The sky-high cheques come to the camerist who, night and day, through sunshine and storm, earthquake and cyclone, is always "hot on the trail" of the salable photograph that is tucked away somewhere, where only a keen scent and a large amount of perseverance can lead him; and when he arrives, the subject will be singing truthfully, "Shoot me and the wor-rld is tha-hine." There are enough of these subjects to shame the biggest choir on earth by their "singing." However, the photographer must know good music when he hears it.
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ART PHOTOGRAPHS
An art-photograph may be either of two things: a photograph, itself artistic; or a photograph of some artistic thing. There are markets for both. Artistic photographs are used by calendar and postcard makers; also, by photographic magazines, and magazines given to the beautiful in art or literature. When submitting such photographs to makers of postcards and such, they should be submitted in the usual manner.
The subjects used by card- and calendar-makers are interesting landscapes, beautiful seascapes, pretty girls, attractive children, and animals, as every one knows. Such pictures are sometimes bought outright—indeed, they usually are; but some firms pay according to their value as indicated by the demand for them after publication. Thus, one firm pays on a fifty-fifty basis.
An example of beautiful photography, at the same time picturing an unusual or artistic subject, will usually find a market in a photographic magazine, as Photo-Era Magazine or a magazine such as Shadowland. The Architectural Record demands that its prints, although of architectural subjects, be artistic and beautiful. Indeed, there is such a wide market for photographically artistic prints of beautiful subjects that the photographer is doubly rewarded who can supply these, as well as hot-off-the-bat news-photographs.
Artistic photographs are printed on sensitive-paper of a surface suited to their subjects, and are trimmed so as to carry the correct compositional balance; and after, they are tastefully mounted.
Photographs which are not themselves artistic, but which are of art-subjects, may be prepared as are other photographs intended for publication. Such photographs are of statues, pictures, new art-museums, art-collections, paintings, mural decorations, drawings, and anything at all of interest to artists. Material of such sort is sought by such publications as American Art News, Art in America, Art and Decoration, and others that appreciate the very best.
In short, the photographer may market his game among a wider patronage if he can bring down birds of paradise as well as ducks and geese and the common denizens of the air.