Pig Tail
One of the best things about selling your photographs at the Salt Spring Saturday Market is hearing why people choose the photograph that they choose to buy. This pig butt for example or "Pig Tail" was bought by a woman for her brother because it was his birthday and when they were kids he always used to pull her pig tails. I threw it in at the last minute because it's just about the cutest pig tail I've ever seen, not that I've spent a lot of my life paying attention to pigs or their butts. But, hey little piggie, nice tush! I took this last year at the Fall Fair.
Someone else came to my table who caretakes Ruckle Park with her husband. Her mother was visiting and she had to buy one of my photographs of Ruckle. Then, the daughter spotted a sign that she had made for the Fall Fair last year and of course (bless your heart) as soon as her mom heard that it was her daughter's sign she just had to buy it in the form of my new little Canvas "corner brightener" as someone in my band decided I should call them when she dropped by my table. They're photos put onto 4X6 canvases with burnished upholstery pins tacking them down on each corner. They look really good with barns and old doors.
Two people actually bought photos that I'd taken at a store at Fulford called Stuff and Nonsense because one of them always sends her sister a card whenever she goes anywhere and because the other said it was the first store she'd gone into when she first got off the ferry and she liked the store. Here's the railing out the front I think. Sometimes I truly forget where/when I took the photos.
I almost always sell a card or matted print of my photo that I took of a reflection in Coal Harbour while walking along the Stanley Park Seawall. People love this photo.
I recently decided to start selling larger matted photographs of my work, 8x10 matted to 11x14 and I was ecstatic to sell one of my favourites to a guy from Vancouver who liked it right away, hardly said anything to me, then returned and bought it. Of course, it makes sense to sell larger. More money. I call this Aquatic Plaid. I really like that name.
I can't find my list of the other ones that people bought but you get the idea.
The best part about the market is the amount of mental energy you spend trying to sort out exactly what works best and then seeing how right or how wrong you are. There really should be Salt Spring Market Focus Groups that take place all year round so that we know exactly what our customers want before it starts. It's either that or spend 5 years doing it.
Only 4 more days until the next market. Yippee!