Limited Editions

A word about “limited editions”: on the advice of my dealer, the Barry Singer Gallery in Petaluma, who is a member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, I do not as a general rule intend to make limited editions of my pictures unless I am doing the whole edition at one time and the process of printing is somehow unique for that image.

It has taken me over thirty years of very hard work to be in the position of supporting myself as a fine artist and self-publisher. I don’t do assignments and work for hire now but I became a self-supporting fine artist through working my way up doing thousands of jobs, many for the most prestigious and demanding companies in the bay area.There are only a handful of self-supporting fine art photographers. I say, collect a person’s work based on the individual accomplishment of the artist, and your love of a particular image, not because of a number which is ‘running out’. To me, editions make sense when you are making an etching and the plate wears out after making so many prints. This is not the case with photographs. Ansel Adams and Edward Weston did not edition their prints and I think it is pretentious to do so unless there is a reason based on difficulty of printing or the deterioration of a negative. What makes their work rare is the fact that hardly anyone can do work as good!

It is highly unlikely that I will make over 100 prints of an individual image. Besides, as soon as a photographer runs out of an edition in one size, they can change the size and start another edition. Thus my advice to collectors is that they should judge a work by its content, print quality or “inner glow”, the rarity of the event photographed and the skill of the photographer, rather than by an artificial number put on the work to make it rare. The nature of photography is that it is a democratic medium suited to publication and it has the power to be a witness to events and places in the same way that freedom of the press does. Why turn it into a precious poodle?

Richard Blair



		Limited Editions A word about “limited editions”: on the advice of my dealer, the Barry Singer Gallery in Petaluma, who is a member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, I do not as a general rule intend to make limited editions of my pictures unless I am doing the whole edition at one time and the process of printing is somehow unique for that image. It has taken me over thirty years of very hard work to be in the position of supporting myself as a fine artist and self-publisher. I don’t do assignments and work for hire now but I became a self-supporting fine artist through working my way up doing thousands of jobs, many for the most prestigious and demanding companies in the bay area.There are only a handful of self-supporting fine art photographers. I say, collect a person’s work based on the individual accomplishment of the artist, and your love of a particular image, not because of a number which is ‘running out’. To me, editions make sense when you are making an etching and the plate wears out after making so many prints. This is not the case with photographs. Ansel Adams and Edward Weston did not edition their prints and I think it is pretentious to do so unless there is a reason based on difficulty of printing or the deterioration of a negative. What makes their work rare is the fact that hardly anyone can do work as good! It is highly unlikely that I will make over 100 prints of an individual image. Besides, as soon as a photographer runs out of an edition in one size, they can change the size and start another edition. Thus my advice to collectors is that they should judge a work by its content, print quality or “inner glow”, the rarity of the event photographed and the skill of the photographer, rather than by an artificial number put on the work to make it rare. The nature of photography is that it is a democratic medium suited to publication and it has the power to be a witness to events and places in the same way that freedom of the press does. Why turn it into a precious poodle? Richard Blair