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Exhibition Space

Lesson 45 from: Fine Art Landscape and Travel Photography

Peter Eastway, Tony Hewitt

Exhibition Space

Lesson 45 from: Fine Art Landscape and Travel Photography

Peter Eastway, Tony Hewitt

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Lesson Info

45. Exhibition Space

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Overview of Fine Art Landscape and Travel Photography

08:44
2

Our Passion For Photography

07:38
3

Looking For The Next Great Photo

19:05
4

Peter and Tony's Photography

18:35
5

What is a Landscape?

15:48
6

Considering Color: What is Real?

13:16
7

Shooting Travel Photography: Exotic Locations

13:33
8

Preparing for a Travel Shoot: Research

16:35

Lesson Info

Exhibition Space

Then we gotta look at costing the exhibition space. So wherever you're hold it. So there are a number of options. You know, the commercial gallery. The commercial gallery, Tony, they're going to charge you anywhere from A percentage. 20 to 50% for each sale that you make. So you might say, well, let's go and get a hired space where I just pay for a local hall, or something like that. There's no commission, but someone's gotta sit there, and sell it for you. Exactly. So, a hired space, they've got staff, they know how to sell, they've got a clientele as well, which is useful. And of course, if you have your own venue, you might have to pay for security, electricity, and all that sort of stuff. Now I'm not going to go into it in detail, because we haven't got time, but I'll leave this on for a little while so that you can pause your video and look at it, and that just looks at the cost of a hired space to a commercial space, with some assumptions made, to show that often there is...

