Have not sold one photograph, need help!

maybe try with black and white more?

Try to get pics on display somewhere. My ex was a portrait photographer and sold a ton of prints... all of them were on display at a local coffee shop and were purchased through there. He'd go in once a week and collect the money and give them more to replace the ones sold. Never sold a single print online.

One downside to this- it's hard to find someone willing to do this. In my ex's case, he knew the manager. But a few months into it another manager had a friend who was an artist and they wanted their friend's work on display instead. So down came the ex's and up went the new persons and he never got back in there because the owner stepped in and said "no more".

PeaceFire wrote in post #12995350
Try to get pics on display somewhere. My ex was a portrait photographer and sold a ton of prints... all of them were on display at a local coffee shop and were purchased through there. He'd go in once a week and collect the money and give them more to replace the ones sold. Never sold a single print online.

One downside to this- it's hard to find someone willing to do this. In my ex's case, he knew the manager. But a few months into it another manager had a friend who was an artist and they wanted their friend's work on display instead. So down came the ex's and up went the new persons and he never got back in there because the owner stepped in and said "no more".

One thing Truckee, CA has are coffee and tourist shops! I will give it a try and give the vendors a percent of the sale. Thank you for taking time to help!

Tahoe has a great tourism market... Packaging might be an issue for those traveling with your framed art work... I switched my framed work w glass, to Plexiglas for all my store site locations... It's easier to take along than fragile glass... Take your work around the lake... There are some stores that might make room on consignment ... Just make certain you get a written agreement for payment of sold ones, and a receipt for any art work left with merchants ... Your problem with site acquisition will be to actually speak to a decision maker, like an owner... Tahoe has huge turn over... Rt. 50 at South Shore was awesome for me... but that was 30 yrs. ago ... You would have to go around the lake weekly to monitor and replenish ... Restaurant's if you're good enough... The cost of framing, mounting, matting, for restaurants might break you, if they don't sell... It cost's a lot to present your art work and be able to sell it affordable to the public...

I just moved out of Tahoe after spending two years there, and I can say don't waste your time with the coffee shops. All the locals have no money to spend on prints. There are a few fine art places that might be a better bet, but will be harder to get into.

Or I just suck - I don't know - I never sold a single print after hanging work in various galleries over the course of 2 years. At least my house is well decorated now.

your website doesn't speak "hey here are some awesome nature pictures. you should buy some and make your wall awesome!" Instead it say "hey here some nature pictures. thanks for looking." with a tiny ass buy button many clicks later.

yep.

sierrarisse wrote in post #12995238
I am color blind to greens, reds, blues and purple so I avoid photoshop. Without a doubt, I will mess it up thinking it looks better! I will look into vividness, as long as it does not change the color i should be able to do something with this. Thank you for the advice.

I'm sorry to put it so bluntly but if you're colorblind, how can you expect to make a living, or even a dollar from colour photography? It's VERY rare for someone to take a print that wouldn't benefit from some post production, and true to that, I see that everything on your site could use some as well. If you can't see the photos you're taking properly, I'm not sure how you are able to tell which ones are your good ones. In my opinion you have 3 options: Switch to B&W only, hire someone to do your post production, or find something else to do that doesn't require colour. Again, I'm not trying to be rude, but that's really what it comes down to. No one's going to buy your photos because they're the best you can do due to this imparement, they'll just look for someone who can see everything.

"Taygull", who used to post a lot of photos in the Performing Arts section of this forum, is color blind... He is a sucessful photographer and photo manager of a sizeable and very reputable publication in Dallas, TX... His work is excellent and he manages to cope with the situation.

I personally spend a lot of time post processing... I shoot only in RAW, and am very particular as to what I choose to post process... Out of over 70,000 DSLR digital snaps, I chose to only feature around 4,300 on my web site so far... It used to be a rule of thumb for me to score 3 or four good ones out of a roll of film (24 negatives)...

I hate to see one bad apple in the bunch as it spoils the entire lot...

