wayner

I started reading Vincent Laforet‘s blog after the Canon 5D Mark II was announced and he had a small video made with it.  Anyone Canon trusts with pre-release hardware can’t be all bad.

His post today is about selling works through embeddable galleries.  I’m not sure I totally “get” the gee, wizz factor involved here as authors and other sellers have been using links to Amazon and other sites for a while now.  Maybe it’s just that’s it’s started for photographers now or maybe it’s that it’s more direct.  But that’s all well and good.

To encourage this sort of thing he’s giving a month’s net profits to this gallery to set up a photography scholarship.

Cool, right?  Yeah, it is cool.

But here’s where our worlds diverge.  I’ve never taken a photo worth selling so this is weird territory for me.  Of the 88 photos, the first is selling for $75 and is unlimited.  The other 87 are selling for $1,250.  Beyond the fact that I couldn’t picture (heh) spending $75 on a photo to begin with, let alone $1,250 I can’t figure out why they’re limited?

I mean I feel fairly secure in thinking Vincent shoots digital.  So it’s not like there’s any degrading quality from the number of prints made.  Or that much of a set up to make a print, once you do it the first time you can simply load the file and hit print again.  Right?  Or even if it’s a little more involved then that – if someone is paying you $1,250 for it – I think you can make the time.

This just seems like a form of Artificial Scarcity.  And that needles me a little bit.  If you’re willing to print off N number of copies, what keeps you from printing N+1?  Or N+2?  Etc..  If someone is willing to pay you $1,250 to hit print in Photoshop, I think you should be willing to make the sacrifice.  Maybe this is a way of cutting down on the “filthy lucre” side of the business so more time can be spent on the Art.  Of course, one could argue that if people are requesting enough $1,250 prints that it’s cutting into your “me” time, you could probably hire an assistant to hit print for you.

I wonder if the price is set to cut down on the number of sales as well?  For instance, there’s no way in hell I’d pay $1,250 for a photograph.  I can’t even afford the $75 no matter how awesome the photo might be.  But I might for $20 or maybe even $30.  How much does it actually cost to print?  I know that for quality paper, inks, etc.. it’s not necessarily cheap but even Vincent is expecting to sell more of the cheaper print.  Which is also happens to be the one which isn’t limited printing.  So years from now he could still be making $75 for new printings.  To my understanding, that’s how The Long Tail is suppose to work.

Maybe there’s a prestige aspect to it.  Maybe selling below a certain price is insulting to your level of talent?  Maybe limiting the number of prints is a way of keeping exclusivity?  I heard the secret behind Studio 54 was keeping various sections that people couldn’t get into.  You make it into the club, but you can’t make it into the VIP section.  You make it into the VIP but then you can’t get into the Special VIP and so on and so on…  If it was easy to get, then no one would want it?

Or perhaps I just don’t get the Art world.