Into the Gallery

This will be a short and sweet blog, as I have just started the next adventure in my photography; Getting into an art gallery!

I now have 5 pieces at home that I feel are strong images and are ready to be put up into a gallery. After a bit of internet searching the last few days, I have found pretty much nothing beyond of:

• Visit the gallery before you offer your images to be displayed in it
• Learn how much the staff knows about art
• Talk to other local artists on their experience with the gallery

Most of the articles found are all about setting up your online gallery, setting prices, and getting the word out. Last year I reached out to one local (Milwaukee area) retail shop that also sold photographs, and ended up getting the cold shoulder after one e-mail of them expressing they would be happy to sell my images. So now my photography concentration will be finding out how to get into a gallery and getting it set-up (and the special image requests). . 

I also found the following recommendation about the artwork when you submit it to be entered into a gallery:

• Have the image framed or displayed the way they would be sold to the customer
• Have your information and sale price already on the piece
• Remember the gallery gets a cut out of the sale, so adjust the price to make sure the profit you desire is there
• Don't sell a piece for $100 if the cost to make it is $80 (paper, time, frame, ect..) and the gallery's cut is 20%.  It only covers the cost to make it, leaving you with $0 for yourself and unable to move forward with additional product.

I will be keeping my blog updated as soon as I have learned something new, or have successfully put my photographs into a gallery.

Photograph taken on vacation while in South Carolina in early July 2014.

kenosha wisconsin art

Photographs - Why Do I Always Have to Crop?!

In the last few weeks I have done a few senior portrait sessions. One thing that I had to explain, or will probably end up needing to explain why my photographs aren't the same as you taking in your photos to Wal-mart or Walgreens. This may end up confusing you more, but I hope this answers a few questions.

In school you always here "You're going to use this in every day life, you should learn how to do it!". I am finally finding out that depending on your field this may, or may not, be true. In photography, math is becoming a huge factor once I started getting into the mechanics of photography. While math is important on determining the print... Printing a photo, actually starts with the camera.

To explain why the photos I take are recommended to print in the 2:3 aspect (8"x12"), we need to actually look at my camera and more specifically the sensor of the camera. The camera actually takes the image in the 2:3 ratio, so when I am lining up the shot I am using all the space. If I know the image is going to be used for an 8x10, I actually have to picture the squares in my head when I take the pictures and then crop the image to that format.

Cropped 4:5 Ratio (8x10)

Not Cropped 2:3 ratio (8x12)

Cropped 4:3 Ratio (9x12)

As you can see from the two images, you lose a lot of the picture in the cropped 4:5 Ratio compared to what was being shot in the camera. I personally do not like to crop my images unless it is absolutely required, meaning my lens wasn't long enough and need to crop into the subject. I try to do all of my work in the camera so I don't have to spend so long cropping and editing later. My goal in the above shot was to show how alert the bird was, in the cropped version it just isn't seen. It looses my goal of the image. Yes, I will agree I like how the eye looks better in the cropped version but It doesn't tell the story that I wanted to tell.

This is the same to the other photographs that I sell on my site, portraits, and other images that I have printed. To me cropping an image changes the story that I was telling, in reality you are changing the art. 

So what really comes down to is that the cameras are really built to take images in the 2:3 ration, but the print that majority everyone wants is a 4:5 ratio (8"x10") or a 4.25:5.5 ratio (8.5"x11").

If you ever come across this, I would recommend printing it in the true ratio and get your print with a border. You can hide this border with a frame or mounting it. This way you get the full image and story, instead of just a piece of it. When you take them into Wal-Mart or Walgreens, they are actually cropping the image for you. I'm betting if you look at the negatives, or the actual image on your memory card, the print isn't the full image you took.

The drawback of getting 3:2 ratio prints? Hard to find frames for them. Luckily, the internet can help that out these days and can be remedied by browsing for frames for a few minutes.

Actually printing photos have more math in them beyond just the ratios that I did not cover, such as pixels per inch and/or dots per inch (there is a war between those PPI and DPI). What resolution the photo needs to be in order to get a 'good print'. And the information keeps going on an on for when you want to determine if that image can be printed at a 20"x30" size.

If you have any questions about printing, please feel free to send me a message over facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StevenSantamourPhotography
Twitter: @SteveSFoto
or the comments below and I will be sure to answer them in the next blog or over the FB page.