Big is beautiful
Savvy portrait photographers are bringing a little art gallery bling to the high street, reports Ian Farrell, making more than £1000 a pop from their supersized prints
© David MacDonald
Social photography has always been a trend-driven business, and there's a simple reason why. While commercial photographers may be paid by the day or for a specific job, high street photographers make their money by selling the end result, because the general public are a skeptical bunch and don't like parting with their money before they see the goods. Most will charge very little (or even nothing) for the studio session itself, making their profits afterwards through selling extravagantly framed and mounted prints of the customer's favourite images.
And this business model makes social photography trend-driven because the public are fickle, as well as skeptical. Their desire to have the latest photographic product in their homes - to keep up with the Joneses - is a key driver, and can be exploited by a talented salesperson. The products high street photographers offer these days are a far cry from the gold-framed canvases of the 1980s. High-quality prints in double mounts and bespoke handmade frames are what clients are demanding, along with images mounted on acrylic or metal. If canvas is required it's more likely to be a contemporary 'canvas block', with the image wrapped around the edges. And now there's a new trend, borrowed from the world of fine art - the large format print.
Mimicking the impressive 40 and 60 inch prints you might usually see in The Photographers' Gallery or the Michael Hoppen, cutting-edge high street photographers are now selling supersize images from portrait and wedding shoots, often mounted on materials such as perspex or acrylic. Their customers think these products are really something special, allowing these photographers to charge well over £1000 per print. With printing and mounting costs of a few hundred quid, that is a very healthy mark up - just what every business needs in economically tough times.
Who's who
What sort of person buys a portrait bigger than lifesize? 'There is a misconception that it's just wealthy clients with big houses that are buying these large prints, but that simply isn't the case,' says award-winning portrait photographer David MacDonald, who has had extraordinary success in integrating large-format prints into his business. 'We've certainly had a few very large orders from high-earning families, but ordinary customers are now buying 40 inch prints for their homes too.'
MacDonald first started selling such prints a couple of years ago. In 2009 he's seen 'about half-a-dozen 60 inch prints and dozens of 40 inch prints' go out of the door, but it was one job in particular that caught the attention of his peers. This summer a single order for two 60 inch prints, one 50 inch print, one 40 inch print, one 30 inch print and seven 15 inch prints earned him a whopping £10,845. Before this the company's record for the most money earned from a single session was £8000, again from an order comprising a number of large-format prints.
'I think that if people are going to put an image on the wall then they want to enjoy it from the other side of the room, and not have to get as close as you would if you were looking at an album or magazine,' MacDonald says. 'The client doesn't need a huge room in a mansion to do this, just a wall with nothing else on it. In the past I think (portrait photographers) have done themselves an injustice. People wanted a family portrait to go above the fireplace and we would sell them a 15 inch print in a frame, but this type of product looks lost, in my opinion. When people go into John Lewis or Habitat and buy a canvas block print they don't hesitate to buy a picture that's 40 inch square. I'm just taking the same approach with my portraiture.'
And, he adds, a particular type of image is selling well at this size - fashion-inspired photographs taken against simple high key backgrounds. 'We try to be more arty than most when shooting this kind of thing,' he says. 'I concentrate on lighting, expression and other traditional photographic values, but also present and crop the image in a more modern manner, borrowing from magazine portraiture and fashion photography.
'When it comes to selling and marketing, we have a projector-equipped viewing room that lets our customers look at their pictures large on the wall. There is a 60 inch finished print in there too so customers can see how the finished print is looks. It's a relaxed experience; I don't believe in the hard sell. The images and this way of presenting them usually do the job nicely themselves, and our client retention is very good.'
Print job
MacDonald uses Loxely Colour to produce his large-format prints, and has worked with the lab long enough to build up a useful relationship. 'Loxely is forever bringing out new products for the social market, and each one gives us another chance to sell,' he says. 'I've often been to them with ideas that I've had while walking around a gallery or home furnishings shop, and they've developed printing and presentation methods that I've been able to incorporate into my product line up.'
Loxely Colour's Chris Kay confirms his company's transformation from straightforward photographic lab to a manufacturer of bespoke presentation solutions. 'Big studios, like David MacDonald's, have always been very marketing focused and know how to sell a product,' he says. 'David has always felt that he can come to us and talk about what he wants by way of printing and presentation and ask "What can you do for me?" I'm very happy with that kind of working reltionship.'
In fact, Kay confirms that MacDonald has several bespoke products made exclusively for him. 'We print for David using the RA4 process, and mount the results on black acrylic with transparent acrylic over the top. Metal corners help the finished article stand off the wall - it looks absolutely great. David has always told us his philosophy is to "show big and sell big" and we have really bought into that. I think people will buy things that they are shown and that they really like. Even in a recession they will find a way if they like it enough. It's about what you can tantilise your customers with.'
Derek Poulson of Midlands-based One Vision agrees: 'Where large-format printing has traditionally been the territory of the commercial or industrial photographer, we are now also seeing more social images coming off our inkjet and Lightjet machines. We can run prints up to 10 feet long with this equipment.
'I think one of the secrets to selling prints of this size in a social photography business is to ask yourself where your clients are going to put them, and then try to produce something on the more arty side. A beautiful scenic image taken at a wedding is going to look great in its own right, so if the happy couple are in it as well then you have the perfect picture to sell big.'
Inspiration
This story of how supersized printing has helped a portrait photographer improve his turnover is inspirational, but the message isn't just that big is beautiful. There is a second lesson here the importance of networking and relationships in this trend-driven sector of the photographic industry. The last few years has seen professional photographic labs closing quicker than branches of Woolworths, but clued-up companies have survived by helping social photographers such as MacDonald develop new products for their business. In return, MacDonald (and others like him - Mark Cleghorn and Eileen Mason to name but two) has not been afraid to go to Loxely and be open with them about what his customers want. It's a symbiotic relationship that has helped both parties through the current recession and, no doubt, beyond.
ONLINE
In conjunction with the MPA, David MacDonald runs courses on shooting and selling large format prints and has recently produced a training DVD on the same topic, which BJP readers can buy at a discounted rate. Visit www.davidpmacdonald.com.
