Buying historical limited edition photographs

While limited edition digital prints are a great way to buy fine art photography at
affordable prices- as we do on www.WillItLookGoodOverTheSofa.com - for those of you who have the budget and are interested in collecting original historical photos, check out the current photo auctions at Sotheby’s, Christies and some of the other great auction houses. One of my favorites is the Swann Gallery in NY on 25th Street.

On October 15, they have an auction of important 19th and 20th century photographs. Included in this sale are a collection of nearly 40 nautical photographs including Gustave Le Gray's Brig on the Water, large-format albumen print, 1856 ( and Edward Weston's Boats, San Francisco, silver print, 1925.

The sale also features a partial set of Edward S. Curtis's magnum opus, The North American Indian, with 16 complete portfolios containing his large-format magisterial photogravures and 16 fully illustrated text volumes.


Other sale highlights include 19th century works, such as a whole-plate daguerreotype from the 1850s through contemporary art, including Joel Sternfeld's Exhausted Renegade Elephant, Woodland, Washington, chromogenic print, 1979.

What I like about these auctions, is that if you’re a photo collector even on a small scale, it’s an amazing way to see and learn about the history of photography and old photo processes like albumen prints, photogravure, etc.

To see their catalogue, go to www.swanngalleries.com and click on the catalogue section.

HOW TO TURN TRAVEL SNAPSHOTS INTO TRAVEL ART

This summer I traveled to Vietnam and China with my family and another family. As a fine art and commercial photographer, it used to be easy to travel and get great shots. But now, with other people to consider, it’s much harder as I don’t get many opportunities to wander off by myself and get lost - which as far
as I’m concerned, is the best way to get great shots!

So how do you get great travel photos on your vacation that will look good over the sofa, like our photographers do on our website
www.WilltLookGoodOverTheSofa.com?

Here are some basic tips:

1. If you intend to blow your photos up, the most important thing you need is a good digital camera with a good lens. You really need a single lens reflex digital camera with at least 10 MB to get professional looking results. Nikon, Canon and some other companies make some great cameras.

2. Focus on the small moments. The most salable shots are often skylines but in order for them to be worthy, they need to be shot under the best lighting conditions. And when you’re on vacation, it’s hard to be in the right place at the right time to get the perfectly lit shot. So do the opposite- concentrate on the details: the handmade pottery jar, the twisted tree, the colorful clothing of the people, etc.

3. Create a point of view. Haven’t people always told you that you have an odd
way of looking at the world? Well, take your pictures that way, too. Photograph
the world from your wacky way of seeing the world! Photograph those things YOU think are interesting, not just what most tourists think is interesting.


4. Go back to the same places. Generally, unless you’re lucky, your first impression shots of most locations will be just snapshots you take quickly in the moment. If you have a chance, go back to that place you liked at a different time. You’ll see
It better the second time around and get better pictures.

5. Make the weather work for you. I can’t tell you how many vacations I’ve gone
on where it rained or was overcast. And you know what? Some of my favorite
pictures are those moody, foggy ones! The sun is overrated!

5. Shoot at different angles. Try different perspectives so you don’t get a clichéd shot. Get down on your knees for some. Stand on a table. Just try different approaches of the same situation and most likely you’ll be surprised with something fresh and new.

6. Good printing is essential. So now that you have some great shots, make sure they are printed properly! If you don’t have a high end printer yourself, find a lab that can make custom prints
for you. It will make all the difference in turning your travel snapshots into fine art photography.

While a lot of parents spend early fall buying school supplies and school clothes,
some other parents use the time to update their kid’s rooms. And one of the best
ways to decorate your child’s room is with art.

Listening to children and their suggestions on how they’d like to decorate their
rooms can give us some great ideas!

We asked a bunch of our favorite kids what kind of wall art they’d like if they got
to decorate their rooms.

