Collecting

There are many types of collecting, some require very large amounts of wealth and involve items that have to be permanently locked away, while art collecting can be enjoyable, and is open to everyone.

Collecting art can just be for the enjoyment of it or can be a very profitable interest. It can also provide a way to enrich lives and add variety to our homes or offices without having to constantly call back in the decorators.

While there may be some fashions in relation to what we might politely call arty art, the type that you have to ask the artist which way up it should be hung, generally images that are respected and enjoyed by the current generation will be enjoyed by later ones.

If you collect originals as opposed to limited editions, you are likely to see a sudden appreciation in their value when the artist dies, this is because the volume of his or her work is then caped. No more will be produced. For this reason some like to collect work by elderly artists, while some on the other hand like to discover young artists, and collect their work hoping that perhaps they will later become sought after. As being included in various select collections can increase the status and therefore how sought after an artist is by the crowd. Some will just buy what they like, while others will turn it into a pseudo science, analysing acquisitions by various collections, exhibitions, trends and more.

For the majority of people however the perceived hanging value is of most importance, after all few want to collect works that they would not want to give wall space to, or dislike, and this is often a good guide. When art discovered in country houses, or similar, comes up in auctions from unknown artist, the difference in the price raised is just about completely accounted for by the perceived hanging value, by those present.

You can in many cases buy an original by an unknown or lesser artist, for a around the same price as a limited edition by an artist that produces work that has perhaps more perceived hanging value. Both may present collecting opportunities and both may increase in value. Both images if properly mounted and framed should have a good life expectancy, and be around longer than most of us.  The difference is often that for the original to increase in value the artist needs to become better known or die, while the limited edition will increase in value by design, either as a part of the process or when the edition runs out. Artists who produce limited editions develop a following, and this in turn makes their work more visible and sought after, creating a market for their work when it comes up.

Photography as an art medium, does not have the length of history of many other forms, but is now becoming more common. More and more people are getting to understand that creating the ideal photograph for a limited edition involves as much, if not more, than any other art form.

As an artist and photographer perhaps I can explain the similarities and differences, as an artist I could go to a location, sketch and make notes, and return to my studio to create the image that I desire, using and rearranging the parts as I feel fit, as other artists have over time. As a photographer, I can go to the location and conceptually just take a photograph, but it is never that simple, in that I have to be at the right place at the right time, and may have a whole range of problems to overcome, from people in the shot, to weather, the season being wrong, to not just being able to get in the ideal place or obstacles in the way. In many ways it is far simpler to create the image with a paintbrush that I would like to see, than to capture it with a camera. From a technical viewpoint as an artist I now the value of light in the scene, and likewise as a photographer, light is a key ingredient and using multiple flash equipment, like a film director, I can light a scene,  I am photographing to improve the image.

As a photographic artist capturing the image is only the first part of the process, the image can be further improved by editing and the way it is presented. Both being an artist and a photographer requires some serious investment in equipment, the tools of the trade, and a considerable amount of practice, with improving results in line with experience and experiments undertaken.

Many view a painting as good if it has photographic qualities, looks real and shows something that you feel is real. Of course an artistic photograph can meet the same objectives and has the appeal often to a wider range of people.

Today when we see some spectacular wildlife film on the TV, we appreciate the skills of the wildlife cameraman, and recognise that a large amount of time and expense, as well as skill went into capturing the few minutes of resulting film. Similarly the photographic artist has to be able to get at least to the same standard in order to produce limited edition works. The image has to be sharper and often far closer than in a film, and using the larger sensor, telephoto lens of a relative shorter length and a more restricted depth of field needs to be used.

As I am an artist who takes very many days to paint a picture, there is little difference in time between getting that special limited edition photograph and producing a painting that I would be happy to display. So far I have chosen not to produce any of my paintings as limited edition prints, as even with the best, I am never quite as happy with them as the ideal photo.

My other major interest is in training photographers to use top end equipment, this may be beginners, people with experience or professionals and about a third of these people travel in from outside the UK specifically to get the training with me. I also teach these people to edit photographs to get the most from them. This also has meant that I have access to the very best equipment, and have spent a budget on getting just the right equipment that few are able to justify.  With many years experience as a photographer, there is technically  just about no task that I cannot handle efficiently, however having said this, there are still only a very small percentage of my photographs that I consider to have the artistic merit to become limited edition prints.

Let me take an example, a steam train in the countryside. We have a timetable so we know when it is to run, but it is only photogenic when going in one direction. By visiting the line and selecting a location, we can work out when the light is likely to be about right. So perhaps the train may run in the right direction 4 times in a day, but only one of these is likely to be at the right time for the light. Given the extreme contrast between the shadows in a dark coloured train in amongst trees and the steam in a bright sky, we are likely to need to use sliding graduated filters to correct the exposure, we can work out the speed, depth of field, focus and the rest of the technical stuff and get the colour balance right. So you may think its just a case of a competent photographer turning up and taking the photograph, and yes this might be the case for a normal photo, but to become good enough to become limited edition we have a whole range of other variables completely outside our control. The sun may not shine, or it may be just too bright, The engine driver may throttle back and therefore there may not be anything coming out the top of the train, or the wind may be in the wrong direction or two strong and disrupt the flow, people may come into view or a variety of other problems develop. After a number of visits and once I get what I think is a good image it still has to work out in editing, prove to be sharp enough to blow up to a large size and otherwise pass the stringent quality control test we use. You can see from this that this is a completely different project to just turning up for a day photographing a railway and selecting an acceptable shot, as you might to go with a magazine article.

Wildlife are of course one of the most challenging areas, in that you have to get very near to a creature that will make off if it spots you, you want it to act naturally, but look in your direction, to be lit well and in focus, and at the same time be a photograph that you would like to put on a wall, and enjoy for some time. Take the green woodpecker for example a shy bird that will squawk and fly away at the first sight of you. Many people struggle to get a single decent photo anywhere close, and while I have probably now over 400 close up images of green woodpeckers, from every angle, and even some feeding young or with young, I have yet to select one that I have been happy to produce as a limited edition print. Most of these images are sharp and in many ways would be great illustrations for a book or magazine, they just haven't made it as an image for a limited edition print. Being a dull green bird, mostly photographed against green grass, as it eats ants, may account in part for this.

There are of course advantages as well for me, in that there is far less competition for me as a photographic artist than as a paintbrush artist, and while you may get low cost local artists starting out or other lower cost work that may appeal as much as my painted art, getting photographic images just right, and able to be produced in a large size, is far more difficult, requiring not just artistic ability but knowledge, experience and a lot of very expensive equipment. So while the photographic art is more challenging, it also is more unique, and from a collectors viewpoint therefore more collectable.

The production process at the end is identical, if I were to produce limited edition art from a painted original it would be done by the Giclee process and the photographic art is produced by Giclee, it is also mounted and framed in the same way and the same or a higher standard to other limited edition art.

As a perfectionist, nothing short of the best will do. If you get to own or see my limited edition work you will find that there is absolutely no better materials, better method, better fitting and that every single one is to the same high and often challenging standard. Going to this standard obviously costs more to produce.

Take the museum glass, for example, it protects the print from the worst of the light that would damage it over time,  so allowing you to fully enjoy it in your normal living conditions, although ideally you still need to keep it out of direct sunlight and avoid humid places. It also makes it practical for us to offer the lifetime guarantee, and as it is nearly invisible under most viewing conditions, so you get no loss of detail and usually no reflection, but its very expensive, accounting for up to £200 of the price. Obviously if we were to put in normal, float glass like others, we could make the editions up to £200 cheaper and make more sales, or make more profit. 

Similarly if you were to make frames the conventional way, buy a pack of lengths of moulding and chop them up to the lengths required, then that would be far below the standard we require. Like all wood lengths, they will warp and have imperfections. We require the moulding supplier to select the moulding lengths for us that are the straightest, and to cut out of these the pieces we require in such a way as any imperfections are cut out, supplying us only cut perfect pieces, that once they have past our inspection we can put together into frames. They know anything less than absolutely perfect will be returned. As you would expect we pay far more for this than you would if you were to take normal production run pieces. We also select the mouldings we use to those made from the best quality and cuts of wood, so they can be expected not only to be perfect now, but into the future. You will also find that all the frame fittings we have selected are the very finest available, we have selected everything on quality not cost.

When you see one of our works you will agree they are the very finest, a solid investment, and both a desirable and collectable item, you will also be pleased to learn however that although we use museum glass and the very finest frames and other parts, our prices although possibly a little over some others, is not proportionally higher to recover all these additional costs. Some others are selling prints alone at a higher price than our fully framed works.

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