Sold a piece last month off a photo of a broken drawer pull. The gallery photo of the whole thing got 41 likes and no email.
I don't fully understand this and I've stopped pretending I do.
The piece was a panel, 24x30, layers of wash and charcoal over a page from my brother's address book. Gallerist shot it clean, whole, good light, hung on white. 41 likes. Nothing else.
Then I snapped the back of the panel where the hanging wire had torn through the paper and I'd patched it with a strip of masking tape and a grocery receipt. Posted it sideways, no caption, bad light from the kitchen window. Two days later a woman in Portland emails asking if it's still available. She bought it. She said the tape was the part.
So now I'm sitting here wondering if I should be shooting the damage instead of the work, and I hate that, because it feels like turning the thing I care about into content. But also it's the first real sale in five months.
Has anyone else had this, where the piece of the piece outsells the piece.
Side note, my phone camera will not focus on anything smaller than a thumbnail and I've given up trying to fix it. Whatever the Portland photo was, it was an accident.
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
the taped back is the honest part and people can smell it. a clean gallery shot is basically a headshot, it tells you nothing about whether the person is real. the patched wire tells you the thing has been through something and you fixed it anyway. that's the whole sale, right there.
i do design work for rent and have watched the same thing happen with client work. the polished mockup gets polite nods. the messy process shot gets replies. it's not that people hate craft, they just don't trust a surface that hasn't admitted it's a surface.
the part that'd bug me is not knowing whether she'd have bought it if you'd posted the tape on purpose. kinda ruins the accidental part lol
ok the "a surface that hasn't admitted it's a surface" thing is going to live in my head rent free, that's exactly it. I've been posting WIPs for months and the ones where I show the wash I wrecked do way better than the finished thing, and I kept telling myself it was an algorithm thing but it's not, it's that people want to see the decision.
but honestly I half disagree on the last part? like yeah the grocery receipt is a bit of a performance now that we all know it sells, I've caught myself staging "messy" shots and it's gross when I notice. still, the tape was real when she made it, and I don't think that stops being true just because the internet learned to reward it. the timing of her knowing is the sad part, not the tape.
yeah the staging thing is the trap. I've done it. took four photos of a "casual" corner of the studio before I noticed I was arranging the chaos.
the tape was real when I made it and that's the only bit I can actually vouch for. doesn't make it less of a move once it's on the internet. both are true and I've stopped trying to resolve it. I just try to notice when I'm doing it. usually too late.
the headshot comparison is right and it's why i hate the white wall. a gallery shot is a job interview. the back of the panel is a person standing in their kitchen.
and yeah, that's the part that bugs me too, honestly. i don't know if she bought the tape or the story i'd tell about the tape. i've decided i don't get to know. the piece is hers now and she gets to have whatever version of it she wants.