it's very little and that's something to consider um it's something that you really have to have a driving passion that you're willing to kind of put up with a lot of that stuff for I will never say that that is not easy and you know it's tough uh I don't want to discourage you if that is your passion um it is a passion of mine I'm not pursuing it full-time as being known as an artist I think if I were I wouldn't have the podcast there were other things I wouldn't do um you know I would I am interested in going the gallery route and I am interested in selling my work on an image type basis and if I guess it was last summer I did an episode on starting an online gallery and I kind of dropped it and I never did that intentionally but it's taken me a year it's something that's still on my plate I just don't have anything to talk about because I'm trying to find ways to do it and most of that is not like you know networking ways of doing it or who do you know it's more like what do I want my work to look like and where do I see that direction going um you know I've said a couple times that really portfolios a lot of people showcase them with the you know client names like if youve shot for Nike or if you shot for Nissan or whatever you're a big client you put the work in but you know like I said a long time ago um my friend Alex told me one time that you know your portfolio should be more about the work you want to get and less about the work you've already done and I think that's really important and this all comes back to everything it comes back to your website it comes back to your if you have a physical portfolio how you represent yourself what kind of work you show I think that's really important so anyway I hope you have gained some knowledge from this that is useful and I hope this works for you in some way shape or form so anyway that's enough for today but I will catch you guys next time once again this has been the Art of Photography and thank you for watching we'll see youhey everybody Ted Forbes here it's time once again for another episode of The Art of Photography today we're going to continue on with our professional photographer theme and we've done a couple episodes on this now and last time we talked about what it means to be a commercial photographer what kind of opportunities are available how one would go about maybe breaking into that as a business and how we as photographers are affected by just what is generally a changing landscape of how things are done um what I hope you're getting out of this and this is really important to me is that you know you read a lot and in social media and in the news about the Doom and Gloom side of stuff and really I I choose personally not to put a lot of stock in that because you can start frustrating yourself and then what you do is you get upset about things that you can't control and I think that's really important and you see a lot of people vlogging about this like you know the Marissa mayor comment that that she made with with Yahoo uh about Flicker and the whole professional photographer status when she said there's no such thing as a professional photographer anymore you know take that for what you want or you know the whole story about the Chicago Sun Times laying off their Department this is not the first time this has happened a couple years ago I believe it was CNN there was a deal with where major media Outlets are just changing the way they're doing business and unfortunately I think photography can be the casualty of that which is it doesn't make sense it's extremely unfortunate um you and I both value photography it's something we're passionate about so to us this doesn't make sense but what I'm saying is is if I sit here and I focus on this and I do a bunch of Vlog posts on this or I do a bunch of episodes for the podcast we're not solving anything by doing that we just complaining and unfortunately there's nothing you and I can do about what a newspaper does with their hiring practices or lack thereof or firing practices it just there there's not but what we can do and this is you know another thing my dad taught me when I was a kid is that you know you look for the positive side of things and you forget that okay we know that's not working and our business is changing and some of the ways that people used to make a very good living doing things are no more so how do you turn this around how do you look at this pragmatically and and and subjectively or objectively and find something that works for you and we can change things and it's simply going to move in a different direction I don't believe that photography is dead the value of an image and let me start by saying this and we're getting off track a little bit but I think this is important um my friend Jeff who is an uh an artist uh visual artist paints does sculpture work uh we were having a talk and this was about the time that the US troops captured Bin Laden and if you guys remember there was kind of a thing in the Press where the Obama Administration was trying to decide if they were going to release the images of the body or not and I'm this is not a political rant at all I'm just saying that that what the result of that was if you remember was people were like you know the internet was like you know all these spoofs of it that were coming out people were really searching for this and really wanted this information press Outlets were willing to pay millions of dollars for photos if they would leak and the photos were never released um but my friend Jeff had made the comment to me we were talking about this one day he said you know what this this this shows you is even on a non-artistic level or non- athetic level what the value of an image is image still holds an enormous value um it can hit on you emotionally it can hit on you politically it can shape the way you think and those of us that are photographers that have a passion about this and understand it no matter what your orientation politically um might be we can't argue that there still is value in the image now that's the good news on this so anyway so we were talking about commercial photography last time and I want to turn this into fine art photography and and if you remember what I was saying with the difference between the two is in Commercial Art um you decide what you need to get paid to do a job and then you picture to the client and if they hire you you go do it and fine Art's the other way around if you you have to make the work first and then decide what you're going to do with it and and how you're going to sell it and then what it's worth