ยฉ Norman Seeff
The Signed Prints You Don’t Own
When a portfolio arrives on my desk, sooner or later I ask the photographer which signed and numbered print they last hung in their home. Almost always there’s a pause, then none. You have a hundred photography books, a few posters, two postcards from a show you saw years ago. Real prints by other photographers, dated, numbered, signed, none. And then you’re surprised no one buys yours.
There’s an asymmetry photographers rarely talk about. You produce, publish, post, send out portfolios, enter calls. But you don’t own anything made by anyone else. When the moment comes to put a price on your own work, you find you don’t really know what it means to own a photograph, because you’ve never held one in your hands as your own object, something you look at every day for years.
Sam Wagstaff bought photographs in New York throughout the Seventies, when no one wanted them. His collection ended up at the Getty in 1984 for five million dollars. The market for photography exists because someone decided to buy. Today the first ones not to buy are often photographers themselves, who still expect the world to do it for them.
Buying a signed print by another author changes the way you look at your own archive. You realize the edition size matters, the signature matters, the date matters. You feel the physical weight of an image when it lives in your home for years and not on a screen. And when you finally sign and number a print of your own for someone, you know what you’re placing in their hands because someone did it for you first.
Before you ask why no one buys your photography, ask yourself what was the last photograph you bought. If there’s no concrete answer, with a name, a date, a print on a wall, the problem isn’t the market. You’re asking the world to treat your image in a way you don’t treat anyone else’s.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.