Jacob Pritchard and the Free Print

Jacob Pritchard is getting on the free print bus, and I’m a fan. There’s almost nothing that excites me more than artists sharing art with one ...

Jacob Pritchard is getting on the free print bus, and I’m a fan. There’s almost nothing that excites me more than artists sharing art with one another. (fyi: If you want to come to the PhotoShelter office with one of your prints, I’ll trade ya for one of mine.)

Anyway– here’s Jacob’s model:

“Every time I throw a post up here, I give away a free, signed 6×9
print (and if it’s a diptych, you get two!) I like tangible things and
I want to get my pictures in people hands. Frame it and hang it up. Put
it on your fridge with a magnet. Put it in your safe and wait for
Charles Saatchi to discover me. It’s yours to do with what you want.

After I make a post, the first person to e-mail me
with ‘prints’ in the subject line gets a free print (and here’s a tip..
if you want a better chance of being the first, you can subscribe to e-mail updates).

I’ll ship to anywhere in the world.

No strings attached here. I pay for shipping and I won’t save your e-mail address to pester you somewhere down the line.”

Jacob, I think this is the awesome. Here are three pictures on your site that really grease my wheel (and no, I’m not hinting.)

Hey Jacob! tell me more about this project! It seems awfully altruistic!

JP: The truth is, I really have no idea where this is going. Basically, it’s a bit of an experiment.

I’m relatively new to the world of being a professional photographer,
and looking around at the industry a bit, it seems that a career in
photography used to be about finding just a few people who were into
what you were doing… that is, a few art directors, art dealers or
photo editors, depending upon what sort of photography you did.

I think that photographers are starting to work out another
alternative, and that’s connecting directly with a larger group of
people who don’t necessarily work in the industry, but who share an
aesthetic and connect to your work. By giving away prints, I’m hoping
to find some people who like the pictures I’m making and are excited to
have been there watching while this series comes together. People who
think it’s cool to have a print or two of mine tacked up on their wall,
and who would be excited, for example, to buy a book of it all
published together one day down the line.

At the end of the day, I can’t really say how far this will go. This is
basically going to be a series of pictures of my friends and random
things that I run across… and chances are they won’t be as naked or
do as many drugs as the people in work like that of Larry Clark, Nan
Goldin and Ryan McGinley… which is to say a few of those who have
generally done well with a sort of autobiographical work.

So if this just ends up being the opportunity to connect with a few
other people who see things in a way similar to me, I think that’s
cool. If it means that a few people get really excited to get a print
in the mail and put it up on their wall, I think that’s cool too. And
at the very least, my mom just told me that she signed up for the
e-mail updates, so if she gets excited to get an e-mail every now and
then and see what I’m up to… well, that would also make me happy.

word.