(This is Part IV of a multi-part series. For a recap of what happened, please see Part I, Part II, and Part III...)

If I learned anything from this experience, and I will admit to learning at least a little, it was how much better framed photographs look when matted. In years previous, when I had printed out the odd photograph, either for personal consumption or as a gift of some sort, and typically I just used a nondescript black frame, and not much else. Sure, the photographs looked alright, but it wasn't anything particularly special. However, when I broke down and invested in mats for this exhibition, I was amazed how much better the photographs looked, and all for an investment of capital of less than ten dollars per photograph, sometimes as low as $2.99.

In addition to the favorable return on investment for mats, they have the additional advantage of not being particularly hard to deploy effectively, as least not for me. As I've emphasized in the past, and probably unnecessarily so, given that my general lack of skill is obvious, I was and remain pretty much an amateur at this. My background is in business, and not in art, which is why I had spent more time stressing out about how much I'm going to charge for these photographs in the unlikely event somebody will be willing to purchase said photographs than about practically anything else in this exhibition experiment I embarked on. I bet when one attends art school, there's probably a whole class, if not a good part of a semester, devoted to the art of color picking for mats or whatever borders one's art. I didn't take that class, but for once it wasn't a disadvantage.

At this point in the story, I don't fault you for laughing at me. I was definitely starting to feel out of my element, not "out of my element, but that's okay because I'm trying something new", but "I'm out of my element, and that's bad". Things up to this point hadn't gone as I wanted. I had spent way to much time and thought on stuff that didn't really matter so much. I was in danger of failing Goal #1. However, my experience picking out the mats, as tiny and inconsequential as I'm not making it out to be, was probably the first nice surprise of the whole endeavor.

Anyway, my mat strategy was simple. I printed out small versions of my photographs planned for the exhibition and took them with me to the art supply store when I went to buy the frames and mats. I then walked over to the mat section with them and placed the photos behind the mats and tried to pick the mat that seemed to make the photograph look the best. Typically, it seemed to be ones where the color of the mat matched one of the foreground colors in the photograph. For instance, I used a very light blue for the water tower photograph, since that color matched the color of the tower. The light and dark blues of the double-mat on the American Falls photograph seemed to roughly match the color of the water in the waterfall. In some cases, it didn't match exactly, for instance I believe I could have found a bluish-purple tint to match the blueberries perfectly, but what I had at hand was close enough that it seemed to work fine. I'm sure I could've found a way to secure and pay for more custom colors than what was available in the "Mats" section of the store, but I was also sure that would break my modest budget.

It was finally time to put everything together, and bring my completed items to the exhibition. I brought home the supplies, quickly and easily assembled the finished photographs with mats, packed them up, and a few days later took them to the exhibition hall. The first challenge I faced had nothing to do with photography at all. I couldn't find where to drop off the photographs. I ended up parking halfway across the fairgrounds to where I needed to go. However, once I got there, the process was pretty easy. I waited in line for awhile, got up to the front, gave my name, they pulled out my entrance form, and I dropped them off.

A few days later, I actually went to the Fair, just like usual. While I made sure to go look and do all of the common Fair things that I look and do every other year, such as eat a pig-in-a-blanket, visit the livestock, marvel at the largest tomato grown in that calendar year, I was excited to go see my photographs in the gallery exhibit. By this point, common sense had waned under the weight of blatant optimism. While previously I was almost certain not to sell any photographs, at that point, I had put the planning and stress behind me, so it's possible I found a niche market, like I was expecting. If anything, my photographs would be some of the least expensive there, so maybe a frugal person bought one. Previously, I was so certain that I could not win a prize, I decided not to think about it too much, but at that point, why not? Maybe my slightly usual choice of subjects might have caught a judge's eye. Maybe one of the judges was really into water towers. All things were possible before I entered that exhibition hall.

All things may have been possible, but it turned out most possible of all was the most likely outcome. Searching around the hall, I was able to easily locate my three entries, and found that none had won a prize, and all three remained on sale for the reasonable price of $25. I thought back to my goals:

1. To have fun.
2. To gain experience at exhibiting and possibly selling arts and/or crafts.
3. To make money.

It looked like, at that point, the #3 was a lost cause, but I could make a reasonable argument for #1 and #2. I felt more or less okay that I accomplished what I had set out to accomplish, and that I did answer the question that I set out to answer at the start.

At the end of the Fair, I went back and picked up the photographs. Waiting in line, I was once again seized by optimism. It was possible that since I went and saw the exhibit, one or two of those photographs may have sold. Getting to the front of the line, I found out pretty quickly that they were not. So, I took them home and started the process of figuring out exactly what I had learned.