Providing prints

Bono in Pittsburgh
(my image, my permission)

Over the past year or two, I have had various requests for some of my U2 photos. I always engage the requesters, and ask about what and why they are looking for. Often it is a shot from a show they went to with a friend, or they are looking for something in their basement, office, or where ever.  Great!

I always ask if they know of the African Well Fund. I have lead a couple photo auctions in the past to help them out, and they have been highly successful. So I figure, why not have my U2 photos continue to help them out.

I write back saying, what I can do is put the images up on my favorite print site, MPIX.com, let them print however they want, and if they like them- make a donation to AWF however they feel they want to.

The downside of this? After I tell them this is how I would like to proceed, they go silent. I didn't ask for additional money up front, I didn't ask them to send me their first born... Just if they liked what they saw, consider making a donation. They didn't have to, they were paying for the print and I was doing most of the work. Maybe they found someone else to do the work, I dunno.

Bono in Chicago
(my image, my permission)

So now I am think I ought to do something else. Maybe I should setup a SmugMug pro account with my U2 photos so anyone can order prints to their hearts delight. I would get 80% of the profits, and every now and then, I would throw some of the profits in to the AWF coffers.

I don't know of any better way to do this right now. There is some sort of market out there for these services. I have tried the fair and nice route. I know people are just printing the images off the screen, even as crap as they are. Or taking them for their own. I want to at least give a professional way for people to obtain them without too much extra work on my end every darn time.


Or maybe I need to find out if the demand is really there or not. *ponder*