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Author: Preston Ferguson

  • The Fine Art Print Buyer’s Guide (Everything We’ve Learned, in One Place)

    The Fine Art Print Buyer’s Guide (Everything We’ve Learned, in One Place)

    Over the last few months, we’ve answered the same handful of questions from new collectors, one at a time, in thirteen separate posts. It seemed worth pulling them into one place — not a rewrite, just a map. If you’re starting a collection, or trying to figure out if the piece you’re eyeing is actually worth buying, start here and follow the threads that matter to you.

    Starting from zero

    Most collections don’t start with a plan. They start with one photograph that stops you mid-scroll. The hardest step isn’t building the collection — it’s starting the first one. Once you’re past that, the most common way people trip themselves up is hesitating for the wrong reasons, so it’s worth knowing what that mistake actually looks like before you make it.

    What to actually ask before you buy

    Styles, sizes, papers, editions — it blurs together fast. Five questions cut through most of it, and they work whether you’re buying a $60 open edition or a signed limited print.

    Prints, posters, and the difference that matters later

    A fine art print and a poster can look identical in a phone photo. They are not the same object, and the difference shows up in the first ten years, not the first ten minutes. Once you know what you’re looking at, spotting a high-quality print takes seconds, not expertise.

    Signatures, certificates, and what they actually prove

    Two questions come up constantly, and both have real answers instead of vague ones: does a signature really matter, and what is a Certificate of Authenticity actually documenting. Neither is decoration. Both are part of what you’re paying for.

    Why some prints last a century and others fade in ten years

    This is the one most new collectors never think to ask about until it’s too late. Archival printing is the difference between a piece that ages with you and one that quietly fades on the wall.

    The investment question, answered honestly

    “Is this a good investment” deserves a straight answer, not hype — here’s the honest one. If you’re specifically weighing established names against newer work, emerging artists are often the smarter entry point, for reasons that have nothing to do with luck.

    Buying direct

    At some point, collectors stop just choosing what to buy and start choosing who to buy from. Here’s why buying directly from the artist becomes the default for a lot of people, once they’ve done it once.

    Living with what you buy

    The exact same print can look like a statement piece or an afterthought, and the difference is entirely presentation, not the art itself. And once you own more than one piece, here’s the real roadmap from first purchase to an actual, cohesive collection — not a plan you draw up in advance, but a pattern that shows up in hindsight.

    That’s the full guide, thirteen conversations deep. If you’re ready to put it into practice, browse the current prints and limited editions — or start with whichever question above is actually keeping you up at night.

  • The Seoul Neighborhood With a Curfew for Tourists (And Why We’d Stay There Again)

    The Seoul Neighborhood With a Curfew for Tourists (And Why We’d Stay There Again)

    Here’s a sentence I didn’t expect to write about a vacation rental: we had a curfew. Not a suggestion, not a polite house rule taped to the fridge — an actual, enforced-with-fines, 10am-to-5pm curfew, because we were staying inside Bukchon Hanok Village, one of Seoul’s last neighborhoods of traditional hanok houses, and the city would very much like tourists to stop wandering through it at all hours taking pictures of people’s front doors.

    We found this out the honest way: by almost getting stopped. The rule is real — Seoul designated Bukchon a Special Management Area and started fining daytime tourist traffic through the residential lanes in early 2025 — and if you’re actually staying inside the curfew zone, not just visiting it, you need to prove that on the spot. We kept a printed Airbnb confirmation in our bag the entire trip like it was a hall pass, because apparently it was one.

    A hanok rooftop inside Bukchon Hanok Village, Seoul

    The house itself made the whole arrangement worth it. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls around a private garden, an outdoor soaking tub we had to fill ourselves, a toilet seat with more technology in it than my first car, a little projector for movie nights, a bedroom we didn’t need. And here’s the part that surprised me most: for a house made almost entirely of glass, sitting in the middle of a dense historic neighborhood, it never once felt like anyone could see in. Six minutes from the edge of the village to the heart of it, K-pop merchandise and what looked like a film shoot happening two streets over, and inside our little glass box, total privacy. That contrast — ancient roofline, glass walls, ultra-modern toilet, ten feet from a K-pop set — is Seoul in one house.