n't much of a difference in the profit that you end up making. In which case, you might as well go with a commercial gallery. Here's another version where it can show that, actually, a commercial gallery, if you don't sell many, can be a cheaper option. So in other words, if you make 20 prints, and only sell two, the commercial gallery may mean you lose less money than if you did it all yourself. So, a timetable is very important, and I think you already said that basically what you do is, you work backwards from the opening. Yeah, I ask when is there a space? When is there a time on their calendar that I can have an exhibition? How long will it be for? What room will it be in? So I can get a feeling for the outcome, and when it's going to be, and then I can work backwards. Okay, I need 10 prints ready by this time for the framer, I need to have the final files edited and ready to go, that means I've got to shoot them by this time, et cetera, et cetera. Yep, yep. And always good to factor in a little bit of fudge in there, so a little bit of extra time in case something goes wrong. I always find that anyway. So, when we come down to planning the exhibit, you know, how many wall are you gonna have? How big? How high are the walls? So then, therefore, how many prints? What can you fit in? And do you print for the gallery, or do you print for the buyer? And what I'm saying is, if you've got a really big gallery, it might look silly to have a little print in the middle of the wall. But your client or your customer comes along, they're in a small apartment, they've only got small amount of wall space. So there's a little bit of a question there. You know, but if you don't show it big, you might not have the impact. And you can go both ways, you know? You can have a mixture which can sometimes work quite well. To have those big exclusive sized, maybe bit more expensive, Yes. maybe limited edition, we didn't about that. And then you can have a couple that are a lower price point, maybe a little bit more volume in terms of additions that people can then put in smaller apartments. Yeah, okay. So know your market, I think is the important thing, and where you're exhibiting. So, this was a small exhibition that I had with a friend of mine, David Oliver, and we had two walls on which to put up an exhibition, and that was how we designed it. That was in more of a retail-type environment, and so completely different to the exhibition you saw in the photos at the very beginning where they were just one lot along the wall. So, plan it out. It is a lot of planning. And the other thing to be aware of is, you talked about pricing before a little bit and that, if you're in a commercial gallery, it's a different ambience, a different feel when people walk in the door, to being in a shopping center, or in a space that you've hired yourself. And creating the right ambience to match the market, to match the potential buyer, is super important. Yep. So, printing the works, whether it's you or the lab, allow lots of time to get it right. If you're using a lab, ensure you've got good communication and someone who understands what you're trying to do. Be prepared to pay for a second print, 'cause sometimes they'll do a print which is really very good, and maybe it's your fault that it wasn't quite right. Yes. But then again, if you've got a good rapport, they'll often say, you're right, we didn't get that quite right, and they will make it right for you. So it's all about that relationship. Ditto with framing the works. You know, please, please give the framer plenty of time, because if they rush, the corners aren't quite right, or there's dust and stuff in the glass. Yep, yep. So, and once you've got those prints, make sure you've got a car or a van big enough to actually get them to the gallery, 'cause that can be a problem. Yes, 'cause you might have all these prints, and have a couple of big hero shots, and then you suddenly realize you can't shift those hero shots. That's right. Be very careful if you do hire someone else to transport your prints. You know, just a career company or something, 'cause they might say they'll look after them, but as we said, all this work goes through, particularly if they're not framed works, they're just mounted, very easily damaged. Damaged, yeah. And even though they may take every care if they do damage them, again I'm probably a protectionist, I'd prefer to go and hire the van and either do it myself, or someone I trust personally to actually take them all across. Okay, so you've got this gallery, or this exhibition space, how are people going to find you? So, press releases, for newspapers, Facebook, Twitter, all that sort of stuff. Put posters up in retail areas or your community around. Business cards for people who attend, so they know where to find you, et cetera. This is a full-on commercial exercise, and I, in the past, have hired PR people to do it for me. (chuckles) Didn't sell a single print, but I had double pages in the local, you know, the city newspapers, and things like that, so I got a lot of fame, just no money (laughs). Just go back to that one again. Yep. If you will please. The other thing is, that often with a commercial gallery, what'll happen is, they will have their own marketing machine. Social media is super important, 'cause they'll push that out ahead of time Very much these days. And they'll keep it cranking up when it gets close. So, if you're not good with that, get somebody who is to deal with it. If you're with a commercial gallery, they'll probably be doing it all for you anyway. But they will have the right people and the right channels. Things like, if you can get onto local radio, often with a lot of community radios, that's where a lot of your buyers will come from anyway. So you can get a little spot on community radio. They're often looking for people to come in, give a 10-minute spot on photography and what you've done and why. There's lots of little ways you can just get the name out there, and keep it spreading. Okay, so we're gonna need an exhibition catalog and a price list, or possibly it's the same thing, so. It can be a single sheet with the names and the numbers of the works, and the price. You can also have little title cards underneath the prints on the wall with the price, so people know. And some people go to the extent of having a proper printed catalog, or even an audio-visual that's playing that people can see their work. So there's no limit to what you can do. Yeah, and the part you've added in there is extra works. And that is a situation where you've got 30 pictures, they're all your favorites, you can't leave any out. You go to hang ... It's amazing how sometimes when you go to hang, it's only gonna take 26, and if you try to push the others, it's just gonna look like a ... an Australian-ism is, a dog's breakfast. You don't want it to look like that. Having that ability to add a few extras on to the catalog is a good idea. Yeah.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

The Incomplete Guide to Shooting Aerials
The Essential Manual For The Travel Photographer

Ratings and Reviews

Esther Beaton
 

Two Aussie blokes just having fun. Peter and Tone did us proud by representing the spirit of Australia, which is: don’t take anything too seriously. They hit off each other well, in fact, they are the best twosome I’ve ever seen on Creative Live, each giving the other respectful space yet not being shy about taking the micky out of the other guy when appropriate. The whole dialogue was spirited, informative, casual and fun. They also perfectly proved the symbiotic relationship between red wine and beautiful photography.

Swapnil Nevgi
 

Loved the positive energy of this class. Just finished watching it and I would definitely recommend it to someone who wants to take their landscape photography to the next level. This course is not about learning camera or software skills, but learning how to develop conceptualizing and composing skills. How an award winning creatives mind works is a lot more important than how to use camera. This is exactly what I was looking for and very happy with my purchase. Also it was good to see some of their raw vs post processed files to learn how far the professionals like Tony and Peter go with post processing (Something I have always been concerned about). Knowledge about exhibiting was also priceless. Thank you, I have learnt a lot in this class and I am sure it will reflect in my work in future.

Debra
 

This class is fabulous! One of the best on Creative Live. Peter and Tony share so much of themselves and their great art that you can't help but want to pick up your camera and get out to shoot. It was like watching two close friends. Thanks very much for a very enjoyable 2 days of learning and viewing.

Student Work

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