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YOU ARE BIDDING ON A BEAUTIFUL LIMITED EDITION 4X6 PRINT THAT IS DEVELOPED IN PROFESSIONAL LAB. THE QUALITY IS SUPERB. BACK OF PHOTO SHOWS ALL INFORMATION ABOUT PRINT- AIRLINE/A-C/REGISTRATION/AIRPORT/DATE SHOT. SHIPPING IS JUST $1 ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
A New Era Of Collecting Airliner Photos
By Joe Pries
The hobby of collecting airliner photos continues to evolve. Slide collectors are still found around the world but slide photographers are certainly not as easy to find. In the U.S. alone there are no more than about 5 active slide photographers who regularly visit airports and trade and sell their slides. The slide hobby will be around as long as slide film is produced which will be for many years to come, albeit in perhaps more limited quantities as slides continue to be a niche market. It should be said that the amount of slide photographers around today is directly correlated to the level of pain that is involved in getting out on a major airport’s ramp to shoot slides. After 9/11/01 this has become much more difficult as all collectors know. As in all open markets, supply and demand shifts with the prevailing conditions. So less photographers getting out on ramps means that the photographers that can get out have something that is in high demand- simple economics. While I am one of those hardcore slide photographers who does get out on ramps on a regular basis, I want get away from that for the moment and discuss a medium that is available to all collectors with or without ramp access; 4x6 photos. Go to Airliners.net and you’ll see over 10,000 photographers showing their newest and best photos online. These photographers are found at just about every major airport in the world. How many of these photographers are digital? Probably just about all of them. How do we continue the airline photography hobby going for years to come with a readily trade-able and sellable product? Let’s promote 4x6 photos for trade and buy/sell. Let’s take the thousands of photographers out there and create a market. Just think, with 4x6 photos everyone out there can participate in the hobby. I’m talking about more than just get your photo online and be happy, I’m talking about creating a piece of art that can be traded or sold to other collectors. I’m talking about a medium that you can use to create airliner photo conventions to complement the slide conventions held in Frankfurt, Munich, Miami, Charlotte and other cities. I’m talking about being able to auction off your 4x6 photos online to collectors. You do not need ramp access to shoot 4x6 photos so the current airport photography limitations are almost non-existent for approach/takeoff shots and other creative photography in and around airports. I personally have many digital photos taken in Corfu, St. Martin and other neat airports, which provide some amazing aviation photos and I’ve made 4x6 prints of some of these photos to trade/sell to interested collectors. Some say that a 4x6 photo can be produced an unlimited amount of times, hindering the ability to hold a rare piece of art like an original Kodachrome slide. While that is a rational argument, let me say that the 4x6 photo should be given a value based on the merit of the photo itself and the photographer should control the amount of photos he produces to maintain a level of originality/rarity. This is different than a photographer who shot only 3 slides of an airplane in 1968, yes, but this is a different product with a different mindset attached to it. 4x6 photos are given the same quality characteristics as slides: no high sun, sharp, full frame (side shots) and overall high quality in every respect. 4x6 photos should be printed in a professional lab and preferably with the photo’s information printed by the lab on the back of the photo (Costco does this in the USA). I ask those of you shooting digital today to think about 4x6 photos and help to build a new era in aviation photography. I still continue to shoot slides and will for years to come but I am very excited about 4x6 photos to complement my collecting, especially for all those nice digital shots I have which are sitting in my hard drive, which is not a very good way to share photos with collectors worldwide.
Feel free to write to me to discuss your thoughts on this subject: airlinephoto@yahoo.com
JP
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