    I'm Not in Seoul, But I Have Listened to K-Pop — Vintage Travel Postcard Pack

    I’m Not in Seoul, But I Have Listened to K-Pop — Vintage Travel Postcard Pack

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    So here’s the actual travel tip buried in the story: if you’re picking where to stay in Seoul, a hanok inside Bukchon isn’t just a photogenic Instagram backdrop — it comes with a real rule most visitors never hear about until they’re standing in the alley wondering why a stranger is asking to see their phone. Bring the confirmation. Respect the hours. And go anyway, because waking up under a two-hundred-year-old roofline with a heated toilet seat is a genuinely great way to start a morning in a country that does old and new better than almost anywhere else we’ve been.

    The rest of that trip — palaces, DMZ tunnels, a market pancake worth getting rained on for — is mailed home the same honest way. Curfew included.

    Shop the South Korea collection

  • New Zealand Has the Best-Dressed Livestock

    New Zealand Has the Best-Dressed Livestock

    I went to New Zealand to photograph landscapes and came home with an indefensible number of photos of cows. I regret nothing.

    Here is the situation. New Zealand has the best-dressed livestock on the planet, and I will not be taking questions. The highland cows alone are worth the airfare — enormous, unbothered, with the exact haircut of a rock guitarist who’s been through some things and come out serene. They look at you like they’ve read your emails and decided to forgive you.

    The llamas are running a close second, mostly on attitude. And the sheep — well, there are a lot of sheep in New Zealand, so statistically some of them are going to be photogenic, and they are. I’d be lining up a wide landscape, some genuinely serious composition, and a sheep would wander into frame with better light on it than the mountain.

    I don’t have a grand point here. Not every photograph has to be about the raw, untouched majesty of the end of the earth. Sometimes it’s about a cow with a fantastic fringe. The trip that produced the serious South Island guide also produced a small gallery of extremely dignified farm animals, and I think both are allowed to exist.

    A few of these may end up as prints, because apparently I now make animal portraits. If a highland cow ends up on a postcard, you’ll know exactly why. Until then — see where I’ve been. It’s mostly mountains. It’s a little bit cows.

    — Preston

  • I Drove to a GPS Coordinate I Wasn’t Sure Existed

    I Drove to a GPS Coordinate I Wasn’t Sure Existed

    Everyone else had a plan for the day. Alex was golfing. Matt and Rachel were shopping. And I had a set of GPS coordinates I’d heard were worth the drive, with one small problem: I wasn’t entirely sure the place existed.

    Not “existed” in a philosophical way. Existed in a “the internet said there was a cave and a waterfall back here, but the internet says a lot of things, and it’s probably flooded and definitely cold” way. So I rented a car and drove toward them anyway.

    I stopped at the Blue Pools first, which are exactly as advertised — glacial water so clear it plays tricks on your sense of depth. Then I kept going, out toward Haast Pass, to the coordinates. The water was up. It was cold in the way that gets into your decision-making. But I came prepared — I always come prepared, because the entire premise of what I do is that I was standing in the actual place, and you can’t stand in the actual place from the warm car — and I got back into the cave, to the waterfall, and made the photographs I’d driven out there for.

    Why this is the whole brand in one drive

    I sell real photographs of real places. That line does a lot of quiet work. It means every image has a morning attached to it, a weather report, usually a mild bad decision. The Haast cave is the literal version: nobody handed me that frame. I drove to a coordinate I wasn’t sure was real, on my one free day, and got cold on purpose.

    I’m not telling you this to sound rugged. I’m telling you because when you buy one of these — a postcard, a print, the eventual wall-sized edition — you’re buying the part where I actually went. That’s the difference between what I make and a stock library or an AI that has never once had wet socks. My feet were cold. That’s the product.

