Finding original ways to make cash from your photography.

When I started looking to make money from my photography, I looked for an original way to present it.

I had been to many a photography exhibition, trawled craft fairs and country shows, and saw the usual formats it was presented in: mounts, frames, canvas, and cards.

There is a plethora of photographers out there, and many of them are super talented. It is an incredibly competitive field. But then, most art is competitive. Don’t let that put you off.

As much as I loved seeing all of the beautiful images, it kept nagging at me that I wanted to do something different. I never take the easy route with anything!

Then one day, I was at a craft show with my mounts and cards, and a friend came over to me and said, “Look at this.” He handed me a print mounted on a wood block. The image was nice enough, but the craftsmanship, quite frankly, wasn’t that great. I am not ashamed to say I stole the idea and researched and experimented until I produced something far better.

Lucky for me, I knew someone who worked at a timber factory where they used quality beech wood and hard pine. I worked out the sizes, had them cut, mounted my prints onto the wood, finished them with a water-resistant varnish, fitted picture rings on the back of them, and hey presto, I had a beautiful quality product. More importantly, I had something no other photographer was doing (well, to the best of my knowledge).

When I presented them at a craft fair, the general public absolutely loved them. An envious photographer at the same fair told me they would be nothing but a fad. I ignored him. Ten years later, I was still selling them at fairs and shows, in gift shops and online. They weren’t going to make me rich, and I still sold mounts and cards, but they gave me an original edge over other photographers.

People like mystery.

Whatever you make, the public and other traders are always trying to find out how you made it. There is nothing wrong with that, but I kept my secrets, remembering that I stole the original idea from another trader. It amused me to hear people’s guesses at how I made them. I knew that if I let the cat out of the bag, someone might try to steal the idea from me. They would have struggled to find such a good supplier and finisher of the wood at the price I was lucky enough to get. But still, I was happy to keep my methods to myself.

Dare to be different.

After a few years of selling the images mounted on rectangular and square wood blocks, I wondered if it would be possible to do the same thing with circular blocks. My supplier was easily able to produce them. I went to see a framer I knew to see what he thought of the idea. He told me that circles wouldn’t catch on. That it would remind people of the old fashioned idea of hanging plates on walls.

I ignored his opinion and went ahead and produced them anyway. People loved the circles even more than the rectangles and squares. No one associated them with what people used to hang on their walls.

It’s always good to get someone else’s opinion, but that is all it is: an opinion. Follow your instincts.

You might be right, you might be wrong, but dare to be different (as we say here in Norfolk). Who said you have to follow the crowd?

Moving on to something new

Then my circumstances changed and I moved from a house with space to create the blocks to an apartment where it simply isn’t practical, and I felt it was time to do something different again.

Never be afraid to try new things. Be creative, have fun, explore what works for you.

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