Fine Art America - A Precious Find

I have signed up for a free account on Fine Art America since January 7th. I am very happy with my experience so far and I am very excited about what the website has to offer. Here is a brief recap.

Fine Art America is a market place that connects artists with fine art buyers/collectors. It's a great place to sell and buy fine art prints and paintings. It provides order fulfillment service ("print on demand") and frees the artists from having to deal directly with printing, framing, and shipping of their artworks.

With a free account, I can only upload 25 of my photos. It was a challenge to limit myself to such a small selection, but the limit forced me to be more conscientious of the "fine art" aspect of the photo. Does it look artistic and will it look good on a large print? If the answer to either of these questions is no, it's out. The upload interface is easy to use and very functional. I really like the FAA policy for buyers: 30 day money back guarantee. If I were a buyer, I would definitely like that feature before buying prints from unknown (or even renown) artists! FAA also provides full-resolution preview of photos and it can also show the photos as canvas/metal/art prints with various framing options. I think these are great features for buyers that are not available on other websites.

FAA has a nice artist community as well and it provides a host of opportunities for the community to interact. It also provides visibility for your work to potential buyers. FAA Groups provide an interesting platform to showcase your photos to a likeminded group of people (and to buyers interested in a particular kind of medium/topic too). The group administrator selects photos to be featured and selected photos will get more exposures. There are also various ongoing competitions hosted by members and they can be juried or voted by other members or even the general public. Competitions provide another way to showcase your work. Once your photos are uploaded to FAA, it's very easy to add them to groups or join competitions.

After a few busy days on FAA, here is my current tally: 9 followers, 485 photo views, 4 photos featured in 5 groups, and 1 press release:-) I have also discovered 15 artists to follow: photographers, digital artists, painters working with various mediums. Some of the artists cross multiple mediums (photographer + digital artist + painter). I may buy arts from them one day, who knows? I love that FAA hosts arts of different mediums. I am very interested in fine art paintings and I'm also interested in "painting" with cameras myself. Why limit oneself to a single medium?

And to my surprise and delight, a woman artist I just "met" on FAA even generously offered to take me on a private tour of a photogenic area in the southwest!

And, the number of prints sold so far: 0 :-) I do hope this number will change over time. After I make sales, I will probably sign up for the premium account and give up my current website and make a full transition to FAA.

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