Gavin with Ken Whitmire, the Ansel Adams of wall portraits at WPC 2013.
– This video was initially posted for our newsletter subscribers. It is now public. You can get future goodies by subscribing to the newsletter below –
Are You Selling Better?
Here’s our special Seim Effects video for May 2013. I just returned from a week at Wall Portrait Conference. It’s my 5th year and the principles I learned here changed my entire career. I wanted to record a quick overview of ideas while it”s fresh in my mind. To share a bit of what I have learned and what I plan to apply further this year as I sell more wall prints.
These ideas come from hundreds of years of combined experience. I am not the master of marketing, but I have seen these principles work when applied correctly. I barley scratch the surface here, but here’s hoping this video will get you inspired to raise the bar and go further. I hope to see you at a future Wall Portrait Conference.
Gavin Seim
Want to learn more about using light and making images for walls? Check out my complete films including EXposed, a workshop about all things light and exposure. Also take a look at PHOTOGRAPHICS. My new film on Art, History and Photographic Craft. You can pre-order it now and save.
The sun rising in White Sands NM, Spring 2013, Gavin Seim
Out here in white sands there’s not much for water or trees. So when you stand this tall, alone in the white, snow-like drifts of sand, you get to look down on the landscape. King of the shrubs, thistles and tiny creatures. Usurpers fallen at your feet.
The sun comes up each day throwing pastel beauty across this landscape, soon followed by harsh glaring light and waterless heat. But if you can stay standing, you might just become King of the Thistles.
Release details: Prints Available.. Order Open Edition originals above.. Master prints and Signature Limited Editions are listed below and can be ordered by contacting gallery.
Available Prints….
53 inch Master Original on Canvas – Limited edition of, 1 (contact the gallery)
44 inch Signature Canvas – Limited Edition of, 50 (contact the gallery)
42 inch Signature Metal – Limited Edition of, 50 (contact the gallery)
F-35 Lightning taking off from Lubbock International, April 2013
This is not something you get to see every day – Now a pictorial does not always have to be a landscape and I don’t limit myself to that. While you may not see this image hanging my my gallery, it was a lot of fun. The F35 is the best of the best in multipurpose fighter jets. A stealth machine that’s so new it’s not even in military inventory yet and costs around 200 million dollars. No surplus deals here. You can read about the F35 here.
When touring I keep a list of people to visit with. Generally colleagues that have emailed and said to stop by when I’m in town. Eventually, I’m usually in town. This time is was Lubbock Texas. Jody from Smeyers Photography and his wife Jan were great hosts. We stayed in town two night and Jody made some of his famous Texas ribs. And by famous I mean if they are not famous they should be. We all had a good time and Cy loved playing their son Cody.
We went down to the Silent Wings Museum for a look back at some amazing glider history. On the nearby runway was one of the new F35 lets. Jody is a retired flight controller, so he know through the grapevine that it had landed for repairs. We got as close as we could, but the guys from Lockheed were not exactly chatty and eager top show it off. They would not even tell us when it was leaving.
Jody shouted out to some friends and we managed to get the details. The next day we headed down and parked the Super Camper in an empty lot as home base. Jody and I drove around the outskirts and thanks to Jody’s knowledge of the airport and a few tips, determined the direction she would be coming from. We setup and waited in the back of Jody’s pickup.
Then it came. And it came fast. I thought I was prepared but it was moving and escorted by an F16. My focus was not tracking well and I switched to manual focus as I’m generally more conformable there. I was a bit sluggish so this was a great exercise. I did get some fuzzy ones, but I manged some sharp one is all you really need. The pure blue of the sky offset by flames coming out of this 200 million dollar airplane is enough to satisfy me.
It was there and gone almost in a blink. So if you plan to photograph a fighter jet taking off, make sure you’re ready for it. It was quite a thing to see. Kind of made me want one, but I have to sell a few more prints before it’s in the budget 😉 We went back to the Super Camper had a good latte before bidding Jody goodbye and moving on down the road. It was a good day.
Gavin is on the road again for 3 months filming and photographing. You can follow their trip here. Barry and Dennis found the keys to the garage. Who knows what will happen. Good job guys.
The 40×40 master of Sliver Moon Blues on display at an exhibit last year.
by Gavin Seim: It’s now year 5 of a 10 year plan to build my American Pictorialist brand one day at a time. I thought I was setting out to take photos. Turns out there was much more I was after. I discovered what I really wanted was not pictures, but furniture. Grand prints that convey the majesty of creation. That’s easier said that done, but I feel Chroma and Silver galleries look better each year.
I got my first camera about 20 years ago now. It’s been a long road. But I may see a speck of light in the tunnel. It took mew a decade or so just realize that what I’m making is not pictures but fine furniture. To begin to really find my style. Something I hope to have mostly nailed down in the next three years both in my pictorials and my American Portraits which are something I don’t intend to give up. They are separate brands, but both have similar goals. Both are furniture for the wall.
The goals are starting to become more clear thanks to teachers like Ken Whitmire, painters of the past, history itself and many others who have shared their experience along the way. I’m learning that I have to focus. I have to remember what I’m trying to produce.
There’s lots of images being made and I don’t need to compete with that. I just need to make work I release as breathtaking as is possible. I’m getting to the stage where I know if the image is Signature worthy or just a nice snapshot before I press the shutter. Understanding that line has tuned out to be critical to my process.
Teaching has pushed me as well. Producing workshops like EXposed helped me see much better. What’s next is further refinement. Being more picky in the image making process as well as in the presentation. I’ve been focusing on slowing down for a few years now. I got into film and large format. I stopped making so many images and learned to focus on one whether it was a pictorial or a portrait.
But I think it’s time to take that further. By focusing on only releasing only 6-12 new pieces each year, the time spent on each will become flexible. Refinement and stunning presentation will be my focus and it takes a great deal of time to do that to my satisfaction – If I intend to stay sane I have to release less to make them more.
In recording the new Photographics Film I have been reminded that the elements that make a great photograph are not bound by one most import, but by a series of many including space, position, line, tone and presentation. If any one of these fails the image will often fail to be a stunning work of art and simply be a photo. I won’t forget that.
I am blessed and thankful that I can take my time. I just keep trying to move forward. In doing so I believe it will be better than I ever imagined when I picked up my first camera nearly 20 years ago. I had no idea where this would lead. Perhaps I still don’t. I still have 5 years to nail down the the American Pictorial. And if I don’t make that deadline, I’ll keep working.
