Major Changes Coming in October to St. Andre Photography and Beyond

The winds of change are a blowing here at St. Andre Photography. Some of these winds are due to financial changes happening in the world, others are just standard updates that I am working on. So to avoid long worded introductions lets get right into the meat of this update announcements. 

Price Changes- Paper Prints

Now if you have been to my booth or have had conversations about how I run my business you may have heard about how I sell my small paper prints. Currently I sell two sizes at my booth, the 8x12 and the 16x20. The prices for these prints have been $20 and $50 respectively. 

Beginning with the 8x12 prints I am upping their price to $25 beginning in October. 

When I introduced these prints I bounced around at different price points, but eventually settled on $20 dollars becouse it was an easy price point and people seemed to like it. I made a few bucks, and all went well. That was 10 years ago. When I first began printing these prints, my cost of production was really quite small, but over the years that has steadily changed. First it was the price of the prints. My printer I had been using had doubled then tripled the price of a print. It was around this time I was stumbled into a canon printer for my home, dramatically reducing the cost of my production. 

Beyond the print is all the material the surrounds the print; the mat, backing and plastic protective sleeve (the Show Kit). For many years these show kit prices had been fairly stable, but within the past 12 months the price of these show kits have climbed 40% and 50% in cost. Luckily I buy bulk which cuts down costs. 

Unfortunately I can't keep eating the cost of production. So thus the change. 

Next is the 16x20 prints followed by all other paper prints

All other paper prints will reflect a price change in the coming days as well. 16x20 prints will jump up to $75 at a minimum. On top of that will be a general shift upward of all paper prints from 16x24 through 24x36. Just the reality is that cost of business has gone up and I need to reflect my value. 

Price Changes- Metal, Canvas and Acrylic Prints

Now the bigger change that is coming is the price of metal and acrylic prints. The prices for these prints are somewhat reflective of the cost of me doing business, some of it is reflection of the value of what I put into my work. 

One of the consistent comments I get as I sell at larger art shows is the comment "wow your prices are really reasonable." Though it makes my heart feel good knowing that people like my prices, the reality is that I have been consistently underpricing my work.

Dang

So there is going to be a price shift coming at the beginning of October. Some prices will jump a lot while others will move very little. In previous attempts to price my work I have tried to find a relative balance between different sizes and prices. resulting in some prices feeling really spot on and others being under priced. So in order to fix that, I am sticking with a price point that reflects my cost of production, not necessarily some arbitrary number I feel comfortable with. 

Moral of the story, prices have to go up.

Business

This past year has been a frustrating year and an exciting year for me. I have gone and seen a lot of really cool places and I have been selling my work supporting my own family, which has been super exciting. 

But I cannot keep doing business as usual. I currently teach at Utah Tech University part time, run a print photography business, and I am building out the photography workshops for Nature Photography Collective, on top of being a dad of 4 kid, an active church member in my local faith.... and I am drowning. 

On top of the things I am doing I am also wanting to jump more into the world of conservation photography and do more photo stores. I am also severely behind on my YouTube channel and have not been able to dedicate anything towards that in nearly 8 weeks. I also have not been able to create anything education and training wise for anyone other than my college students, and that has been struggling too. 

Moral of the story I am burnt out. 

So over the next few months I am going to have to change the way I do business because this is not sustainable.