ThatJamesGuy wrote in post #12995775
I'm sorry to put it so bluntly but if you're colorblind, how can you expect to make a living, or even a dollar from colour photography? It's VERY rare for someone to take a print that wouldn't benefit from some post production, and true to that, I see that everything on your site could use some as well. If you can't see the photos you're taking properly, I'm not sure how you are able to tell which ones are your good ones. In my opinion you have 3 options: Switch to B&W only, hire someone to do your post production, or find something else to do that doesn't require colour. Again, I'm not trying to be rude, but that's really what it comes down to. No one's going to buy your photos because they're the best you can do due to this imparement, they'll just look for someone who can see everything.

mikekelley wrote in post #12995546
I just moved out of Tahoe after spending two years there, and I can say don't waste your time with the coffee shops. All the locals have no money to spend on prints. There are a few fine art places that might be a better bet, but will be harder to get into.

Or I just suck - I don't know - I never sold a single print after hanging work in various galleries over the course of 2 years. At least my house is well decorated now.

We probably worked in the same industry Mike... I worked at the Playboy Resort Club (Lake Geneva, WI) in TS sales back in 1976... Tahoe too...

I was in LA for a while too...

Selling photos at the street level in stores, is OK by me on a local level... Cause I live in a real small town, and it's the only thing for me to do around here... It's more of a hobby than a profession ... If I was in the big cities, like in my "Resort Marketing" yrs. I'd try some sort of mass marketing, or trade shows... The Sacramento State Fair is more than three weeks, and has millions of people go through the place over the course of the event... The commercial exhibit hall is packed with nice booths, and wall to wall people through out the entire time... If you have the initial cash to get a booth there, it might work... The huge county fairs in California are awesome too... Three week events, and millions of people... I've only seen similar attendance numbers in Texas... Here in the northeast, the county fair grounds aren't as big at all... and it's difficult to explain it unless you've been there and experienced the crowds...

I just remembered there is a color profile setting for colorblind people in photoshop cs5, you could try that.

ThatJamesGuy wrote in post #12996025
I just remembered there is a color profile setting for colorblind people in photoshop cs5, you could try that.

Good one... That's probably what my friend uses... He is into those monitor calibrators, and the like...

You need to add this line somewhere inside the

<head><head/>

<meta name="keywords" content="[B][U]some keywords go here, for example[/U][/B], landscape, nature, prints " />

I have to agree with the comments about needing more work in post. Many shots need differential exposure, your landscapes are often too dark in places where they could do with being brighter. Examples in reflections for instance show nicely exposed reflections on the water, but the hills and trees behind are dark and need to be brightened.

Post production is a necessary part of optimizing an image. Even greats like Ansel Adams never used a shot straight out of the camera, but spent long sessions creating the final print with much dodging and burning, amongst over things.

I also agree that your site isn't going to sell much either, as it stands. It isn't clearly obvious that the prints are for sale and you don't seem to have much visitor traffic (the counter on reflections showed <80 visitors and some of those are possibly people on this thread) so very few people will actually even know they can buy from you.

On the plus side, you have some nice work, composition wise, so with learning better post work you already have images to use and improve to saleable standard. Your work is good, but people see hundreds / thousands of "good" landscapes for sale, they buy the ones that make them go "wow" and that needs some careful post work.

Coffee shops, tourist sites etc., in the location where the photos were taken, are a good bet for sales as people want a keepsake of what they have seen (also consider a selection of postcards) and you need less of the wow factor. You may face competition from other photographers work though, so you still need to produce the best print you can.

It has been said many times that marketing skills are more important than photographic ones, if you are going to make money.

Good luck though and I hope you get your sales started soon.

I should have added a comment similar to the above. Check out successful bird photographer Arthur Morris's work. He heavily modifies his images and sells them as art rather than pure photos. In his seminars and classes he will remove inconvenient items, add stuff that will make the image more complete or picturesque.

The man makes a living.

If you're color blind, you should not do color photography even if you have any skill.