so it's just an opposite way of looking at it the Fine Art world is very difficult and I'm not saying commercial is not I think they're both pretty difficult and we're going to look at this objectively like we did with commercial art and I want to talk about some resources and some Avenues um that if you were interested in going the Fine Art Gallery route what is available and how you do that so we're going to look at some examples today and I want to talk about you know some of the people who are really successful about this but fine art I I want to make note too because you know having worked at an art museum and having seen what Contemporary Art world is like with collectors it is the most bizarre industry on the face of the planet um a lot of it your success is deter by who you know who you're in with um you know is it somebody who's a buyer that has a lot of power um or in influence over other buyers I mean there's a whole weird Network to it and some of it's just luck some of it is who you know and how good a businessman you are um you see images selling for a lot of money in the Fine Art world that are sometimes questionable in quality and taste um a lot of things that are real heady Concepts that aren't really great photos can do really well whereas something that's a beautiful photo that doesn't have a concept to it doesn't do so well sometimes but anyway I want to talk about kind of the state of the Fine Art world and if this is something you're interested in what do you need to pursue that and how do you go about starting that so we're going to go over I'm going to do some more screen stuff and we're going to have a look at this and talk about it some more so come on over and let's take a peek okay so we're going to talk about fine art for a minute and I want to talk about how this business Works mainly from a gallery perspective and so what I want to do is look at a couple different Gallery websites and I want to give you some other resources um just in how this world works um as I mentioned before it's a very difficult thing to break into this this first gallery that I want to show you and there's a reason I'm actually starting with this one this is uh website for Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York and Howard Greenberg is one of my favorite galleries every time I'm in New York I have to go um they do outstanding shows it's free to go to uh you know of course if you'd like to buy prints they can certainly sell you them um but what don't you know what you want to think of when you look at Gallery websites is always go down especially if it's a gallery you're interested in um generally they keep an artist list on here and this is why I'm starting with this because you're going to notice that most of these are huge names um and Howard Greenberg you know they they specialize in you know stuff that's kind of stood the test of time very classic works on ricar Bron um you're going to notice that most of this list um is either well most of this list is very established and most of the list is deceased um however I want to make this point because you know when you get into this business aspect of selling art this is what people collectors are really interested in is they're collecting stuff that you know is usually older stood the test of time I mean there's a there's a lot of photographers who are still alive like um you know guys like Ralph Gibson um you know Mark robau people like that Keith Carter's on here um however those are people with very established careers so this is obviously not a great place to start if you're starting your career but I did want to show this to you because this is essentially um you know if you look at somebody who's very successful in this market this is probably one of the best harod Greenberg and this this is kind of why because they really have their finger on the pulse of what sells now this is what you're competing with so not to be too discouraged we're going to downscale just a little bit um this is Bonnie Ben Ruby's Gallery website and uh Bonnie Ben Ruby oddly is in the same building is Howard grenberg and another one that's well worth visiting it's a smaller Gallery however they deal with more living artists and we're going to click on their artist page and see who they represent and you can go in here and check out all of these people um some a lot of folks I've Ted talked about on the show before people like abalo Morel um you know they again established careers but people who have they kind of have this figured out Joseph Hoffner is another Hoffer is another one um and if you go through and look at some of the galleries of some of this work you're going to notice some threads to it it's not just random images from these artists they're usually series type work um there's a certain stylistic look um you know I think Joseph Huffer does really well because his work really fits into aesthetic that's really popular right now particularly with black and white photography where you have um you know even Landscapes but but you know heavy on the minimalism um wonderful black and white tones the prints are gorgeous I saw this show a couple years ago um at this gallery and uh you know absolutely beautiful work but you can definitely tell that it's not just you know whatever image is up I mean there's a definite style that these artists do and particularly the work that they are showing obviously they're not showing all the work of everybody on here let's look at alod morel's work um they have a bunch of the camera obscure stuff the tents this is newer work but you're going to see a lot of series stuff um you know and you can kind of get a feel for what makes sense for a gallery from a business standpoint and so what they're looking for is more series work um you know it varies from artist to artist but there definitely is defining things that you know you're going to Common threads you're going to see in what's being displayed and I think that's important um so you know you can go through and they've got all kinds of artists of different styles and you'll probably introduce yourself to some new people who um who are really interesting as well so Bonny Ben Ruby is another wonderful Gallery again this is going to be more established people who have had longer careers that are going to be shown here um another one I want to show you this is a Boston Gallery this is Robert Klein's gallery and again I think he deals in probably a mix let's check out who their artist list is here and we can jump to and you can see it's all over the place there's collector work from the 19th century and