New Ideas: Embedded Galleries, Prints & Scholarship

November 8th, 2008 in Articles
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For years now, I’ve been waiting for someone to take full advantage of the web and to allow photographers to better connect with their audiences.  I’ve always found that traditional media rarely offer up a way for photographers to connect directly with their readers/viewers.   Photoshelter has just recently released a little widget that allows anyone to embed flash galleries in their (and other people’s) websites.   This tool allows photographers to easily share their images – and perhaps to generate some income.  In this case – you can simply view the photographs within the widget – and if you’d like, you can purchase a print as well.  

I think this has a tremendous potential – so much so, that I’m going to try to encourage you to embed this gallery into your personal sites (or publications!) by applying all of the profits from these print sales for the next 30 days to a student internship/scholarship…

Yep – all of the income (minus the cost of printing, labor, and shipping) will be put towards a student internship/scholarship that I set up.   I’ll determine how to select the student (and perhaps students depending on how popular this experiment becomes) and how the money will be dispersed etc.   I will work out all of these details at the end of the 30 days once I know how much we have raised and how we can maximize those $$$ to best benefit a student (or students)… Sounds fun no?  

One more benefit – there are a total of 88 images in this gallery – all but the first one are limited edition prints.   The first image in the gallery of an aerial of Times Square however – will be offered at a significant discount – often more than 10 times cheaper than the limited edition prints (see image below.)  

 

This print will be sold for up to 10 times cheaper than limited edition prints.

This print of Times Square - will be sold for up to 10 times cheaper than limited edition prints.

This is in an effort to drive the sale of this print – as many of you know, selling prints in these economic times is not easy – so this should help.  Each print (whether limited edition or not) is 100% archival and will be signed by me.   I’m hoping the cheaper price will lead to more sales and benefit the student(s).

So why am I doing this?   Well I think this “embedded” gallery is a fantastic idea – and will allow photographers to hopefully find new business models to generate potential income in the future.    Most photographers today rely on agencies, print sales, stock sales, and a variety of publications to make a living… wouldn’t it be great if we harnessed the true power of the web to allow readers to in effect sponsor a photographer’s assignments?   Imagine paying a few cents a day or per picture to your favorite photographer… and allowing them (through a good volume of subscribers – each paying a very small amount) to chase their wildest creative dreams – sponsored by their viewers – not publications with limitations etc…

I DO think this is a VIABLE business model… so let’s give this a go.   As I said – all of the profits from the print sales over the next 30 days will go to a student (or students) minus the costs of producing and shipping the prints (For the skeptics out there: The total amount of money raised will be made public – and I will have Grover Sanschagrin of Photoshelter verify the amounts etc. so that they can confirm that the money does indeed end up in a student’s (or multiple students’ hands…) sound good?

So go ahead – and share the link below with as many people as you can – and embed the gallery within your sites.   While I will obviously benefit from having people see my images – any financial benefit for the next 30 days will benefit a lucky student or students!

Also – pls go ahead an link your embedded gallery in the comments below – and people can go visit your sites.  If you e-mail me the page you create with this embedded gallery – I will put a list of all of the sites that have done so on this post – send an e-mail to blog (at) vincentlaforet.com – and I’ll add your link to this post…

To embed this gallery in your blog/publication please paste the following code into your html document: ( simply click on the bottom right arrow of the flash gallery and you can copy and paste the code directly from there):