Originally posted by OpenLens
I did originally...I keep a lot more stock clients being able to deliver digital and physical images. If I suddenly said "no more slides, I can only deliver digital images to you" I would lose the majority of my clients, as well as not be able to enter PSA, FIAP, and other salons annualy.
And as I said originally, how many clients do you lose by not shooting digitally? No wait, you wouldn't know because you've never had those clients.
Yes, you keep those clients by being able to produce both digital and physical. But as I have also said before in response to you, shooting digital doesn't mean you stop shooting film. Your argument works brilliantly for someone who forsakes film for digital, but not as an argument against digital per se.
Salon photography. Joking right?
Another personal reason I stick with physical is one of fine art and customer perception (and a little truth). A B&W handprint on FB paper or a cibachrome print from a tranny still has more sell value than an equivalent inkjet print. Typicaly, I sell limited edition B&W paper or cibachrome 12x16 framed and mounted prints for around US$300 each and unlimited edition A4 inkjet prints framed for US$30.
Yes there is little doubt that the perception is that a B&W handprint is worth more than a handprinted piece. But you have to realise the South East Asian market as well. The fine art market is dead, and photography never really fit into fine art comfortably in the first place anyway. The vast majority of photographers are not fine art photographers, which renders that little argument moot. Again, just because you're a fine art photographer doesn't mean the rest of the world is. Sad to say, the majority of the world don't have a big name website to fall back on and onto which to anchor their fine art sales to. Another dose of the emperor's new clothes. If you and I took the same photo and sold it the same way, you'd get US$300 for it, I wouldn't get that amount...
Furthermore, your comparison is US$300 for a limited edition print handprint, approximately A3, and US$30 for an A4 inkjet.
Hello, apples to apples please? For starters, you've got the paper sizes wrong. Allowing for double the paper size, the inkjet print should be worth US$60. Given that things that are bigger tend to cost disproportionately more, say a reasonable US$70.
Now more importantly, why are you comparing a limited edition handprint with an UNlimited edition inkjet?!!?! Sorry, but I'd say US$70 for an unlimited edition commercial print of the Mona Lisa would be a bit on the high side. I'd pay, maybe, 10% of that. But how much do you think the limited edition (1...) Mona Lisa would fetch. Far, far, far more than US$300.
The point of that is, you can't even begin to compare limited edition stuff with unlimited edition stuff.
And I suppose you belong to the group of people who also believe in destroying their negs/slides to ensure the limited edition really is limited? Otherwise, aside from lay perception, there really isn't much difference in the limitedness or unlimitedness of a neg/slide or an inkjet.
Not to mention you don't shoot digital right? So in which case, your inkjets are all pictures made in film, and should theoretically be just as limited edition as your "true" limited editions. It's just how limited you decide to make them. And as you've gone and made them unlimited...
Confusing? Intentional, I assure you.
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