Farktography Prints for Fun and Profit

[ennuipoet]

So with the talk floating about the 4 Million Dollar Gursky and the Farktography Book in Publishing Limbo (most definitely NOT a criticism toward Kestrana who worked so hard putting it together, but toward the publishing world in general) I thought I would start a conversation on offering prints to Farktographers/Farkers/Family who might be interested in purchasing an original Ennuipoet (you should sub your name here) to hang on their wall.

I offer these topics for general discussion and comment:
1: Is this something we are even interested in?
2: If there is interest, is it something we would to run as a theme/contest as was done here:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/11/1st-round-semifinalists.html

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/11/which-pictures-do-you-like-best-vote.html

3: Would each individual like control of their prints or would they want to turn it over to a volunteer to handle the technical details of printing.
4: Money, this is a BIG one! How much, how is it handled, who is handling it. This is the largest quandary to be worked out I think.
5: Professional printing or done by those of us who own pro level printers. (For example I have a Canon Pro 9000 that prints lovely prints up to 13×19)
6: And many more!

To sum up, we’ve all had people in threads and one another say things like “I would buy that” but there has been no mechanism for actually doing aside from those of us who have accounts set up for it.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/fvpncy

Winter….er…Christmas is coming and the gift of photography is a gift that last from 3 to 100 years depending on the paper and ink you print with!

😀
Thoughts?

[Yugoboy]

I like the idea, but I wonder…

If we’re in this more for the fun than the profits, why not set up a separate thread/forum specifically for this purpose? Let’s say I see a shot of staplermofo‘s that I think “That would be a PERFECT gift for my _________!” That forum would be the clearing house.

I started to toss out a suggestion for how it would work, but that became confusing and tedious.

My point is that unlike a deck of cards (from the Misfit site) a photo purchase for the wall is a bit more personal, and just because one won a contest doesn’t mean it would be bought.

What about a calendar? Slightly less “personal” and permanent, allows for more finalists, and we can do it annually.

Or I’m talking out of my ass…

[Kestrana]

I’d actually had a thought about this once or twice especially with working on the Farktography book. I’d thought about asking Drew if there was a way to incorporate the Top 10 into the Fark store or something after each contest, for a limited time, but that ran into legal snafus where people would have to provide the rights to print the photos etc etc.

Then I thought about creating a separate photo site where each Farktographer could upload whatever files they wanted to make publicly available for purchase, a sort of Farktography redbubble or DevianArt. But then I got hung up on whether or not there should be criteria for who gets to upload what photo because I felt that there should be some sort of quality control to the collection but we also have some very printable entries that don’t make the top ten (like the top 20 usually) but it varies wildly by contest.

Lastly I didn’t suggest it because I was overwhelmed with stuff at the time and I knew I would want to be involved in the process and potentially running any Farktography business venture we created. But that’s changed, I suddenly have tons of free time (more on that in a thread I’m going to post shortly).

tl;dr: Yes I’d participate in selling Farktographs but I’m not sure what suggestions/details I’d make. And I still want to buy that print I wanted ennuipoet I just need to have my own wall to hang it on first.

[fluffybunny]

Would the DeviantArt model work here?

Kes described a possible need for vetting to achieve quality control. I would argue that it appears Farktography already supplies the engine for this. The voting process has been cited in numerous theme interpretation threads as the ultimate answer to “is what I want to do ok?”. Have the main Fark contest page display a button next to the vote check box for “buy print”, agree on a price (or scheme) among Farktographers, and voila.

The bigger question to me is “Will money ruin what I like about Farktography?”, this I have not thought out yet.

[ennuipoet]

The money issue is tricky, while one of us might be willing to sell a print at cost or for a small mark-up, others might feel differently. I was thinking a one off print sale where all the prints go for a set price with a limited run. Participants decide what prints they would like to offer and a base price is set to cover printing cost, shipping and then marked up so the Farktographer makes a little beer/coffee/cat food purchase from their photo.

I can see there might be ill will if (and I use myself here as an example) if I sold thirty prints and the other participants sold one or none. I think Yugoboy‘s idea of a separate forum site where individuals could offer their work and keep the details of cost or sales private to avoid ill will has some real merit. The Redbubble, Deviantart idea is also nice if we had individual accounts where pricing and profits come under the direct control of the individual rather than the group as a community account has a lot of trust places on a few people to handle the money.

