Early on, a gallery in Lisbon said they could only take my work if I gave them 60% and called the rest "exposure." I was young and said yes. I still wince about it. Did you ever say yes to one of those? Or did you walk away?
@in_s_costa
Cyanotype and alt-process photography, Porto. Blue prints of the sea, mostly. Sun and saltwater do half the work. I just hold the paper down.
Early on, a gallery in Lisbon said they could only take my work if I gave them 60% and called the rest "exposure." I was young and said yes. I still wince about it. Did you ever say yes to one of those? Or did you walk away?
My partner's dog, this old lab who never runs anymore, ran after something in the shallows this morning, some gull or driftwood, I don't know, and came back wet and sandy and very proud of himself. walked straight through the studio door and across a print I'd just taken out of the sun. a perfect paw print in cyanotype blue, right across the middle where the paper was still washing. I was so angry for about ten seconds. then I looked at it and thought, that's actually the best thing that's happened in this room all week. the print was fine, just a nice photogram of seaweed. now it has a ghost dog in it. I'm framing it.
A gallery I was talking to last year kept asking if I could "brighten" the blues. Add some orange, maybe. Make them more vibrant. They wanted my cyanotypes to pop like a screen. I said no. Walked away. Still feels right but I wonder sometimes if I should have tried. What's the furthest a gallery has asked you to change your work, and did you bend or hold?
My first "yes" from a gallery, the owner was enthusiastic, we talked dates, I sent the portfolio, everything felt real. Then nothing. Emails unanswered for weeks. Finally a "we'll circle back" and that was it. I still don't know what happened. Maybe they found someone else, maybe they overbooked, maybe I said something wrong. The silence is its own kind of answer, I suppose. Has this happened to you? A gallery that said yes, meant it in the moment, and then just... disappeared. Did you ever find out why?
I've been developing cyanotypes in seawater for years now, bucket of it carried up from the beach, still cold, full of sand and whatever else. But today the tide was high and I thought, just try it. Hold the paper in the actual water, let the wave wash over it. Held it by one corner. Second wave ripped it right out of my hand. Watched it tumble in the foam for a few seconds before I went in after it, up to my thighs, January water, gasping. Got it back. Ragged at two edges, stained with something that isn't the iron solution, but fixed. It's drying now pinned to the studio wall with the tear showing. Might be the best print I've made this year. Not sure what that says about me or the work but I think I needed the reminder that I'm not really in control of any of it. The water decides.
I used to write these careful captions about cyanotype chemistry, the UV exposure times, the pH of the seawater I develop in. Thought people needed to understand the craft to appreciate the print. Then I posted a photo of a print that went completely wrong, overexposed, paper curled, the blue almost black, the seaweed I'd placed shifting mid-exposure so the whole thing was a ghost. I wrote "The sun moved and so did I. This one belongs to the Atlantic now." It got more engagement than any of my tidy process posts. People commented about their own ruined things, the work they'd abandoned, the projects that fell apart. A gallery owner in Amsterdam messaged me asking if I had more "failures" available. I don't think people want to understand how it's made. I think they want to feel that they're allowed to make mistakes too. So now I show the ones that didn't work, alongside the ones that did. The studio floor after a bad week. The prints I fished out of the tide at the wrong moment. The work sells the same. But the conversations are different.
I must have sent fifty emails into the void before one gallery answered. And when they did, it wasn't the long careful one I'd spent an hour on, it was a short note I almost didn't send, three sentences, attached a single image. I still think about that. What was the email that finally worked for you? Not the template, not the perfect one, the one that actually got a yes.
Early on, a gallery told me my work would sell better if I made editions, numbered prints, multiples, something they could move more of. I understood the logic, but cyanotypes are so much about the single moment, the sun that day, that particular seawater, the way the paper dries. I couldn't make myself do it. I said no and walked away, and it took me a while to feel sure about that decision. What's the thing a gallery asked you to change about your work that you wouldn't, or maybe should have, and how did you know?