    If you want to follow the same road

    The Haast run is one leg of a much bigger South Island loop. I mapped the whole thing — Queenstown to Milford to Haast to the Wanaka Tree to Tekapo — in the South Island photographer’s guide, including where to point the camera and which stops are worth the detour. The cave photos are heading into the print store as I finish them. Until the wall-sized version exists, start small. It still counts.

    — Preston

  • A Photographer’s Guide to Utah’s Best Light, Season by Season

    A Photographer’s Guide to Utah’s Best Light, Season by Season

    People ask me when the “best” time to shoot in Utah is, and the honest answer is that Utah doesn’t really have an off-season — it has four very different ones, and each rewards a different kind of session. Here’s how I think about the year when someone’s trying to pick a date.

    Fall (roughly late September–October): the easy yes

    If you want me to make the choice for you, it’s fall. The light softens, the canyons turn, and the whole state briefly looks like it’s showing off. Golden hour gets longer and gentler, which is flattering for people and forgiving for me. It’s the peak booking window for family sessions for a reason, and the color doesn’t wait around — miss the window by two weeks and you’re shooting bare branches.

    Winter: underrated, if you dress for it

    Winter light in Utah is low, clean, and quiet, and the crowds vanish. Snow acts like a giant softbox — even midday can work, which is not true most of the year. It asks more of everyone (warm layers, shorter sessions, cold hands), but the payoff is a look you cannot get any other time.

    Spring: green, moody, unpredictable

    Spring gives you fresh green and dramatic skies, with the tradeoff that the weather does whatever it wants. That unpredictability is a feature if you like a little drama in the frame and a bug if you need certainty. Great for engagement sessions where a moody sky earns its keep.

    Summer: shoot the edges of the day

    Summer in Utah means committing to early or late — sunrise and the last hour before sunset — and largely writing off the harsh middle. It’s the season that most rewards getting up uncomfortably early. The trade is that the days are long, so “golden hour” is genuinely generous at both ends.

    The short version

    Fall is the safe, gorgeous default. Winter is the sleeper. Spring is for drama. Summer is for people willing to set an alarm. Whatever you pick, the light is doing most of the work — my job is knowing when and where it’s going to be good, which is most of what you’re actually hiring.

    If you already know the season, here’s how I think about picking the actual location, and my favorite Utah spots for couples. When you’re ready, let’s get a date on the calendar.

    — Preston

  • 3 Days in Sydney: A Photographer’s Walk-Through

    3 Days in Sydney: A Photographer’s Walk-Through

    Three days is not enough time to “do” Sydney, so I didn’t try. I walked it, shot it early, and let the afternoons go slow. Here’s the exact route we took — useful if you’ve got a camera and roughly the same amount of time.

    Day 1 — The greatest hits, on foot

    Start at the Opera House, because you’re going to anyway, then walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge — the view back toward the sails is the one you think you’ve already seen a hundred times, and it still gets you. We carried on to Luna Park (the giant grinning face at the entrance is a gift to anyone holding a camera) and took the ferry back. Sydney is a harbor city; the ferry is not a tourist activity, it’s just the good way to travel, and it happens to hand you a moving viewpoint of the skyline for the price of a normal ticket.

    Day 2 — Bondi, slowly, then a sunset ferry

    Bondi Beach in the morning, a long unhurried breakfast, then the Bondi coastal walk — cliffs, pools, and more joggers in better shape than you. In the evening we went out to the Watson Bay lighthouse, then timed the ferry back for sunset so we’d catch the Opera House as the light went. That’s the move I’d repeat: don’t shoot the Opera House at midday with everyone else. Let the ferry deliver it to you at golden hour instead.

