How To Prepare For Your First Photography Exhibition

Feb 20, 2025 | Uncategorized

If you’re putting together your first gallery show, just keep in mind it doesn’t necessarily have to break the bank. There are a lot of options that you can think of to try and keep your costs under control. Let me put on my fine art glasses for this.

Your print size

You could do standard print sizes such as 11 by 14, 16 by 20, 20 by 30. If you stick to those standard sizes, you’re more likely to be able to find readymade frames that you’ll like, and that will look good. Rather than having to have something custom made which is going to increase the price.

These still look substantial on the wall and can give a great impact to your print. The size and how big you go. It really depends also on how you envision your show, going, do you have a lot of images that you want to do, or do you have just a few that you want to do really big or maybe choose like your super power and Wow images to go bigger and then fill in the rest of the space with perhaps some smaller 11 by 14 or 16 by 20s.

Another way that you could keep costs down is to go with perhaps a less expensive type of print, such as on C print paper. This is the light sensitive paper that you would use in the dark room. You can also print digitally with that. Since I said established technology it often can cost less and is perfectly acceptable for gallery shows.

If you do want to go into an inkjet type of situation, we can say you’re printing black and white. Things look better on inkjet than perhaps they might on C prints. We have several papers that we call standard papers that are cost effective, such as Epson products. Epson matte, which is a flat paper. Epson luster, which has some shine and some texture. These are papers that will give you the same effect, but perhaps maybe give you some more color control. Or as I said, they look great on black and white. This one cost a little bit less. The C print inkjet costs a little bit more. Another thing to think about, especially for your larger prints, such as say you want to go 20 by 30 or even bigger is we have a fine art print service, which includes a smaller size test print that can help you save money, especially if you have it printed that image before, or if you haven’t printed with us before, every output device is going to be slightly different. So you can save money by making, say, an eight by 10 or 11 by 14 test print. See how it’s going to look on the paper that you’ve chosen and the printer you’ve chosen.

Make sure your colors and your densities are correct before you spend the money to make your larger print. That will save you a lot of money in the long run.

When you’re thinking about framing it

I had mentioned earlier that if you stick to a standard frame size, such as 11 by 14 or 16 by 20, you’re more likely to find a ready made frame that you could put your print into. But do you even really need a frame? There are lots of shows that I’ve printed for where the client is just tacking them into the wall, or they’re hanging them with banker’s clips, and they maybe have a weight on the bottom that just cuts out the framing cost entirely. And it also might make sense to then do the least expensive prints on the C-print, because you’re really kind of just printing it for that show. And if you get a purchase from the show, then you can print it either again on the same paper or perhaps choose another paper.

When you’re figuring out your budget

How to cost your gallery show?  Of course, it’s going to come down to how much money do you have to spend. How much are you able to print? You want to keep costs as effective as possible. Of course, it’s going to vary depending on how many images do you have in the show? How big are they? How are you planning on framing and hanging them? Do you need to think about the cost of the space? A lot of people maybe will rent a space and do a pop up gallery. Or if a gallery has space or it’s in a restaurant or something like that, then your cost is probably going to be zero for the venue. It could be you could spend, depending on how many pieces you have. See, like you only have four pieces. It’s a fairly small space. You could get away with easily, like 100 to $200. We’ve done shows here where the client spent $2,500 just on the prints, and then the cost of the framing was that same amount.

And even higher. Just doing like, really one off top of the line plexi or aluminum framing. It can get really expensive, but you don’t have to. You could do it very simply. Tack it on the wall, go to Ikea, buy some frames, go to Michaels, buy some frames, go to your local art store, buy some frames. Very simple black frames, half inch, quarter inch and put your picture pieces in there and then get them on the wall. That’s what’s important.

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