“Funny art”, Grace, age 8

“Anything with my name on it.” Katie, age 5

“Maps of the United States!” Max, age 9

“MY art.” Michael, age 11

“Pictures of my favorite musicians!” –Skylar, age 9

“I like movie posters like The Incredibles, Star Wars, Hulk and King Kong. And Yankee photos and memorabilia.” -Jacob, age 8 ½

“Pictures of my cat!” “Big!” “Over my bed!” - Jessica, age 5

“Photos of Italy and other places I’ve traveled to with my family” Sally, age 13

“Pictures of my favorite actors and singers like the High School Musical stars!” Kira, age 9.5

“Anything that’s purple, my favorite color!” Hannah, age 4

“I would like to have pictures of candy on my walls.” – Rose, age 9

So how do you turn these ideas into great art for your home that you as the parent can live with, too? The idea is to have some fun! Create a theme!

If you want inexpensive posters of rock stars or movie heroes, those are easy to find. Just frame the art in an unexpected way or group them in an interesting arrangement. Lots of small images in clear inexpensive frames in a grid arrangement are eye-catching and clean looking.

Shop at local flea markets for old illustrated children’s books and frame the pages from them. Some of them are amazing. Alphabet art is always wonderful, too. Have the child’s name written out by an artist using creative alphabet letters.

If you want something your kids can grow with, and that has continuing value, start collecting. Cartoon cells of their favorite animated characters, limited edition vintage posters or fine art photographs are always great choices- just make sure the subject matter is something of interest to your kids.

You can create a small art budget for your child and then once a year you can help them find something they like from an artist or company -shopping online makes this quite easy- and get them started learning about the world of art collecting, too.

Size matters

According to a recent blurb in the Economist blog, “the acceptable size
of paintings is increasing, presumably as houses and walls get bigger too.
It used to be that anything more than 3.2 meters high would be hard to sell…
now you can go up to 4 meters before prices peak.”

Someone recently asked me if this applies to fine art photography, too.
And the answer is, yes. Over the past decade, bigger has become
better at many galleries- witness Thomas Struth and other of the German
photographers popular in the art world today.

From a decorating point of view, many decorators feel, like with furniture,
that even in a small space, one big piece of furniture or one big piece of art
makes a better visual statement than a lot of smaller pieces all over the place.

On the other hand, I personally love mixing things up and feel that the image itself
should dictate how it’s printed. Some images shouldn’t be blown up big just for
the sake of being big. There’s something wonderful about a small image in
a big mat with a lot of breathing space. It creates a sense of intimacy that
draws you into the picture more.

In honor of keeping things small, one of our favorite images we love small is Susan's Vase.

As the Photo of the Month, 5% of the proceeds of the photo will go to PeaceTrees Vietnam. This organization helps clear landmines in Vietnam, plants trees and helps promote a safe future for the country's children.

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.

If you can't afford a $71.7 million Warhol...

Yesterday, at Christies, the NY auction house, a record was set for contemporary art sales. The sale totaled $384.6 million, according to the NY Times. Andy Warhol's "Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) from 1963 sold for $71.7 million. The record for any contemporary art sold at auction took place on Tuesday, when Sotheby's sold Rothko's "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose" for $72.8 million.

In the world of photography, an Andreas Gursky diptych (for those who are fans- the great one titled 99 cent II) sold for more than $3.3 million at a London auction in February, topping the previous record of $2.9 million paid for Edward Steichen's "The Pond -- Moonlight" at a sale at Sotheby's in New York in 2006.

Alas, most of us are not in that elite company who can afford these prices when hanging art in our homes. How wonderful it is that because of high end digital technology, fine art photography can be affordable to all of us!

If you’re like me, I want my home to be filled with beautiful art but at the same time I’m raising a kid and just don’t have the $85 million to spare to hang a Picasso over the sofa. But I can afford high end digital fine art photography. And that’s why Will It Look Good Over The Sofa was created - to make fine art photography more affordable and accessible to you. Even for your kid's rooms! We make large limited editions and they’re signed by the artist. (Read our article about high end digital photography if you’re confused about it on our Living with Art Section).

