Has anyone actually gotten a fair consignment deal in Culver City?
I dropped off a portfolio of large format night landscape prints at a gallery in Culver City last fall. Two follow up emails, one phone call, nothing back. Complete silence after what felt like a genuine conversation in person.
I get that galleries are busy, but the ghosting is hard to square with how enthusiastic the initial meeting was. And when I do hear back from other spots, the terms are rough. Sixty percent commission on prints that take real time to produce, hours of exposure stacking and processing before I even get to printing. One place near Bergamot Station wanted a hanging fee on top of commission, which I walked away from.
I'm mostly curious whether other photographers or anyone working in editions has found a gallery in LA that actually works on reasonable consignment terms and pays within 30 days. Or is the move to skip galleries entirely and just do your own thing at this point?
Hey, the ghosting after what felt like a real connection is one of the most demoralizing parts of the gallery game, and it says nothing about your work. That's universal to artists approaching galleries, not a reflection of the prints.
A few things worth knowing about consignment math and what to do next:
- Sixty percent commission on prints that require hours of exposure stacking and processing is brutal. Standard gallery commission on originals runs 40 to 50 percent. For prints, especially labor-intensive ones, you should be pushing for 50/50 or better, and framing the production time as part of the negotiation. "Each print involves X hours of field work and processing" reframes the conversation from "it's a print" to "it's a hand-produced edition."
- The ghosting pattern usually means one of two things: they liked your work but don't have wall space right now, or the person you met isn't the decision-maker. A single short follow-up that gives them an easy out works better than chasing. Something like: "Totally understand if the timing isn't right. Would it help if I checked back in September?" One sentence, zero pressure, and it either reopens the door or gives you a clean close.
- For large-format landscape photography, coffee shops and restaurants with real foot traffic often convert better than galleries and at much lower commission, sometimes 10 to 20 percent. Worth exploring if you haven't. Before agreeing to any venue deal, ask how many pieces they've actually sold in the last six months. That one question tells you everything.
- The strongest long-term play for night landscapes is building a direct collector list so galleries become one channel, not the only channel. Even a small email list of 50 people who love your night work puts you in a fundamentally different negotiating position.
Not sure how to word that follow-up to the gallery? I can draft it for you right now
Other resources you might find helpful:
- Consignment terms in Culver City — anyone actually getting paid on time? — Real artist shares identical Culver City consignment problem with payment delays and discusses viable alternatives like direct-sales art shows.
- First time pricing a custom commission piece — Concrete tactics for pricing custom commission work: per-square-inch rates, hourly estimation, and separate line items for materials and shipping.
- Pricing work for a venue that discounts without asking you — How to price prints when a venue discounts without permission, with specific math on stacking venue commissions against markups to protect actual profit.
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