A great time for a print sale

Last month, David Walter Banks gave me a call. He told me he was in New York City, and wondered if we could meet up. I said sure, and he came to the PhotoShelter office with Matt Slaby. I always like to meet up and hang out with photographers — especially when I really love their work, which is the case here.

They were in New York, showing their portfolios around, looking for work, making contacts, and other making-the-rounds and paying-your-dues networking fun that nearly all serious photographers do at one point or another in their career.

But what is really interesting about these two guys is the teamwork they have. They are both independent freelance photographers, both looking for work, both could be considered “competitors” yet they’re going door-to-editor-door together, and they’re happy about it.

It doesn’t stop there, though. They’ve also got the work of four other photographers tucked under their arm. Six photographers, all working as a team to promote each other individually and as a group.

Each member of the group has their own unique style, and brings their own personal vision to the table. If a photo editor doesn’t think one of them is a fit for them, no problem, there are 5 other portfolios to check out – right then and there. In this economy, this is a smart move.

They’re calling themselves “Luceo Images,” and their approach to marketing, networking and support of each other is a very refreshing thing to see — especially in today’s business climate. There is strength in numbers, and they know it.

Banks and Slaby joined with fellow photographers Kendrick Brinson, Matt Eich, Kevin German, and Tim Lytvinenko to form Luceo Images a year ago, and they’re celebrating this fact with an Anniversary Print Sale, where they are selling collector’s prints for a limited time.

Brilliant. Opening up another revenue stream while showing off their work and getting their name out there all at the same time. (Would I be writing about them right now if they didn’t have some really good timely reason for me to do so? Probably not.)

They announced on their blog that people can choose between 24 different 11×14 fine art prints for $99 each. Great prints for a really great price. How’d they do it?

They’re using a PhotoShelter Personal Archive account to do the print sales, and they’ve teamed up with AdoramaPix to make the prints. Two services that actually work really well together.

We actually have prints here in the office, hanging on the wall, made by AdoramaPix that we absolutely love. Their quality is amazing and you seriously will not believe how good their prices are.

When David and Matt were chatting with me, I was really impressed with their spirit, and their marketing smarts. It’s one thing to be a great photographer. It’s another (rare) thing to be a great photographer that has a knack for marketing. These guys have it, and it was fun to just sit down and toss ideas around with them.

I encouraged them to go talk to Ingrid over at AdoramaPix because I thought they would make a great match, and a perfect partner for their print sale. All six members of Luceo Images are PhotoShelter users, and I knew that with our manual print fulfillment abilities, they could sell images using PhotoShelter’s built-in e-commerce tools, and then have AdoramaPix handle the making of the prints – knowing that the prints were going to be good.

Congrats on your first anniversary, David, Matt, Kendrick, Matt, Kevin, and Tim. May you have many more print sales in your future.

Luceo Images prints for sale.

Luceo Images blog: http://luceoimages.wordpress.com
Luceo Images website: http://www.luceoimages.com
Luceo Images print sale: http://www.luceoimages.com/store/

AdoramaPix blog: http://www.adoramapix.com/Blog.aspx
AdoramaPix website: http://adoramapix.com

About the author

Grover Sanschagrin
Grover is co-founder of PhotoShelter. He is a frequent contributor to the PhotoShelter blog. He loves tequila, Frank Zappa, and avocados. You can follow him on Twitter here: @heygrover

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