I also read an article recently that listed the best selling subject matters in art- guess what’s number one? - traditional landscapes. Second is local views, then semi-abstract landscapes and then abstracts.

While nobody would ever tell you to buy art based on popularity (that in my opinion, would be the last reason to ever buy anything!) well, we do cover those categories at Will It Look Over The Sofa.

Abstracts, in particular, have been a growing category in our collection. This month we have 27 new abstract images by Stephen Joseph who is based in NY. A great up and coming photographer! In honor of Stephen, our Photo Of The Month is Stephen's abstract image called "Westside Tennis." 5% of the proceeds of the sale of this image will go to Habitat For Humanity.

This is the time of year when another kind of photography is also popular-
wedding photography. We’re in the finishing touches of launching our sister site- The Wedding Picture.biz. The site is for photographers and brides. We have lots of information, a shop, tips on charitable weddings and most importantly, because many wedding photographers (at least the ones we’re going to include on The Wedding Picture) also do some really great fine art photography, we hope to sell some of their work in the future on Will it Look Good Over The Sofa. So if you know anyone getting married soon, please spread the word.

Thanks,
Andrea Sperling
Will It Look Good Over The Sofa

Earth day is coming!

Earth Day is coming up so I’d thought I’d share with you a photograph I recently took in Rome. Here I am shooting ancient ruins that are over 2000 years old and what do I see in the Tiber River- nonbiodegradable plastics. Modern ruins, you could call them.

The fact that there was an Italian soccer ball in the mix of colorful plastics is what really caught my eye. I usually don’t take pictures like these- my idea of a landscape is a bit prettier. But face it, unfortunately this is what a modern landscape looks like, and I did find beauty in the colors and shapes of the plastics as they rolled downstream.

My family and I have really made it a point to try to stop using plastics - including bags and bottles as much as possible. We try to bring our own sacks when we shop. We’re trying to do our little part.

As a photographer, one of the benefits of shooting digital these days is that we don’t use chemicals, and we don’t have film and film canisters to pollute the planet with. I used to spend a fortune printing editions but now because of high-end digital printing, we have a master file on our computers and we print to order. This saves paper, time and ultimately money for people like you who want affordable art for your homes .

In honor of Earth Month, here are some of our favorite landscape images. Let us know what you think! On our website, www.WillItLookGoodOverTheSofa.com, of course you can see a lot more- look under our travel, countryside and landscape categories! And we've got cityscapes, too!


Our photo of the month is our little part to save the planet. 5% of the proceeds of Trees in Fog by Mark Feaster (see below) will go to Conservation International. On Charity Navigator (charitynavigator.org) they’re listed as one of the top 10 charities that put their donations to good use. Their mission is to “conserve the earth’s living heritage, our global biodiversity, and to demonstrate that human societies are able to live harmoniously with nature.”

Happy Spring everyone!

Italy is always classic!

I just came back from a trip to Rome and Florence. Rome is my favorite place and I hadn’t been there in about 9 years. I brought along my 8 year old (I guess you can figure out why I hadn’t been there in awhile!) and my friends who are originally from China came, too. It was amazing to see Italy through their eyes because none of them had ever been there before. And of course, they all fell in love with it. For me, this time back was like revisiting an old love. And while there were some changes in Rome – more touristy pizza places, security checks and xray machines in all the museums, more crowds, more graffiti – Rome is still about walking through history. The interesting thing when you’re a photographer and when you revisit a place, is that many of your memories are photo memories. My memories of places are of the places themselves but also of the frozen moments I caught on film. So sometimes when I’d wander around Rome, I’d see some little insignificant detail that was so familiar because I had photographed it years before. I would remember how to find a street by a photographed detail I’d looked at a hundred times. Other times, I’d purposely go back to a place I’d photographed before, because I had caught some sort of transcendent moment and wanted to get the magic again. But it wasn’t the same – the light had changed, it was a different season so the flowers weren’t there or there was scaffolding. I even remember photographing some places before because of the colors and now rephotographing them and noticing that the wall colors had faded from the sun. The first time I went, I came home and immediately painted part of my living room the beautiful terracotta orange color you see everywhere. And I got a new sofa in celadon. I felt like an honorary Italian. My photographer friends who traveled with me came home and went for the Tuscan yellow. We all hung millions of photos of Italy everywhere in our homes. We were smitten and we all traveled back to various parts of Italy many more times over the years. And while I’m interested about reading about the new colors in home decor in all the decorating magazines and blogs and finding the best art to go with the busy flocked wallpapers, it’s nice to always revisit classics. Only in Italy, would the vines color palette be so glorious!


