Editions

I went to the Affordable Art Fair last week in New York City with a couple of friends who are also photographers. There were over 60 galleries represented, and perhaps 10 or so featuring fine art photography.

There were two things that my friends and I found fascinating. The first thing was editions and pricing. In the old days, photographers and galleries sold limited edition photographs of anywhere from 50-100 prints in an edition. They had to be printed in the darkroom at the same time and be the same size to make up an edition.

Now, because more and more photographers print digitally, editions do not technically have to be printed at the same time to maintain quality control. You can make the exact same print a week later (well, you obviously need some controls like a match print, a calibrated monitor, the same paper, and it wouldn’t hurt to use the same printer).
So to keep the higher value of limited editions in the fine art market, many galleries and artists are making smaller editions of 5-15 prints.

This keeps artists and the buyers of fine art happy because it’s a supply and demand issue- the supply is so small that the prices can stay high. If someone is making an investment on a photograph that costs $10,000, they want to make sure that their investment is worth it, if ever they should want to sell. So then the art is not really affordable for many of us- just the serious high end art market.

We also noticed at the show a few of my photo competitors who sell open editions (no end number in the amount that can be printed ) or those who sell large limited editions. (Anywhere from 100-1000 prints in an edition). Will It look Good Over The Sofa sells large limited editions. Because the digital glicee process has enabled us to print to order, we can print more efficiently and therefore keep the prices down.

This way, people like you with good design sense who want affordable art are not priced out of the market. The only difference is the size of the edition. (To read more about editions, read our article: Limited and Open Editions.)

The other interesting trend we noticed was trendy framing (or lack of frames). Traditionally, for fine art to be archival, it was important that the art be matted using acid free matting and museum mounting. The matting prevents condensation to build up on the glass and prevents damage to the artwork. We noticed many “affordable” photographs at several thousand dollars that had no mat to protect the image from the glass and were just taken aback.

For inexpensive art, I say, if it looks good this way (and some art looks beautiful this way, go for it,) but if you want something to last your lifetime, please make sure it’s framed correctly. The mats and frames we use at Will It Look Good Over The Sofa are all archival matted and framed. To learn more about archival matting and framing, read our article Archival Matting and Framing.

If you are going to a framer yourself and want the image to float and also want it to be archival you can use spacers. Spacers are the material used to separate the the art from the glass or plexiglass if you're not using a mat.

And then we noticed many images that were mounted without traditional frames. This is quite a personal look – I feel that for some contemporary images it works and the photographs look absolutely amazing. For other images, it can make the art look like an inexpensive poster. The processes are called Lumabond which is a print mounted on aluminum and then a protective film is applied on top of the image to protect it. Another process that is similar is called Lumasec. It is the same thing but an acrylic glass plate is added on top of it so the work doesn't get damaged. My photographer friends and I only worried if this look was trendy. Was it how we would want to look at the image forever? (You can not reframe the images if you get tired of the look due to the way they are mounted.)


Since we always have a Photo of the Month in our blog, I thought since it's June and all the roses are in bloom, White Rose would be most appropriate. 5% of the proceeds of White Rose will go to Trickle Up. Trickle Up helps very poor people make their way out of poverty by helping them create microenterprises.