Selling photographs at craft fairs? Possible to make any money?

[JoyDivision]

Some of the gift shops near me ask nearly £100 for photographs of local landmarks and pubs. I own a decent camera (A Panasonic G2) and have quite a few different lens for it.

I also have a lot of great pictures I have taken over the past 6 years.

I was thinking of framing and making canvases out of a lot of these and then selling them.

Is it possible to make any money?

Also do these people tend to just sell each photo once so they are unique or sell many copies of the same one?

 

[Indivijewelistic]

I would go to the UK Craft Forum site and ask the same question you might find someone doing exactly that.

 

[aussiecameras]

My mate who does this says that there certainly are best selling shots. Maybe 80% of the sales are 20% of the shots. A quite familiar ratio in many areas of business!

He sells at a tourist location and although he has displays of stretched canvas prints most of them he sells unstretched. And he would have the best selling posters in tubes ready to go.
Of course if many of the customers are locals they would be happy to buy them framed or stretched.
The trick for you will be deciding what you get printed first up as you don't want to have too much unsold stock.
If you have the skills you could buy yourself a wide format printer to do this stuff or otherwise maybe you should come to a partnership arrangement with a local photoshop where they would do the printing and you would do the photography and selling.

 

[smo]

From visiting craft fairs and country shows I would think not. Loads of people do it yet ive never seen any actually making a sale when i'm browsing. (conversely you look at cushions or crafty bits and people are always busy buying).

Photography is a tricky market, everyone with a camera thinks they can do it too so why bother buying someone elses shot at an overinflated price?

 

[GreenLea]

I have bought before a framed photo from craft fairs but to be honest £20-£40 max is all I would spend. Many sellers do not seem to sell much volume wise. That is a lot of cash to have on you at a fayre as generally the products are lower in cost in my experience anyway. Have you considered a local village boutique or gallery? We have a few around here and they do seem to sell really well. Good luck with your venture

 

[aussiecameras]

This the sort of place I'm talking about as far as selling well. Is that the sort of market you are talking about?
Sorry, I.m not allowed to post a link. Just google Salamanca Market images.

 

[Spock]

Like already said, I think getting some cheap frame and mount would be your best bet because by the time you have got your picture printed on canvas and framed it will be too costly for spur of the moment craft fair purchases.

 

[aussiecameras]

I still reckon you could form an alliance with you local photoshop or wide format printing guy. We have joint ventures with photographers and they work out very well.