If you’re like me, you get tired of trends. And being trendy when decorating can get very expensive! Italy never goes out of style and art showing classic, timeless images never goes out of style either. You can never go wrong with the warm colors of Rome or the more masculine olives and mustards of Florence. Black and white photography and even more colorful images of the Italian landscape, the statues, etc. are timeless. Some of them are on our site now at http://www.willitlookgoodoverthesofa.com/ and some will be available soon for purchase. In honor of Italy, this month's Photo of the Month is Boboli Gardens. 5% of the profits of this photograph will benefit Reading is Fundamental. Reading is Fundamental "prepares and motivates children to read by delivering free books and literacy resources to those children and families who need them most." Even though I have taken courses in Italian, I've forgotten most of it over the years. About all I could read were the menus. When you're in a foreign place, you really get a sense of how frustrating it is not to be able to read or write.

And don't forget, if you'd like to purchase some of our photos but like to see them in a room in your home (this is a great service if you're renovating to see before and after pictures!), visit our friends at Design by Photo.

Ciao for now!

Welcome to Will It Look Good Over The Sofa's blog!

Welcome to Will It Look Good Over The Sofa’s first monthly blog! Since I’m a fine art photographer who loves home decor, I thought it would be a great idea to create a blog (and website) where the two could meet.

If you’ve just bought a new home and you’re looking for some affordable art for the walls, if you’re a mom looking for kid’s room art (like our great alphabet art collection), or you’ve got an office to decorate, then this is the blog for you.

Shop our website, too - www.WillItLookGoodOverTheSofa.com where you’ll find lots of framed art and unframed art. Our online photo gallery features great affordable fine art photos by a variety of photographers in styles from abstract to photojournalistic.

And a variety of subjects, too – if you love flower photography or photographs of Italy, they’re here! They’re all original high end digital prints (or giclee prints as we’ve learned from the French), and they’re all signed by the artists and are limited editions.

If you’d like to see what your photo would look like in a room in your home, visit our new friends at www.DesignbyPhoto.com. Of if you’re not sure about how to hang your photograph (most of us hang our art WAY too high!), check out some of our articles on the Will It Look Good Over The Sofa website. There’s a great one on hanging art. (Also some great ones on collecting art, art for kid’s rooms, etc.)

Our blog also features a “Photo Of The Month.” This month's photo is "Juliet's Balcony." Yes, it's that famous balcony in Verona, Italy. Romeo, Romeo, where art thou? Each month we will highlight one of our photographs and 5% of the profits will go to help a charitable organization. This month the proceeds will benefit the Trickle Up Program.

The Trickle Up Program helps the world’s poorest people take the first steps out of poverty by providing seed capital and business training so they can launch their own small businesses.

Since it’s close to Valentine’s Day and we’ve got red on our minds, think about painting a wall red or hanging some art with red in it. In a study recently cited in the New York Times, office workers who were selected for their abilities to focus on their jobs regardless of their surroundings thrived the most in red rooms! Subjects assigned to plain white rooms with no splash of color or Matisse’s on the walls, did the poorest. So invigorate yourself from the winter doldrums by putting some red in your life!