This is trickier than I originally thought.

ETA: Yugo, the calendar is actually a great idea! Along the lines of the cards from the squirrels! We could have a theme where the top 12 vote getters were featured for that year’s Farktography Calendar. Maybe even a Anonymous Farktography Theme where the names we all use aren’t associated just the photos submitted all entered by a Modmin in separate entries and voting enabled. Kind of like a Headline of the Year contest.

[fluffybunny]

ennui, I had not thought of the “number of prints sold” might cause heart ache aspect. Hmmm,… would not even the “private” money details essentially be public for anyone who wanted to find them?

[orionid]

I’m not terribly in favor of this idea, I think farktography would go downhill if money became an issue. We’d surely see an influx, some quality, some not so much, and probably too much off topic to keep the modmins job from exploding. Can you imagine how many “oh, sorry, I didn’t know HDR wasn’t allowed” we’d see each week?

But.

Yous guys gave me an idea. Now I’mma let you finnish, but I just wanna go post this in the holiday thread.

[fluffybunny]

Kinda leaning the way of Orion on this, I’m happy with Farktography as is, I wouldn’t get rich off it even if I was a consistent top ender like Uman. Have not done the research but I image there are lots of internet places to publish for money. Gotta wonder also if Orion’s comments about a being on the “inside” of a scene (from D?sseldorfian thread) wouldn’t start to become an issue.

[gambitsgirl]

there’s a holiday thread? I have so much to learn and find

(ps – even with a “professional site” I give all my photos away. just can fathom anyone would want to pay money for them)

[ennuipoet]

I am swayed to the negative as well, though I in no way intended this to be a continuous money thing. I envisioned a way for people to offer their work to be printed without going through the hassle of setting up accounts someplace but I cannot imagine a way to do that without turning it into much bigger deal than our friendly corner of the Interwebs should be about.

[Kestrana]

If we did want to do a “Top Farktography Picture of the Year” contest (which is kind of what the Anniversary theme is just not at calendar end) I could see soliciting the Top 12 and doing a calendar.

But if we did that, I think the money made should either directly cover costs, go to funding Farktography in some way (maybe paying Zeke, schnee and CISS a stipend to defray hosting costs) or donate to an organization. Or throw a Farktography party. Overall, Farktography is about getting our work out there rather than making money and it’s probably best to leave that to the individual while keeping this a place of growth and ideas.

Another option if it’s possible would be to invite people to make like a DevianArt account and somehow link all our accounts together in a group. I wouldn’t advertise the group in the boobies but it could have advertisement here and if someone asks about a print, encourage the poster to post there if they haven’t already and direct the asker there. I don’t know much about DevianArt or other sites. When aspidites is back he probably knows more about the online market than most of us too.

[CauseISaidSo]

But if we did that, I think the money made should either directly cover costs, go to funding Farktography in some way (maybe paying Zeke, schnee and CISS a stipend to defray hosting costs) or donate to an organization.

While I greatly appreciate the sentiment, I’m not sure there would be a fair way to do that since I also host other websites under the same account so it’s really not much of an additional expense at all. Plus, I think I’d feel pressure going “pro” to make more timely updates and feature additions, which in the end wouldn’t help accomplish anything other than making it less fun. Now, a Farktography party would definitely be something I could get behind (assuming it’s something we could get a large turnout for).

Keeping in mind how long it might be before it’s actually implemented, I could add something like a profile page to Bibliostats whereby everyone could link to their galleries to sell prints if desired. That way, those who want to sell would have a somewhat indirect link from Farktography to their sales without putting sales at the foreground of Farktography.

[linguine]

Maybe someone whos used smugmug or one of those sites could answer this, but would it be possible to set something up on one of those sites where each person makes their own account and then can share pictures in a farktography pool(kinda like a flickr group) that could be advertised. To keep it reasonable we might want to do something like limit it so each person can only have 5 or 10 photos in the pool at any given time and limit it to people who have competed in 10 contests and are active farktographers(all these numbers are just examples). If something like this is possible it would keep the money/sales part of it separate rather than public while still advertising everyones pictures together. It would probably be best if pictures could be displayed in a random order if possible as well. And for any of this we would probably need to get drews permission to advertise it in the contests.

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