Continued from May 31 post…
When planning the setup of my gallery I ignored the warning of a local merchant who advised me to drop the idea. Being a newcomer to the area, I was unaware of how short the tourist season is. The heavy traffic peaks during the months of July and August, almost dies in September, revives a little in October, and completely dies from November through May. My gallery was on Main Street and in the center of town, but located on the second floor, reached by a staircase on the outside of the building. I put a positive spin on the outcome of the business by referring to it as a financial failure but an artistic success.
The meaning of financial failure is obvious, and artistic success meant simply that people liked my photography. The first photograph I sold was not one of a beautiful sunset on Wolfeboro Bay, but a simple shot of Main Street showing many of the shops and a
long line of cars. And the purchaser was not a tourist, but a local resident. My best selling day of the entire nine months the gallery was open came near the end of the tourist season, on street-bargain day, when I set up a table at the bottom of the staircase. I was amazed at the number of people willing to buy when they didn’t have to climb a set of stairs to reach the gallery. The gallery venture was over within nine months, but the public’s response to my photographic work was positive enough to encourage me to continue with photography. A craft store had opened up that summer across the street from my gallery, and I showed my photography to the owner who thought it was good enough to sell. The craft store eventually expanded to include an art gallery,
long line of cars. And the purchaser was not a tourist, but a local resident. My best selling day of the entire nine months the gallery was open came near the end of the tourist season, on street-bargain day, when I set up a table at the bottom of the staircase. I was amazed at the number of people willing to buy when they didn’t have to climb a set of stairs to reach the gallery. The gallery venture was over within nine months, but the public’s response to my photographic work was positive enough to encourage me to continue with photography. A craft store had opened up that summer across the street from my gallery, and I showed my photography to the owner who thought it was good enough to sell. The craft store eventually expanded to include an art gallery,
and my photography sold there for almost twenty years. But the photography in the craft store was my old photography, the early landscapes that satisfied the tourists, of which “Sunrise on Rust Pond” and “Sunset on Lake Winnipesaukee” are examples. Besides, I was just practicing back in the early 1990s. The photography I came to consider “works of art” weren’t 
there. They weren’t marketable in a resort-town shop, according to the proprietor who wouldn’t promote them to customers. I am referring to most of my black and white photographs, excepting a few popular landscapes.
there. They weren’t marketable in a resort-town shop, according to the proprietor who wouldn’t promote them to customers. I am referring to most of my black and white photographs, excepting a few popular landscapes. To be continued...
Here are more photographs from the period up to the mid 1990s that were “marketable.”
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Mount Chocorua in Fall
Old Man of the Mountain
Arethusa Falls
Rattlesnake Island
Mount Chocorua Reflected
On Lake Chocorua
Wolfeboro Dockside
from Joe Green’s
on Lake Winnipesaukee
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