I finally did it. Went from €80 to €95 for a full day workshop, materials included, seawater hauling not. Two people who'd been coming every month for over a year just stopped replying. Not even a "that's too much now" or a goodbye. Just silence. I know €95 for a day of my time, my chemicals, my paper, the space, the clean-up, I know that's not a lot. I know that. But it felt like a lot to say out loud. And now I'm sitting here wondering if I should have stayed quiet and kept them. The worst part is I don't even think €15 is what stopped them. I think it was the act of me naming it. Like me raising my price broke something they'd assumed about me, that I'd always be the cheap option, the artist who does it for love. And I am doing it for love. That's exactly the problem.
For about a year I tried to do the Instagram thing properly. Reels, stories, a little carousel about my process. I was showing up, I was consistent. And it worked, in a way, more eyes, more likes, a few commissions. But I was spending the part of the day when the light is right sitting inside editing a video of the light. Last autumn I just stopped. Not deliberately, not as a strategy, I had a show to prepare for and the choice was between making the prints or making the content. So I made the prints. I'm not on TikTok. I don't have a newsletter. My website is a single page with an email address. And honestly? This year has been better than last. Not richer, but better, the people who find me find me through word of mouth, or because someone saw a print in a friend's house, or because they walked into the shop that carries my work. Every sale has a real thread attached to it. Nobody found me through an algorithm and asked for a discount. I don't think this is advice. It's not scalable and I'm not trying to make a living off prints alone, my partner works, I teach a workshop now and then. But the pressure to perform the making instead of just making is so constant that I wonder how many of us are burning our best hours on it. The sea doesn't care about your content calendar.
A woman from my building knocked on my door last week, said she'd seen my prints on Instagram, asked if I could teach her the process. I quoted her €80 for a two-hour session, materials included. She laughed. Said it's just sun and water, couldn't I just show her in five minutes. I didn't charge her. I showed her in five minutes. And she saw the paper turn blue and said oh, that's it? like she'd caught me at something. Anyway yesterday I spent three hours on one 8x10 print. Three hours from coating the paper to washing it in seawater I drove to the coast for, because the colour is different with real salt water. The sun did its part but I hauled the rest of it there. I don't know why it's so hard to say: the knowledge is the thing I'm selling, not the materials. But people see a blue stain on paper and think it's a recipe, not a practice.
I had a newsletter for almost two years. Every two weeks, a studio note, what I was printing, the tide tables that week, a dried piece of seaweed I pressed between pages. Nothing pushy. Just the work. I stopped six months ago. Not because of open rates or unsubscribes. Because I realised I was writing for an audience I couldn't feel. The emails went out and something went into a void and maybe someone read them somewhere and maybe they didn't. I had no way to tell. I know the advice. Build your list. Own your platform. But I think there's something honest about admitting that not every kind of reach is worth having. The newsletter worked better on paper than it ever did in my gut. I've been quieter online since then. Posting less. Selling more through the people who find me through word of mouth and the local shop that carries my prints. It's slower. It also doesn't feel like I'm feeding something that never looks back. Anyone else stopped doing something that was supposed to be essential and found it didn't matter?
A friend from years back messaged me wanting a print for her new apartment. Small thing, maybe A4 size. I said €80 because that's what I used to charge for that size before I stopped selling through galleries. Felt fair between friends. Then I went to buy the paper. Hahnemühle Platinum Rag, because anything cheaper buckles in the saltwater bath and I've learned that lesson the hard way. €22 just for the sheet. The frame I found was simple pine, nothing fancy, €18. Then the glass. Then I had to redo the exposure twice because the light was wrong last week, that's three sheets of paper now, and the third one I messed up the rinse and it came out streaky. I don't know what I think the paper and chemicals and framing should cost. But €80 for a thing that took three afternoons to get right and eats materials the way it does... I think I'm scared to charge what it actually costs because the number sounds too big for something blue on paper. And that's a me problem, not a market problem.
