Exhibition advice
Discussion
I am planning my first photo exhibition and have a great venue. What I need a bit of help with is partitions! As the barn has a lot of floor space I need some partitions to hang a load of my pictures on. I am not framing them ( with 61 photos it is too expensive) but they will all be properly mounted and sealed. I have a back up plan which is to make my own and have thought it through with design and costs. As I am West Sussex based and don't want to travel miles and I can make my own for under £200. Any ideas? Also anyone had any dealings with hanging mounts on walls/partitions etc. Have looked into velcro strips and wondered if this was the way forward. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Mark
Velcro strips should work. How are you sealing the prints/mounts? The only issue I can think of is damage from damp, heat from light, or dust. If sealed well then I doubt that dust will be an issue. If the mount sits flush with the wall/panel then that should reduce the likelihood of buckling/warping.
When I was a student I used Pritt Stick sticky pads to stick mounts to exhibition panels. If the mounts are too heavy then there is a danger of the print falling off the wall.
Sounds like a very large exhibition. What sort of work is it?
When I was a student I used Pritt Stick sticky pads to stick mounts to exhibition panels. If the mounts are too heavy then there is a danger of the print falling off the wall.
Sounds like a very large exhibition. What sort of work is it?
Ha, I remember that stage 
Outlay: £500 (40+ framed A3 and A4 prints with hand-cut mounts). Took bloody days.
Sales: £17.
Hopefully you will do better; I ended up decorating local libraries at my own expense.
The partitions were cloth with some kind of wooden middle; I just hammered nails in. For vanity it's great; expect nothing and hopefully you'll do better.
Outlay: £500 (40+ framed A3 and A4 prints with hand-cut mounts). Took bloody days.
Sales: £17.
Hopefully you will do better; I ended up decorating local libraries at my own expense.
The partitions were cloth with some kind of wooden middle; I just hammered nails in. For vanity it's great; expect nothing and hopefully you'll do better.
Vanity? yes I suppose so, dust? not a problem as only doing one night - lovely big barn, car display, bar! The exhibition is Festival of Speed and Goodwood Revival (yes have asked Goodwood!) and some of the bigger prints I have made A frames for so no worries on hanging them. I think the velcro stuff if where I will go as I am making the partitions myself and so can position before hanging accurately. As someone said to me recently 'don't worry if it doesn't work first time, just keep at it'. At the end of the day I still have my day job but if I didn't do this I would always ask myself what if? Exhibition is on 6th October near Petworth, Sussex
racing green said:
Upwaltham Barns on A285, 6.30pm - 10.30pm. It seemed a good choice and close to home.
Shot a wedding there last month, lovely place and very friendly owners/ operators. Just you on your own or with others?For one night you should be fine with prints mounted on foam core or similar and hung on velcro. Any longer, or if you're planning to re-exhibit, you might want to mount on MDF, say 6mm, for durability. I photo-mounted mine onto slightly undersized panels and trimmed to size.
Pick your images according to what might have mass appeal rather than purely your own favourites then, seeing as you have the opportunity, find a way of canvasing your viewers and asking their preferences. If you can, do this anonymously and you'll get more frank and honest feedback. As an example, my most popular on flickr has 27k views and 1k faves. It typifies my style and fitted well with the exhibition theme. On that basis I had to include it yet it was identified as the least popular of all my images on the walls.
Biggest issue I had was pricing, how are you sorted in that respect? It's easy to undervalue your work and much less easy to raise your prices subsequently.
If it's open invite, I'll try and get along. Good luck
Open invite to all and will be in local paper next week. Pricing is a tricky one and have had some feedback from a local gallery and framing shop but will give it a bit more thought until I am happy. As far as the pics are concerned I agree about favs versus comercial sales and hope to strike a happy medium. I have no illusions (or delusions)about selling loads and will probably not cover my costs. My view is that I have to start somewhere and that what I do this time I can improve on next time. Can't beleive how much there is to do! Anyway thanks for all the feedback so far, it is much appreciated!
The first place I exhibited didn't take commission on sales so the strategy I adopted was to price at local gallery levels then visibly discount by the average amount of their commission, which varied from 25% - 50%
This allowed me to launch with attractive prices but still have the ability to subsequently sell through galleries without either slashing my profit or seeming to massively hike my prices.
The general feedback I got from people who actually ordered and paid for prints was that they would have paid more, so maybe knock 20% off a comparable gallery price.
This allowed me to launch with attractive prices but still have the ability to subsequently sell through galleries without either slashing my profit or seeming to massively hike my prices.
The general feedback I got from people who actually ordered and paid for prints was that they would have paid more, so maybe knock 20% off a comparable gallery price.
I am planning to do first photo exhibition and have no idea how to start and what to do, were to go, who to see,, could any one help / advice me. I am in London WC1, if any experience person could led me to right path.
My images are very interesting Landscape / Natural & Poverty. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Shan
My images are very interesting Landscape / Natural & Poverty. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Shan
Edited by shuabscamera on Saturday 19th February 05:40
Edited by shuabscamera on Sunday 20th February 08:15
Had a reasonably good turn out (75 people) and sold 22 photos on the night and several more later. Found a really good venue which had space, good parking, a bar!! and the right atmosphere. Then I built my own display boards, printed out 75% of the photos myself and mounted them all myself but without frames. Frames are personal to each house and so left that to the buyers. Sent out 100 invites which I made up on the 123print website (cost about £15). Also got loads of bits and pieces themed with the night - Goodwood programmes, car badges, old toy cars and some dummies wearing racing overalls and RAF uniform (theme was Goodwood revival and FOS). Also placed posters in target areas, got a piece and photo in the local paper and mentioned it on several forums. Hardest bit was making the frames for displaying the photos and then putting it all together on the day ( I had help). Just about covered most costs but didn't actually profit, however next time (June this year) I won't have so many costs and I will know what I am doing. Its sort of a vanity thing really as only the pro's and well known photographers are likely to make money. And although you will want your friends and family there they may not be the ones who buys photos. Target your audiences carefully, make your exhibition accesible to all and don't overprice because once you have a reputation for being expensive..... Oh and work out ALL your costs not just the photographic ones. Its hard work first time but sort of exhilarating.
racing green said:
Had a reasonably good turn out (75 people) and sold 22 photos on the night and several more later. Found a really good venue which had space, good parking, a bar!! and the right atmosphere. Then I built my own display boards, printed out 75% of the photos myself and mounted them all myself but without frames. Frames are personal to each house and so left that to the buyers. Sent out 100 invites which I made up on the 123print website (cost about £15). Also got loads of bits and pieces themed with the night - Goodwood programmes, car badges, old toy cars and some dummies wearing racing overalls and RAF uniform (theme was Goodwood revival and FOS). Also placed posters in target areas, got a piece and photo in the local paper and mentioned it on several forums. Hardest bit was making the frames for displaying the photos and then putting it all together on the day ( I had help). Just about covered most costs but didn't actually profit, however next time (June this year) I won't have so many costs and I will know what I am doing. Its sort of a vanity thing really as only the pro's and well known photographers are likely to make money. And although you will want your friends and family there they may not be the ones who buys photos. Target your audiences carefully, make your exhibition accesible to all and don't overprice because once you have a reputation for being expensive..... Oh and work out ALL your costs not just the photographic ones. Its hard work first time but sort of exhilarating.
Excellent write up. Thanks for taking the time to give your feedback. Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff