The Art Fair Experiment
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Hello Reader! I am finally getting caught up from a busy spring workshop season that led right into my first art fair of the season (more on that in a few). All of the workshops went well, I love getting outdoors, the pre-scouting days before the workshop, and then helping people with their landscape photography in some pretty amazing locations! This week I am going to talk a little about the art fair experiment I am doing this summer season. While I am sure not all landscape photographers are considering this path, I suspect many might be curious as to what goes into having a booth at an art fair. Let’s get into it! Why Art FairsFor folks who have subscribed to the newsletter for a while, you might recall last fall I mentioned prepping for a 2026 art fair season. As a workshop leader, my spring, fall, and even part of the winter are busy with workshops. But the summer for me is a bit of a downtime. The days are long, the temperatures are hot, the greens of the midwest can be challenging to photograph, and so on. Because of this, the art fair circuit seemed a good way to get out there and share my work, make some print sales, and really, just talk photography with people - either potential future print buyers or even leads for workshops. While I’ve done a shared booth with the local photography club at a local show for the past several years, I have not done a solo booth. For 2026 I chose a handful of festivals, applied, and thought I would see what the life was like. First Up - SummerfairMy first solo show was a week and half ago at the 3-day art festival known as Summerfair in Cincinnati, Ohio. Now as this show approached, I certainly questioned my wisdom in choosing a 3-day show that wasn’t local. That put a lot of pressure on me to make sure I had enough inventory, everything I needed, since a quick trip home to get something would be a challenge, and so on. But, with a lot of preparation and long days leading up to the show, I ended up being well prepared for the show. The crowds were decent, we had amazing weather, and a very positive show experience overall. I made a few sales (not as many as I would have liked), but it is hard to beat learning through firsthand experience! Here’s a few things I learned from this first go-around. Transportation SpaceOne of the big challenges is trying to get everything there in the 4Runner! As most know, my 4Runner is built more for extended road trips and not for transportation of cargo. My drawer system takes up space, the molle shelf and panels take up space, the roof already has storage cases on top, and so on. The good thing is that with spring workshops over, I could remove the fridge from the 4Runner and my large power bank, and I even pulled out sleeping platform portion. This helped free up some space, but I still found it challenging to fit everything in that needed to go. This included the booth (pop-up tent and mesh walls), all the metal prints, the framed prints, the matted prints, print bins, a table, chairs, and so on. It was a lot! We got it all to fit, but I have since added a hitch cargo carrier to help me get some things out of the 4Runner. As there are some things I want to refine for the booth that will take up more room than what I am using now. The hitch cargo carrier seemed the logical first step for this season. The BoothI felt decent about my booth. Both the tent and the walls are borrowed because I have some great friends! But for a first time solo booth, I felt good about my setup. It isn’t full professional canopy and ProPanel wall setup, but it was a good start. There are some things I want to change pretty quickly. I want to add a door to the back of the booth. There are options to do that with my my setup with a few add-ons, but I think that would help keep it from feeling like people are walking into “my space” to be able to have that doorway to the back. I also felt like my print bins were not the most professional. Fully functional, but they seemed “cheap”. I probably need to invest in some ProPanel print bins to help elevate that portion of the booth as well. And finally - my signage seemed “cheap”. That was something I worked on last minute and I think I did the best I could with the time I had, but improving that by my next show should help. I have some ideas that will be flexible, but help me up the game on that a bit. The PhotographyThe majority of work I share is metal prints, ranging in size from 20x30 to 18x12. I do like this medium for art fairs as it does attract attention and helps pull in booth traffic. On all days I felt like the booth was getting foot traffic, which is good. That generated lots of conversations, even when it didn’t translate to sales. I also keep matted prints in print bins. These work well for people that want something, but aren’t ready to commit to a metal. There are two things I aim to adjust before the next show. One, I want to add some metals that are more neutral, and less location specific. My grand scenes pulled people into the booth, but I can see that while someone thinks a photo is great and eye-catching, they don’t necessarily want a picture of Badwater Basin in their house. In fact, the metal I sold was of a more neutral scene of roots and leaves from Hocking Hills. So I plan on replacing that metal print and adding some more that are similar in being neutral. I also need to do better at organizing my matted prints. One - so I can help direct people to a bin of new images or images that are on the booth wall. And also to make sure I have matted prints of images hanging in the booth. I had some inventory mismatches that just complicated the sales experience. Upcoming ShowsI will be making adjustments to these things between each show. This is partially why I only did 5 or so shows this season, to allow me time to learn, adjust, and trial. Anyways, if you are semi-local and want to see me, here is my upcoming show schedule:
I have two more September shows that are pending, I will share once I know if I am accepted. Upcoming WorkshopsThere is still time to register for our fall workshops! These workshops are a great way to improve your landscape photography in some amazing locations. I co-lead these two workshops with Michael Rung, which makes the instructor ratio 4 to 1! Until the next newsletter! Know someone who might enjoy this? Please feel free to share this email with them. Thanks! |