Photo Prints business madness and a show and tell

Image by Martin E. Dodge

Photography is a rewarding hobby with benefits ranging from stress management to staying up to date with the latest technology. Today’s cameras are modern marvels, with innovations and optical properties difficult to reproduce with other means. Smartphones, apps, and artificial intelligence often fall short in results compared to technique, setting, spontaneity, the decisive moment, and old-fashioned je ne sais quoi. Ideally, in a world full of lies, a photo captures some essence or truth rather than adding to the deception. But what about humanity’s all-consuming desire for distraction and entertainment, you ask. Well, you must display your photos to hit the world's rage-or-joy buttons.

There are many ways to share photos online, but they all feel less effective than stapling up printouts around town. A personal website is great if you are willing to invest, but driving traffic to it is a monumental challenge if you do not offer photography services, sales, or a physical storefront and inventory. Print-on-demand options for selling your work sound good. Still, the harsh reality is that there is no support for marketing beyond your word of mouth or built-in following, despite the vague promises of print-on-demand service companies.

I am familiar with the treadmill and finger-pointing of social media companies and products such as Google Analytics and Merchant Center. Print-on-demand service companies often do not integrate with or support marketing platforms because their product availability varies. Google, other online merchant centers, and social media store options do not tolerate inconsistent or non-trackable inventory. This protects consumers from some forms of fraud but locks businesses out of many online marketing tools.

Many US companies offer print-on-demand options, but few are easy to integrate with my Squarespace-hosted website. I switched from Shopify because I was unhappy with the blogging and website layout options. Shopify is fantastic for retail sales, and Squarespace offers flexibility for artists and service providers. I am not in the business of testing, comparing, and reporting on e-commerce services, and I question whether anyone who does sells more than hype for the industry. In addition, I am a creative who makes digital art, not a retailer managing inventory and selling other people's products. There is role overlap, but I am one person, not an organization, and I don’t create clickbait for ad revenue.

For my photography print-on-demand needs, I chose Fine Art America to sell photo prints. I have ordered some of my work, and I am very pleased with the quality and service. I have issues with Fine Art America (aka Pixels.com), including their clunky, outdated website and their promotion of a mobile app that still doesn’t exist as of February 2026. Fine Art America has legions of online haters, but most seem like entitled opinions, operator errors, trolls, and parrots. Fine Art America is an easy, low-maintenance option for selling quality artwork. But it needs to drop its small-staff brag, step into the modern digital age, and represent itself like the global print-on-demand juggernaut it is. Despite the lack of a mobile app, the website's shopping experience works well on mobile and tablets. I compensate for the lack of modernity on the Fine Art America and Pixels.com websites by showing what work is available for products and including links from my beautiful website.

I also use Redbubble for print-on-demand products. While I offer photo prints at uduforuDesigns on Redbubble, my product focus is my digital art printed on apparel. My visual arts creativity has been evolving for some time, and t-shirt designs were my first products. Redbubble has its well-deserved army of haters, but I don’t see a better alternative that doesn’t involve managing your own retail website. The pittance of a payout and the lack of sales sting less when listing your stuff for sale costs nothing, and you don't need to collect and remit sales taxes. I want the shopping experience, especially the checkout, to be less spammy. But the payment process is secure, and I have had good experiences with returns and resolving lost mail (my local post office is always the culprit). The quality of the products I ordered from Redbubble is comparable to the quality of the Printful items I sold when I had a Shopify-hosted website. Redbubble's marketing promises will sound marginally better than those of similar companies, but it all comes down to self-promotion.

There is no such thing as passive income in any business. Learning how to do a thing is different from doing it. Selling the thing has nothing to do with doing the thing. All of these things will take a great deal of time and money. If you focus on the payout, you will be left wanting. But the government will still want its share. Money earned from the sale of a hobby counts as additional income for tax purposes. Online sales have a built-in tracking system, so you can’t cook the books or pretend it isn’t there. Choose not to report income at your peril. Do your homework and talk to an accountant if making sales is a goal.

Whatever your photography goals, there is no substitute for experiencing a printed photo. All the hard work of digital enhancement or AI-assisted trickery will be put to the test when viewing an image off-screen. If you are a photo purist, then print it au natural, you do you. I encourage you to print as large as you can or afford and hang it on the wall. However, sizing a wall space ahead of time would make the most sense. You must pay to play to get photo prints into a museum, gallery, store, craft fair, or local market, so start at home. Learning about photo printing quality, methods, and materials will be a new and unavoidable part of the job. It's your art, a distillation of your experience, and it should be shared.

And now, for a show-and-tell of my photos hanging in my apartment.

Twin Trees Sunburst 01, 9.5in x 14in with 2 in border, Hahnemühle Photo Rag print

A chance morning encounter of a sunburst on a trail at Secluded Farm near Monticello, outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. I have not found this view on the trail again because I do not GPS my shots. The time and date stamp on the photo is not a good guarantee of arriving in the general area with a cooperative sky.

This print is on Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper from WhiteWall photo lab in Germany. The quality and look are amazing.

I stopped offering WhiteWall prints on my website due to a surprisingly glitchy Shopify checkout setup and a chart of astronomical shipping costs for anything other than paper prints. The end of de minimus shipping and wacky US tariffs sealed that door firmly shut.

Also, archival-quality framing to protect and display your investment adds considerable expense.

Twin Trees Sunburst 01 hanging on the wall.

Twin Trees Sunburst 01 with the photographer.

Tree Monster 01, 24in x 16in metal print

I took the photo of Tree Monster on a trail at Secluded Farm near Monticello, outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. I had to shoot quickly when I discovered the scene. It was early morning, and the sun was rapidly burning off the mist. 

This metal print is from Fine Art America. I love the vibrancy, dramatic contrast, and the modern look of the frameless image.

Tree Monster 01 hanging on the wall.

Tree Monster 01 with the photographer.

Autumn Path 03, 24in x 16in, canvas print

This photo is of a trail at Mint Springs Valley Park outside of Crozet, Virginia. I did not have high hopes for the pictures I took on this day, but they ended up being some of my favorites. The overcast sky created a haunted forest feel, and it was darker to the eye than what the camera captured.

On canvas, the print feels more like a painting than a photo. 

This canvas print with a box frame is from CVS Pharmacy. A great value on sale for 50% off! I can’t speak to its resistance to fading or discoloration in sunlight, but it is a sturdy piece that looks great.

Autumn Path 03 hanging on the wall.

Autumn Path 03 with the photographer.

Green Heron 04, 24in x 16in, canvas print

This photo is from Augusta Springs Wetland Park, which is west of Staunton, Virginia, in the George Washington National Forest. The overcast sky was incredibly uniform, providing an ideal lightbox environment for the Green Heron. It was the perfect model and stayed on the branch for a long time, looking around, scratching its head, and preening. I photographed the bird for as long as possible, walking around the wooden boardwalk, trying to find the best angle.

I think the canvas creates the perfect look, lending a painterly feel to the photo print.

This canvas print with a box frame is from Fine Art America. Fine Art America offers a 75-year guarantee against fading and discoloration for most of its prints.

Green Heron 04 hanging on the wall.

Green Heron 04 with the photographer.

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