What I learned from my first photography exhibition

Pages from my book for the Right Here, Right Now. It’s Historical, Big, Huge and Beautiful exhibition.

Project background

To give a bit of background: this was the exhibition for my final project from my Photography MA at Falmouth that I finished in December 2023. April 2024 was the most reasonable time I could have done it: the location at Fabrication was booked up until at least January 2024 and a dozen other things at the end of last year and the start of this year meant that I would realistically not be able to dedicate the time to it.

My project looked at the community working in a walled garden that is run by Brunswick Organic Nurseries. Brunswick provides a work-like environment for adults with learning disabilities - you can see most of the final project with description here.

A wide view of most of the exhibition upstairs at Fabrication.

Aim of the exhibition

Realistically this would be an awareness exercise for me as a photographer but also more for Brunswick as people may be familiar with the organisation but not actually what they do. In terms of an audience, the exhibition would be aimed at three groups:

• People who are connected to Brunswick and like to see it represented.

• Local people who might be vaguely familiar with Brunswick but not in detail.

• Those just drifting in from the shopping. These could be local or tourists.

Fabrication’s location is bang in York city centre on Coney Street. There’s a good flow of people going past all day with a good mix of tourists and locals that pop into Fabrication itself. Exhibitions like this are quite weather dependent and this was no exception. It was cold and soggy all week so the town itself was also quiet. However I had a good start on Monday, Tuesday was dead and then it built up gradually throughout the week to the weekend (apart from the Friday which had miserable weather). 

The best day was Thursday as I had a group from Brunswick coming in to sit with the show for a couple of hours to talk to visitors about the charity itself. This happily coincided with one of the organisation’s founders and two other long term connected people to the organisation, plus another visitor who was connected to the people who run the farmland adjacent to the site so we could piece together some gaps in the garden’s history (of which there are many). Also my godmother brought me a much needed sandwich 🙂

I did have a clockwise structure for the exhibition. Much like the book, it starts with the gardening part then leads on to the woodwork section then rounds off by leading back to the garden itself. People however just dawdled towards what they first liked the look of. Some went clockwise, some went to the centrepiece, and some to the end with the project description. There was also a raffle to win a bird box which people naturally drifted to.

One thing I was nervous about was how the centrepiece would work. It was a bit of a last minute idea when I was finalising the details last year but it worked way better than I expected it to. In the spirit of The Dude, it really tied the exhibition together.

A closer view of the centre piece with prints on either side and in the centre.

Sales

I was selling both the book of my exhibition (you can see a slightly different edit here) and prints from which I’d donate money back to Brunswick itself. In the end, I sold a few more books than I’d expected, and barely any prints (although I didn’t really push them enough - it’s also possible this is a different online audience). I think what was missing was postcard packs which is a nice medium between the book and prints - I’ll stick a pin in those for next time.

Costs breakdown

Everything came in at just under £900 which is about in-line for other similar exhibitions that I’ve talked to other photographers about. Some costs I didn’t include in the table was for printer paper that I already had that I used for the centrepiece prints. The table itself was made for free by the Brunswick woodwork group out of used scaffolding planks. They’ll be reusing it for something else that’s still to be decided. 

The biggest outlay was location hire and printing. Hire can be cheaper at Fabrication but I spent a bit more to get storage. The printing for the larger wall prints I went with Fresh Aire who I’ve used before and who turn out excellent digital prints. Prints for the centrepiece was just me at home with a Canon TS6350a on photo paper. I could have done them cheaper elsewhere but I was still fiddling about with the edit until the last minute and I didn’t want to wait for things to turn up in the post. Book printing was by Print Work who’ve I’ve used for zines and books before and are great for making small runs of things you can sell easily or leave behind.

The only thing I would have left out is the Instagram promo post boosts. They did well for making people aware of the exhibition itself but that was mostly advertised to people I know who would have known it was happening anyway. Another promotion I did was having posters in local shops in the village and near my local area where I live. Brunswick did a big push in the few weeks beforehand with mentions on their social media accounts and in newsletters going out to volunteers. My godmother also did a write up in her church magazine which goes out locally.

Exhibition space hire > £240

Instagram promo post 1 (March 24) > £39.14

Instagram promo post 2 (April 24) > £43.36

Printing for walls (Fresh Aire) > £320

Clips (Rymans) > £11.97

Magnetic hanging clips from Ebay > £78.80

Book printing (Print.Work) > £111.61

Home printing (ink) > £54.99

Total: £899.87

Feedback

A selection of feedback postcards that I left out for people to fill in.

What’s next?

I’m now moving into year two for the project. I intend to keep going with it for as long as possible, whether that’s another six months or ten years and we’ll see how it develops. I’ll be workshopping off the back of this as some people at Brunswick are keen on photography so we’d like to put something together for this year.

The other things I need to look at are:

• How to travel the show and display it to a different audience other than local people with a familiarity with the subject

• Could I take a few images from the overall work and put them in a mixed larger exhibition?

• For the next exhibit, would it be worth just doing a weekend with an opening?

There is potential for a show with my MA cohort through Biscuit Books but the details still need to be put together.