Curious about Kickstarter for photography project

[tribal-warrior]

Just recently, I came across a rather old Kickstarter project from 2012 from an American artist who went on a photographic expedition to Australia. His backers received photographic prints of images that he shot on that trip. I think that's a really great way of rewarding the backers – giving them something unique that they could hang up on their wall. This guy included the printing costs as part of the funding target that he published on Kickstarter.

Though I'm very curious about something that would be beneficial to other photographers and artists who might try similar kinds of projects through Kickstarter. How would you go about coming up with an estimate for the number of backers (who would be receiving the prints)? Obviously, when you start a Kickstarter project, there is no way of knowing how many backers there will eventually be. There may be as many as 50 or perhaps 200 backers. So obviously in the beginning, you have no idea how many prints you would need to order. And estimating the potential postage costs for the prints in advance could also be really tricky. For example, I bet the postage rates would vary enormously as it's likely that backers would be in different locations all over the world. I'm just assuming that this American artist included postage costs in the funding target.

So after working out the basic costs of an expedition (travel, accommodation etc) I don't suppose it would be a case of randomly choosing a number of backers who would be receiving prints and selecting the most expensive international postage cost for each one? Or would there be a better way of going about this? In any case, I guess it would be a good idea to overestimate the postage costs because posting over 50 photographic prints to people would cost a fortune (especially if the prints are a fair size.)

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Interesting concept, although difficult during these Covid times. As for cost calculation, international DHL rates should do the trick, or some high-end Post Office service. printing cost would be even easier, and to safeguard against prices of raw materials, I would buy paper and ink as soon as the project starts, after the Kickstarter payment materialises.

It takes some guts to do it though. How can I be sure that the photos that I take on a future journey will be good and interesting enough to satisfy the supporters?

I was once considering doing something similar with a book about a local subject that hasn't been photographed to death yet. What stopped me then wasn't the lack of funding, but finding a good copywriter/journalist who would be willing to work full time on the project for at least a year. That of course wouldn't be a problem with a photography only project.