Well, my exhibition at An Crubh in late October has confirmed that I will continue to grow and develop my community of followers on the Isle of Skye and I already have two exhibitions booked in 2020 – in May and October.
I am planning to research and contact galleries in Glasgow, Edinburgh and other Scottish towns to see if they would be interested in my work. I intend to visit a number of galleries, incognito, in the first instance to see what type of work they exhibit and the spread of photographers/artists they already represent. When I have done this research I will make a small number of personal, written and informed approaches, including examples of my work and links to my website and blog.
I also need to consider my options in terms of my business model moving forward. It seems to me that I have three, not necessarily exclusive choices, if I wish to expand my business:
- Present my work in local exhibition spaces on Skye and engage primarily with my current network of followers
- Research and develop relationships with a number of galleries across Scotland on a commission basis
- Engage an agent to manage these relationships for me.
There are pros and cons with all of these options, such as commission rates, logistics in supplying images on a larger scale and the inevitable issue of pricing moving forward.
I have a commission in June-July 2020 to photograph and exhibit images of the National Heritage site at Silchester in conjunction with the University of Reading.
I have lots of practical work to do in terms of expanding my use of Mailchimp to produce welcome notes, notifications of blog posts and monthly newsletters to my followers. I intend to continue writing blogs similar to those required by the MA – contextual research posts, comments on other photographers’ work and seeking feedback on my current work. I also want to refine and develop my website particularly in the area of monetisation.
I plan to work on further films and podcasts. In particular, responding to feedback I received on my first film, I would like to produce a film that shows the wild and changeable side of Skye’s weather and include sounds of the Island too. My work on the loch continues whatever the weather and to have a film depicting more typical weather conditions would provide the viewer with a better sense of my work and practice. I am going to consider producing podcasts as a low cost option to provide information and insights on aspects of photography.
I also intend to produce a hard copy book towards the end of 2020 and have already made contact with a designer in this regard.
I would like to do further background research on Silchester before my work starts.
So, I have my work cut out as I prepare myself to face the challenges of running a photographic business.
But, before that . . . I am a compulsive book buyer, and for two years I have had little time to read novels and even some of the books purchased for the MA. This is a selection of books that I will be reading in the next few weeks!
Post MA Reading – Alison Price, December 2019
