What Price, Beauty?

I got a call today from the photographer whose photograph I fell in love with at the county fair. Do you want to know how much he was asking for the size that was hanging at the exhibition?

I bet you do.

He was telling me the dimensions and how it was on acrylic or something of the such, and I was just so hopeful that I would be able to afford it that I barely heard him since I was inadvertently holding my breath.

A thousand dollars, my friends. A thousand dollars.

Attempting to keep my eyes from bugging out of their sockets, I played it cool and said, oh, I would have to check with my husband before I committed to making such a large purchase, and I'm sure he understood? Of course he did, and he supplied me with his cell number and email. Chirpily, I told him I would be in touch.

Yet my heart was drooping as I realized that unless I was willing to do illegal things, there was no way I would ever own that photograph any time soon. Even a print, smaller than the original, was $675.

Part of me wants to sort of whine, and then the other part of me is trying to understand how a photograph could cost that much. I mean, he didn't paint it, he just pointed his camera and pushed the button. How did he arrive at the price? Does it include his travel expenses?

Why does beauty have to be so damned expensive?

Comments

Stokley said…
I have a friend who is an artist, he did a few paintingss and hung them at this local co-op cafe place and had them priced quite inexpensively, around $30 each, none sold. A friend told him if he marked the price up way high people would think they were more valuable, so he added a zero and within 2 months he sold all 5 of them. Funny ho people determine value.
10:06 PM
Atasha said…
What you're really paying for is the camera or it could just be the cost of the lens! Who knows but I think I need to get into that line of work!
12:43 AM
Deb Heller said…
Is the painting somewhere in OC? Maybe I could take a look at it while I'm there? (Assuming, of course, my plane doesn't get hi-jacked by horrid terrorists. ::sigh::)

.
7:54 PM
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