People's Photography, Dublin

I made my first visit to the People's Photography event held around the railings of St Stephen's Green in Dublin yesterday (28/08/11) with some of the members of City of Belfast Photographic Society. We were lucky enough to nab a triple pitch for the day and filled the available space with prints.

There were a huge number of exhibitors, ranging from other camera/photogrpahy clubs and societies, professional photographers charging big money (landscapes for 750 euro?) and interested amateurs.

I had (for once) given this some thought, particularly about what types of thing might sell to the public. I ended up picking out some of my "quirkier" shots and bought a large number of plain 7x5 frames from Ikea - that's them along the bottom of the railings.

We got a lot of interest from people - and funnily enough the quirky stuff was what sold. My best seller turned out to be my pictures of alphabetti spaghetti with rude words:

I also sold all three copies of a picture taken inside the Rusty Mackerel bar in Teelin, Donegal:

All in all a good day out and very encouraging in terms of making me think about selling more pictures. Main learning points for me were:
1. The quirkier the better 'cos quirky makes people stop, look and ultimately buy.
2. Small "pocket money" framed prints (7x5) and unframed 10x8's sell better than big, expensive prints no matter how good they are. Who's going to walk about and impulse buy a £300 -£700 picture?
3. Exhibtion/NIPA prints just will not sell
4. Getting up and talking to the punters sells stuff; besides which it's a lot more fun.