A brief update, partly arising from my last post. The first buyer of a print of Tree trunks I, which I was writing about in that, is an academic in the USA. So it turns out that the canvas she bought is hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago.
OK it's actually hanging in her office in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago - but that's still a good place to be. She e-mailed me a photo of it there, and wrote: "... your work is officially on exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago! And I've gotten lots of compliments."
I'm really pleased that she's pleased. This was sold through my Fine Art America portfolio, by the way.
Separately, I was also sent a mobile phone picture message of another photo of mine hanging on someone's living room wall. She'd been given it as a birthday present and thought it was "lovely". It was an 18in x 12in canvas of this Scottish landscape sold through Photo4me.
I rather like this! Sometimes I get to deal with customers personally. This happened recently for example with a chap in Minnesota, who'd come across a sunset photo on my own website which (by chance) featured a spit of land on which he had owned a lakeside cabin for 10 years.
He had bought a royalty free download - but in a size that was far too small to print it, which is what he was trying to do. Incidentally I think that although the numbers are clear on the digital download page, I may need to spell out what they mean for folk who are not familiar with the notion of uncompressed file sizes or the implications of photo resolutions.
Anonymous
Anyway it all ended well. I refunded his money and worked with him on what he was looking for, which led to his purchasing a canvas through my FAA site.
While it can involve more work, liaising with a customer about precisely what they want is rewarding.
But more often I have no idea even who has bought a picture online. I had a tantalising example of this recently when I made some black and white photos of landmarks in and around the City of London.
This is an ongoing project which includes some colour work - and a number of panoramas; it's hard to display those wider images adequately online, but that's maybe a subject to come back to another day.
I took the shots on a Wednesday, processed them over the next two days and uploaded them to my various outlets on the Friday. By Sunday, only one person had looked at this image of the Heron Tower (right) on my FAA portfolio. And whoever it was bought a 28in x 48in canvas of it!
That's what I call a result - but all I know is that they live in Essex, England. It would be great to know what they liked about it and where it is hanging, all eight square feet of it.
So keep those feedback messages coming please: www.garyeasonphotography.com/contact.
Urgh: I have a streaming cold ....
