My exhibition is being held from 17th to 24th May 2025 in the Customs House in King’s Lynn. The Customs House is an unusual gallery, in that it doesn’t have the usual white walls, but due to the age of the building which was built in the 18th Century, nothing can be mounted on the ancient walls. Instead, the artworks are exhibitied on frames built around the wrought iron columns that hold up the top floor of the building. The gallery section is quite small, taking up just over half of the ground floor. The entrance is from the quay and you are straight into the gallery on entering the building.

To help me visualise the final exhibition, I have created a virtual exhibition, which can be viewed below:

One of the conditions of holding this exhibition in such a prominent location is that it must be a selling exhibition. I do not know whether I will actually sell any of my images, but if I do, the gallery will keep 30% of the sales price. That creates the inevitable question is how to value the pictures. This is important as although this is a graduation exhibition, I intend to continue to place my pictures for sale in the gallery after the exhibition closes, including images unrelated to my coursework. I also need to consider the possibility that if this exhibition is successful, I may be asked to exhibit further images in the future and I do not want to be doing this at a financial loss.

Creating this exhibition is expensive despite the fact that the gallery is not costing me a lot. Frames, for example, can be very expensive. If I purchase twenty frames for this exhibition that is going to cost me well over two hundred pounds even for cheap commercial frames with plain glass rather than exhibition quality glass. High quality paper is going to cost at least another three hundred pounds before printing, and then there are the printing costs. The panoramic image is far larger than I can print, therefore it will have to be commercially printed, although as it will not be framed it will be a ‘one-off’ for the exhibition and is unlikely to be kept afterwards. All these things add to the cost and of course if I sell further images I have to allow for my time in creating and framing the prints. I intend to put some prints for sale unmounted, as that will be cheaper, but they in turn still require mounting and the use of archival packaging. I also need to print flyers about the exhibition, and posters for the outside of the gallery to attract people. I estimate that this exhibition in total will have cost me well over one thousand pounds, and of course I may not sell a single print.

Another important consideration is that I will need publicity and I have a few options on that score, The obvious one is the local paper as they are always looking for copy, but physical newspapers are in a decline and few people actually buy a newspaper nowadays. There is also a glossy magazine published in this area and I certainly intend to inform them of the exhibition. I also would like to get the exhibition advertised in one of the national photography magazines, and I have a couple of options there.