Sale starts Sunday.....

I was chatting with my very good friend Max the other day and he asked me if I ever had any idea of what work will sell, and sell well, and which would just not sell at all (with regards to gallery work). The answer I gave was; "If I did know I would be a very rich and I would be buying you lunch, make mine medium rare...."
Countless times over the years galleries (with no disrespect to them) and other people have tried to tell me what they think will sell well. I even try to tell myself. But the truth is one persons 'favorite image' may not necessarily but someone else's, and I think its fair to say that most of the time this is how people gage the market in terms of who will buy what, I think they call it 'a gut instinct.'
My favorite images rarely sell well and I believe this is because I am connected to them in a different way to say a third party. Most people that buy my work usually do so for several reasons:

1.They have been to a particular place and a certain image reminds them of it and the memories associated with it, so they get the feel good factor.

2.They are collecting work based on a certain theme and my work happens to be part of it.

3.They have fallen in love with me and want to help me out (the most common obviously)

4.They are looking to invest, and have been recommended the work by a third party (this is rare in my case but does happen)

5.They just want a nice picture in there front room they can talk about over dinner.

6.I have a sale on.....

Of course two of these are not true, but the rest seems to be the usual method of people buying work.

The above image (monument diner) from my website is one of my best sellers, people love it, each one for a different reason. But its far from my favorite, and doesn't say a great deal about my photography.
The second image (windmill) on the other had is one of my very favorites, I could talk about it for hours......but not a sniff (not yet anyway)
Regardless of why people want to buy any of my images, I would always prefer the young couple who have saved up for an image they adore to go on there wall, than say the silent collector who will put it in there temperature controlled room, in an acid free box never to see the light of day.