then there's contemporary work from the 20th century as well so again very established names there's going to be um you know heavy on the history stuff but if you scroll all the way down down to the bottom here you can look at contemporary artists and these are people who are living today and working and you know if you want to go look at Bill Jacobson you can go kind of scope out what's going on here so you're going to see that there's something that again and the reason I guess why I'm trying to verbalize when I'm talking about um you know series work um Define style refinement um you know the minimalist thing is really big now but this is the kind of stuff that communicates to somebody who's not a photographer who would probably buy the work and I think you can learn a lot just by browsing you know successful Gallery websites to kind of pick up on some of that um you know again you can see that the stylistically it's kind of all over the place but you know here's some seascapes and so there definitely is you know something that kind of is packaged if you will now I know that you know some of you may be thinking well we're talking about Fine Art and sales in the same episode here and it is very difficult to do and of course you don't need a gallery if all you want to do is make art but unfortunately there is a little bit of a business side to it when you are dealing with galleries a couple others I want to show that that i' I've been very impressed with go look up galleries in your area and see what they're doing see who they're selling see what's going on um we are very fortunate I live in Dallas and there are two galleries here that I'm going to show you websites of this is photographs do not Bend uh which is a wonderful Gallery again you go click on their artist roster they deal in big names but they also deal in some lesser known names and again you can start to see what kind of aesthetic Works what kind of things sell um you know in terms of black and white and then also color and you know what's interesting is pdnb or photographs do not Bend they have featured artists and I've been over there to see shows of where it's basically displays of commercial work that's been set up to print and sell and so it's a little more open in terms of what they are willing to deal with again you're going to see common threads they've got blossfeld prints and they've some historic stuff because you know that's what keeps their their lights on and in business and you know then they have some more edgy stuff too and that's you know what keeps it interesting and keeps them Cutting Edge um so this is a wonderful photographer David jandro who does you know these kind of close-up macro shots of plants and animals and insects and things and some of these are just gorgeous this mantis um so anyway some wonderful work to go look at and you know go go look and see what kinds of things what kinds of subject matter what kinds of you know you know see what see what this world is all about and what it's moving after image is another one after image is a little more in the line of somebody like Howard Greenberg because they do most of their business with classic stuff however they do carry and I wish their website were a little more complete here um but anyway I've been over there a bunch and they carry some wonderful contemporary artists a lot of guys living in Santa Fe right now who are really doing Cutting Edge work um and you know it's just really interesting to to go see what's going on with a lot of these things and also it's interesting to go over there and check out what they're doing as far as pricing structure goes and you'll see you know certain things and usually it's kind of obvious you know stuff that's classic work that's more rare uh tends to price out higher than stuff that's that's newer but you know again you can go get an idea for this so you know I'm showing you Gallery websites because you know if you're interested in fine art as a business and you're interested in your selling your work it is kind of like I said it's a strange world but it is one that you need to find a way to infiltrate somewhat so so what I would do if this is something you're really interested in is the first thing you want to do is make sure you you have done your research you've seen what kinds of things galleries are handling find a gallery that is hopefully near you and if it's not you know it's willing to travel to go do this um you know consider it a business thing but what you want to do is find galleries that are not too big that might be willing to talk to you somebody you could just say hey can I get 30 minutes of your time to show you my portfolio stress that you're not necessarily looking for work you just want some feedback and some comments you want 30 minutes to come show somebody your portfolio and you would be amazed the feedback you're going to get from somebody like that because a gallery owner is going to be looking at this from a huge business perspective they're going to be able to tell you things about your work that they feel like they might be able to sell or what you need to change to make it something that a gallery might be willing to handle and you know you take it from there and then you you try to establish yourself somewhere and then you try to go up another level and you you keep doing this with galleries another thing is is it's really important I think too well obviously the most important thing is your work the second most important thing is you know I talked about the who you know thing and I think it's really important even though you may feel like you're starting at the bottom to really shoot for the top on a lot of these things um there is an organization called the center for Creative Photography and I've talked about on the show but it's been a while they a wonderful wonderful organization it's part of the University of Arizona and this is this is basically a center that was set up by anel Adams before he died um they have a huge collection of anel Adam Adams prints and it's kind of like a little Museum in a lot of ways it's a research center study guide um once a year they do um you know a big it's it's too small to call a conference but it's more like a discussion on photography everything from printing to Gallery work to what's going on in fine art photographers copyright everything and uh anyway you can go through here and browse through their Collections and see what's going on too but really what I think the takeaway here is is something that is set up like the center for creativity something that is set up like the center