All photos by David Schultz
According to nature photographer David Schultz, "Spring and Fall are
my busy times for picture-taking." Aspen and maple trees adorned in fall
colors are big sellers at West Light Images, Schultz' photo gallery located
in Park City, Utah. People also enjoy decorating their walls with spring wildflowers,
he observes.
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David
Schultz' striking nature images are sold as fine art at
his photo gallery. Above: A view of Mount McKinley and Reflection
Pond, Alaska.
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Owning your own photo gallery in a beautiful part of the country and selling
your images as fine art may sound like a dream job. If you've ever considered
doing this, read on. Even more than with most businesses, Schultz points out,
it's very rewarding and extremely hard work.
Shifting Gears
A native of Michigan, Schultz is a self-taught photographer--"I was
never one to sit in a classroom." After high school, he hit the road and
traveled throughout the U.S. and Canada. He later moved to Dallas, Texas, where
he specialized in shooting fashion and lifestyle images for seven years. His
clientele included the Dallas Apparel Mart, Neiman Marcus, and designer Bill
Blass. "It was a good way to learn marketing and the business end of photography,"
he says of the experience. His lifestyle images also lent themselves well to
the stock files of Tony Stone. However, once he moved to Utah, "I found
myself shooting more landscapes than anything else. I'd think, `let's
see, do I want to shoot nuclear waste sites or beautiful mountains?' There
was no contest."
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"Powder Day"; horses running in a snowy Heber Valley,
Utah.
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He decided to switch gears after an assignment to photograph resorts took
him first to New Mexico, and then to the Heber Valley in Utah. Schultz planned
to be on location for about 10 days, but his photo shoot ended short of that
time. His client invited him to see the southeastern part of the state near
Moab, where "we took a whirlwind tour in about two days." Among
the Utah natural wonders they visited were Dead Horse Point State Park, and
Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef National Parks.
Within a month after that visit, Schultz decided to close his Dallas studio,
and he relocated to the Wasatch Mountains of Utah to pursue nature photography.
For a while, he sold photo notecards to the gift shop at Robert Redford's
Sundance Resort near Cedar City. Then he inquired about selling some of his
photos as large, framed pieces on easels on an outdoor deck at the resort. This
proved to be a very lucrative idea, one that really "took off" in
terms of sales.
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Sol
Duc Falls, Olympic National Park, Washington.
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Backlit
Cottonwood leaves in Utah's Wasatch Mountains.
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Schultz alternated between selling his work at Snowbird in a hotel lobby during
ski season, and at Sundance during the spring months. "I decided that
my type of product would be high-end--museum-quality matting and mounting,
and Ilfochrome prints." Today, many of his images are also printed on
Fuji Crystal Archive paper, and he enlists a lab to do some digital printing.
He's found his niche in creating limited-edition, fine-art photos, ranging
from the more-affordable 4x6 up to 30x40 inches, and sometimes larger.
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