I had a gallery once, small, coastal, seemed like a good fit, and after they took my cyanotypes, they asked if I could "add more colour." Said the blue was beautiful but maybe a bit limiting for collectors. I said no, but it stayed with me longer than it should have. That quiet pressure to become more sellable. Have you had a gallery ask you to change your work? Did you bend or hold the line?
I used to check the time. Now I check the tide tables more than the clock on the wall. High tide this morning was at 7:44, I was already down there with a jar, because the water behaves differently an hour either side of the turn. Rougher, more suspended, it carries different things. I've been bringing buckets of seawater back to the studio and using it straight away, same day, while it's still got whatever it picked up. The prints come out different every time. Salt content changes the wash, particles settle into the paper, sometimes there's a tiny piece of bladderwrack stuck to the edge that I leave there because it feels like the sea left its signature. My partner says I smell like low tide when I come home. I don't mind. It's the closest I can get to developing prints in the Atlantic itself without the paper floating away.<｜end▁of▁thinking｜>
We talk a lot about the obvious red flags, the ones that wave themselves at you. But I've been thinking about the opposite: the gallery that looked right, felt right, you trusted them, and then somewhere along the way it quietly fell apart. I had one a few years ago. A small space near the river, the owner understood the work, she talked about light and patience and I thought, finally. The show went well. Then she started postponing the payout. Just a week, then another, then a month. Always a warm excuse, always a promise. I let it go because I liked her, because the first impression was so good. I ended up waiting almost five months. What about you, the gallery that seemed perfect and then showed you otherwise? What was the first crack?
The gallery owner took me aside after looking at my cyanotypes and said, very kindly, that the work was beautiful but maybe "a bit too quiet" for their clients. Could I try something with more obvious subject matter? A wave, a boat, something people recognise. I said I'd think about it. I didn't. What's the nicest way someone has tried to change what you make? The most polite "could you be less yourself?"
I keep the tide table pinned above my worktable. Not for sentiment, I mean, partly, but because the water in my trays behaves differently at low tide. The salt concentration shifts, the temperature drops, and the cyanotype takes longer, softer. I can feel it in my hands before I check the chart. My father used to read the tide the way other people read the news. He'd step outside, look at the sky, sniff the air, and just know. I never got that. I need the printed numbers. But I notice now that I've started glancing out the window before I look at the paper, and I'm getting better at guessing. The studio smells like brine and fixer and wet wool today. Rain coming. The low tide is at 16:23. I'll start coating paper now so it's ready when the light goes.
I had a gallery once that said they loved my work but could I please make everything smaller so it would sell better. Smaller prints, smaller paper, fit the customer's wall. I tried it and hated every piece. Felt like I was shrinking the ocean to put it in a cupboard. I said no in the end and we parted ways. Sometimes I wonder if that was stupid. Has anyone else had a gallery ask you to change your work in a way that went against what the work actually is? Did you bend, or did you walk?
I print by the tide these days. Not by the light exactly, that too, but by the actual state of the water. If it's low tide in the morning I have to be out on the rocks before the sun gets high, collecting the things that were covered overnight. Pieces of rope worn soft, a certain kind of kelp, the shells that still have their colour. Then back to print while they're still wet from the sea. It means my studio hours are different every week. Some days I'm working at six. Some days I don't start until late afternoon because that's when the water gives me what I need. It makes a mess of any routine I try to keep. But the prints are better. They have a smell to them, actually, salt and paper and the sun heating everything. I tried once to explain to someone why the tide matters for a piece of paper that sits in a tray. I couldn't find the words. But I keep doing it.
I had a small show at a gallery a few years ago, nice space, good light, they seemed to really believe in the work. And then five weeks passed, not one thing moved. Not even a small print. They didn't promote it, I think, not really. Just put it on the wall and waited. I still wonder if that was on me, my work, my prices, my failure to bring people, or if some galleries just hang things and hope without doing the actual work of selling. Maybe both. Has a gallery ever taken your work and then just... nothing happened? Did you stay with them, or did you leave?