for cre Creative Photography as an authoritative resource on this stuff this is important to get to know these people it's important to understand how a curator thinks it's important to understand you know what is it about Fine Art that's attractive and what is it about fine art that makes your work important and that's a big deal and it's really hard to do important work and you know but what all I'm saying is is that these are sources where again knowing people that that work in these places um you know that can give you serious feedback can be um you know a big deal another thing they do and this is the last thing I'll mention is um this is happens to be their auction their annual fundraising auction called in focus and they don't have it up yet and I'll I'll do another little show when they do uh but this is another great way to see who is up and coming in photography right now now let's talk about the other side of an auction auctions generally are fundraisers of some kind and there are art auctions that include photography and there are also photography specific art auctions and some of them you know it's a charity that's benefitting some of it's an organization that's benefitting and there is a little bit of a back and forth on whether it's ethical to deal with auctions or not because the problem with an auction is they underbid the gallery world uh people will wait for auctions because they feel like they might be able to get something cheaper than they would if they went and paid full price and that's a really tough thing for a gallery to compete with anyway as a starting artist as you're you're starting out and you're trying to establish yourself you know auctions are hungry for work and this is a way to get your work seen and get it in the company of of other people you know what I mean uh get it in the company of other established artists so you know these are these are just a couple things you can think about but and you know this is heavy on CCP obviously and you know I I don't think their auction is unethical at all I think it's quite the opposite I think it is um generally something that's very important to the photography industry and it's well worth supporting but these are the kind of opportunities and avenues that I think if you're interested in going this route and getting into this that you look for obviously when we started out we were talking about Howard Greenberg and that's the top of the top it's very difficult that's not a place that's that you're going to start and get your work into but to break that down and take that back a notch and what we've done is we've looked at local Galleries and we've looked at at galleries in New York that will handle um upand cominging people you know then you start to see and piece together how you can start making some moves in a career with this type thing and it's not easy and I don't want you know even though I'm showing you tips this is just barely scratching the surface of what you want to be dealing with um I think also it's important to look at Publications and magazines um it's also important you know there's a um another podcast called lens work uh that is an accompany it's a magazine that is an amazing resource um an amazing way to find out who is up and cominging in the photography world so anyway hopefully this will kind of you know wet your interest a little bit as far as um you know research goes and and you know trying to come up with a plan on on you know how to pursue a career in Fine Art just know that it's very competitive it's very difficult and the work varies sometimes especially on the entry level and you're going to see stuff that's great and you're going to see stuff that is not and sometimes the stuff that is not does very well it's kind of hard to pallet sometimes but that's the Fine Art world so hopefully this gives you a little bit of a clue on some things to start with Okay so we've talked about how the Fine Art World tends to operate and I hope once again like the commercial episode if you are interested in doing this or you're interested in selling your own work in this way and doing the gallery route um I think of the two it can be extremely rewarding um you have a little more artistic control as a fine artist it's a lot harder though too and I do want to say that I've I've had a lot of friends over the years who are fine artists whether they're photographers painters um you know what it is that they're doing visually uh it doesn't matter but it's all the same that it's an extremely hard field to get into there's very little reward and some times when there is reward it's very little and that's something to consider um it's something that you really have to have a driving passion that you're willing to kind of put up with a lot of that stuff for I will never say that that is not easy and you know it's tough uh I don't want to discourage you if that is your passion um it is a passion of mine I'm not pursuing it full-time as being known as an artist I think if I were I wouldn't have the podcast there were other things I wouldn't do um you know I would I am interested in going the gallery route and I am interested in selling my work on an image type basis and if I guess it was last summer I did an episode on starting an online gallery and I kind of dropped it and I never did that intentionally but it's taken me a year it's something that's still on my plate I just don't have anything to talk about because I'm trying to find ways to do it and most of that is not like you know networking ways of doing it or who do you know it's more like what do I want my work to look like and where do I see that direction going um you know I've said a couple times that really portfolios a lot of people showcase them with the you know client names like if youve shot for Nike or if you shot for Nissan or whatever you're a big client you put the work in but you know like I said a long time ago um my friend Alex told me one time that you know your portfolio should be more about the work you want to get and less about the work you've already done and I think that's really important and this all comes back to everything it comes back to your website it comes back to your if you have a physical portfolio how you represent yourself what kind of work you show I think that's really important so anyway I hope you have gained some knowledge from this that is useful and I hope this works for you in some way shape or form so anyway that's enough for today but I will catch you guys next time once again this has been the Art of Photography and thank you for watching we'll see you\n"