New York Photography Blog - Volume I

The end results of a hectic and very successful Christmas season. Sometimes I get an email addressed to “who it may concern.” I want to say - it concerns you and me, and that’s about it.

Sometimes it is a phone call, and I answer, “Dave speaking,” and the caller is surprised to be speaking with “the artist.”

I am often tempted to click the phone and then come back with another voice saying that the artist will be on in a second - please hold the line.

The website seems to disguise the fact that there is one guy in a tiny apartment printing, packaging, and actually answering his own phone.

People want to come to my show room. They want to know what gallery I’m in.

Well, I guess that if you want to buy the same prints for 7 times as much, I can make arrangements with a gallery, though I’d have to close down website sales. Not bloody likely. I don’t need recognition. I don’t even want recognition from the art world. I just like the idea that one of my prints is on a living room wall somewhere. And I love when my shots are used for book covers, especially when the novel is written in a a foreign language. There are books on my shelves written in Greek, French, Italian - using one of my images on the cover and that is a great thrill for me, more so than if the image is used for an English language book.

But frankly, sales at whatever price are the important recognition for me. When I do get some award, or something prestigious happens and I put it on the web site, it’s not because I get some big kick out of it - it’s just a signpost to tell people out there that they may not be crazy to buy a print or two from me.

The most annoying night I ever spent (photography-wise) was at a gallery show I did years ago. Maybe I have a social phobia or something - but all these people milling around eating soft cheese asking questions about the prints (and sometimes buying them) was excruciating. Look, the only soft cheese I like is cream cheese.

At that opening I sold a print to a guy who only wanted it because it was number one of a limited edition. I visited him a few years later and there was the print in the hallway of his huge Park Avenue condo in an ornate frame that scared me.

I’m not totally immune to recognition - if Bob Dylan bought a print - that would thrill me down to my toes. But I don’t have many idols like that.

Now, if I could afford to rent the apartment next to me which is available now for $1800 (one tiny little bedroom that you might be able to fit a queen size bed in) I could have a nice showroom. But - uh -

This is New York. This is the upper east side of Manhattan. I could tunnel, secretly between my apartment and the next door apartment and have a suite. Again - prices would go up substantially - and that could very well put me out of business. That would be just like me - kill many years of hard work because of ego. Oh sure, I’m represented by the xyz fine art gallery in Soho and they have 12 of my prints on the wall. Nah… I like my web home where I can offer over a hundred prints at various sizes.

(Right now, they’re sanding the floors next door with some sort of nuclear powered machine, and nearly knocked me from my bed with whatever power tools they’re employing. My fillings are ready to pop out if they don’t stop soon. )

I sell prints to the high and mighty, and the low and mighty. But I suspect that the majority of them live in nicer places than I do. I recently sold two prints to the president of a huge investment firm with a duplex on Park Avenue.

But am I complaining - not really. I’m just trying to show the reality between the gifts that go out - and yes - I would estimate that 75% of my prints are bought as gifts - and the cramped, cluttered world that I live in.

Anyway - thought it would be funny to show Santas workshop where it happens - and I hope that I don’t get sued by my favorite packaging company for showing their name in image. I have to go now - because they’ve started up the machines again - and to make things worse - the building that is going up behind me has just started doing some dynamiting which is rattling the windows. Right now it’s like living in a war zone that stops promptly at 5 o’clock.

And all of that is a way of saying - thank you — because you’ve made my year and I’m happy as a clam with how it is all going.

I hope you can all achieve your dreams - no matter how cluttered or noisy they are.

Tomorrow I’ll turn around and show you the rest of the operation.