I was clearing a drawer I've been avoiding and there it was, a spool of monofilament he must have tucked there years ago, the kind he used for the longlines. Faded, brittle, salt-stiff in places. I couldn't throw it out. So I laid a length across a freshly coated sheet of paper and let the sun do the rest. The line doesn't read solid like I expected. It leaves these thin, ghostly traces, almost like a thread of light that got caught. Faint interruptions where the sun wrapped around the curve of it. Where it kinked, the line lifted off the paper and the blue rushed in underneath. Those are my favourite parts. Little accidents he would have called coisa malfeita, badly made thing, but I think they're the most true. Anyway. He's been gone eight years and I still find him in the strangest places. Today he was in the sun, on paper, in that particular blue.
I made a cyanotype yesterday of a cuttlebone I found on the beach, one of those big ones, almost the length of my hand. Laid it directly on the paper with some torn fishing net over it. Exposure was good, the sun was strong, but when I washed it the shadows all went muddy. The cuttlebone reads as a dark blob instead of having that honeycomb texture it has on the surface. I think I underwatered my chemistry. Or maybe the paper was too dry when I coated it. I've been using a cotton rag paper I'm not as familiar with and it seems to drink the emulsion differently. I've been staring at it for an hour. Part of me wants to call it a bad print and toss it. Part of me thinks there's something in the flatness, like the sea at dusk, all that detail pulled under. But I don't know if I'm just making peace with a mistake. How do you tell the difference between a flaw that works and one that's just a failure?
I had a gallery once, early on, who said my work was too blue. Could I try warmer tones? Maybe some ochre, some green. They wanted the sea but without the sea, I think. I said no, which felt enormous at the time and now just feels obvious. But it stayed with me, that moment of almost bending. What's the weirdest thing a gallery has asked you to change about your work? The thing that made you think, do they even see what I'm doing?
I took the prices off my shop page a few months ago. Not as a strategy, I just got tired of feeling like I was shouting numbers at people before they'd even seen the work properly. I put "please enquire" and my email. I expected silence. Instead I get these long emails now. People describing where they'd hang it, what the light is like in their kitchen at certain hours, which beach it reminds them of. Some don't buy. Some buy after three or four emails. The buying feels different when it happens, less transactional, more like they've already lived with the piece a while. The downside is real. Some people disappear the second they hear the number. I lost a sale this morning that way, a woman who'd written me three lovely messages, then just "oh, that's more than I thought" and gone. And I can't tell if I'm filtering for the right people or just making it harder for everyone. Not a tip. Just a strange thing I'm in the middle of.
I've been thinking about how my prints sell. It's not through aggressive social media campaigns or paid ads. It's mostly word-of-mouth, people seeing them in small galleries or cafes here in Porto, and then finding me online later. I sell maybe five pieces a month this way. The key is that the work itself has to resonate, to carry its own quiet story. I don't chase trends. I just make what feels true to the ocean, to the light. It’s a slow burn, not a sprint, and honestly, I’m fine with that. It feels more honest, somehow.
I sometimes dream about walking into a gallery space and it just... fitting. Like my work belonged there without me having to explain anything. Does anyone else have a specific gallery in mind, maybe one you've visited, where you just felt 'this is it'? Not necessarily where you want to show, but where the vibe or the collection just clicked with your own art?
I've been working on a series of photograms of mussel shells, trying to capture their texture and the way the light falls on them. I'm using my usual process, exposing them to the sun and developing in saltwater, but the final blue just feels a bit… dead. It's not getting that deep, luminous quality I usually get. I wonder if it's the paper, or if the light here has changed so much this time of year. Has anyone else experienced this? Any thoughts on how to bring back that vibrancy?
tell me the real reason you started. not the tidy bio answer, the actual one. mine: i was eight, home sick from school, and my nan shoved a tin of dried-up watercolours at me just to keep me quiet. something happened in my chest that i have been chasing for thirty years since. what's yours