Make Better Art Submissions This Year
It’s Submissions Season!
It’s the time of year when all artists scour the internet looking for shows, markets and gallery shows to submit to.
Armed with hope and an awesome portfolio, we look for the places we will show and sell our work this year. We make lists of art markets, studio tours and art shows. We fill out the submission forms, carefully choose our work and…………wait.
So many questions. What work are they looking for? Will this market be a good one for sales? Will this art show look good on my CV? Should I apply to this arts organization? Who is on the jury?
Will this be the show/market/art club that will launch my career and rocket me to art stardom?
Well, my friends- it all begins with the ART.
Choose the venues that you will make applications to. Think about reputation, location, type of art, how much marketing they do, their audience and venue.
Read through the application and make a list of requirements. Go back to what you teachers in high school told you about taking exams:
Answer the question they ask- not what you *think* they ask. Read the questions and specifications carefully.
Follow all instructions to the letter. Incomplete or inaccurate submissions are the first to go to the bin- don’t let it be yours.
Once all of the details have been attended to, it comes down to your photos.
There may be a pre-selection by a committee to weed out inaccurate, incomplete or unsuitable submissions. A jury is then presented with a digital file of the remaining images with their dimensions, medium and title.
What will they see first?
Your photos.
You want your photos to be professional in presentation and to accurately represent your work.
When it comes to photographing your art, accurate is more important than pretty,. The colours must be accurate, the image must be cropped to the edges of the artwork and it must show your work at its best.
There are two ways to get professional, beautiful and accurate photos of your art.
1. Have a professional ART photographer take photos of your work. They must be experienced in photographing artwork, not just portraits and such. Photographing artwork takes a few special techniques and knowledge.
This means transporting your work to the photographer’s studio, which may be nearby, or not. You also have to make a return trip to pick it up.
Cost: Established photographers charge $100 and up to photograph one artwork. Some charge less, some more, depending on their level of experience and their location. They will take photos, edit them and give you all the file formats and sizes you need for various purposes like submissions, website and socials, print (magazines and newspaper) and prints of your work or merchandise.
2. Acquire the equipment and expertise to take your own photos. You are just as capable of taking great photos of your art as the professional photographer… really! There is a range of investment when it comes to equipment. You can use what you already have (your smartphone and a couple of free apps) to purchasing lights and a DSLR camera. Both will take great photos of your art.
How do I learn this, you ask?
The Confident Artist’s Guide To Photographing Your Art is a comprehensive, easy to follow guide to photographing your art indoors or outdoors, with a smartphone or with a DSLR camera.
From setting up the photo shoot to editing to the file types and sizes to use for various purposes, you will be clearly guided through each step. You will be photographing and submitting your work with confidence in no time!
Save time and money while retaining complete control over your images. I take you step by step through each process, with cheat sheets to have with you during photo shoots to recommendations for equipment to buy. There are options for very inexpensive setups outdoors in natural light to more comprehensive setups indoors with studio lights. Both can make for great photos- the choice is yours.
The aim of photographing your art is to get an accurate representation of your art from the time you press the shutter. Once you get the lighting correct, there are only a few variables when taking a photo. Minimal editing should be required.
Why can’t I rely on my editing software to do everything?
At the level that most people use them, editing software does global edits to the entire image. The more you edit, the farther you stray from the original photo and the more knowledge and expensive software you need to do it well. Ideally, only cropping and very minor overall adjustments should be required.
For the price of a few professional photos, I can have you taking your own professional quality photos on your first photo shoot.
Imagine the advantage of having pro quality photos of ALL of your work, not just a few that are destined for prints, or a really big show. Show all of your work at its best on your website, on socials and in catalogues, or use then for printed merchandise like cards, business cards, postcards or other merch. Give yourself the freedom to use anything your produce for small prints and merchandise, or to have great images on your website and socials to sell it.
Nothing sells art like a great photo.
Great photos are essential to getting your art in front of collectors and soon to be collectors.
Learn more about The Confident Artist’s Guide to Photographing Your Art and find out how it can level up your art business today!
Get 5 Keys to Successful Art Submissions for more detail on making submissions.