    Day 3 — The one photograph, then actually relax

    I got up before sunrise and walked to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair in the dark. That’s where the Opera House image I sell comes from — the tile detail up top, the part we stop seeing because we’re so used to the whole building. (The full pre-dawn story is its own post: Greetings From Sydney.) After that, we let the day off the leash — over to Manly Beach to just hang out. We’d talked about a scuba dive and skipped it; the water was cold and, honestly, sometimes you’d rather enjoy the trip than white-knuckle a dive you’ll spend all morning dreading. Dinner was in Chinatown, street tables, the most attentive service of the whole trip.

    Recommended products

    A note on how Sydney feels

    We’d just come off a run of trips through Asia, and Sydney hit differently — so Western, so familiar, that it made the world feel small for a minute. A huge, buzzing city on the far side of the planet that could almost be home. Worth knowing going in: it’s an easy city to love, not a hard one to decode.

    Where to point the camera (the short list)

    Mrs Macquarie’s Chair at sunrise, the bridge walk looking back at the sails, the sunset ferry, and Luna Park’s face for something with a little humor in it. Shoot the details, not just the postcard — that’s usually where the actual photograph is hiding.

    Speaking of postcards: the Opera House detail became Greetings From Sydney in the Postcards Collection, if you’d like the small version of a place you may or may not make it to. Start there.

    — Preston

  • How to Care for and Store Fine Art Prints (So They Actually Last)

    How to Care for and Store Fine Art Prints (So They Actually Last)

    You bought the print. Good. Now let’s make sure it outlives both of us, which — if it’s printed the way mine are — it’s fully capable of doing, provided you don’t undo that with a sunny wall and a damp basement.

    None of this is complicated. A fine art print isn’t fragile, exactly; it’s just honest. It’ll show you the conditions you keep it in over a long enough time. Here’s how to keep it happy.

    Handle it by the edges

    Skin has oils. Prints have long memories. When you’re moving an unframed print, hold it by the edges (clean, dry hands, or cotton gloves if you want to feel official about it) and try not to press the surface. Fingerprints on a matte cotton-rag surface can show up later even when they were invisible going on. If you need to set it down, set it on something clean and flat, face up.

    Keep it out of direct sun

    This is the big one. Even the best archival pigment prints have a happier, longer life out of harsh, direct sunlight. Bright, indirect light is your friend. A wall that gets a blast of full afternoon sun is the one place I’d avoid — not because the print will vanish next week, but because decades are the whole point, and UV is the one thing quietly working against that timeline. If your only good wall is a bright one, framing with UV-protective glazing solves most of it.

    Frame it right, or store it flat

    Framing does two jobs: it protects the print and it changes how the print reads on the wall (more on that in The Art of Display). Use acid-free mats and backing so the materials touching your print aren’t slowly working against it. If you’re not framing yet, store prints flat — in an archival sleeve or between acid-free boards — not rolled and rubber-banded in a closet. Rolling a print and forgetting about it for a year is how you end up fighting a curl forever.

    Mind the humidity

    Prints like what people like: moderate, stable conditions. Not the damp basement, not directly above a radiator, not the bathroom with the great light and the terrible humidity swings. Stable beats perfect. Wild swings are what you’re avoiding.

    The short version

    Handle by the edges, keep it out of direct sun, frame with acid-free materials (or store it flat), and don’t keep it anywhere you wouldn’t want to sit for a year. Do that and the archival part does the rest — which is the whole reason to buy a real print instead of a poster in the first place. If you want the deep version of why some prints last a century and others fade in a decade, I wrote that one too.

    Not collecting yet? Start small. A postcard or an open-edition print counts, and it teaches you everything above for a fraction of the stakes.

    — Preston

  • Our Plane Tried to Land in Queenstown Twice, Then Gave Up

    Our Plane Tried to Land in Queenstown Twice, Then Gave Up

    Queenstown’s airport is tucked between mountains, which is lovely in a photograph and slightly less lovely when you are trying to physically land an airplane in it.

    We came in the first time and got close — close enough to see individual blades of grass, close enough that everyone had already done the quiet thing where you decide the flight went fine and you’re basically home. Then the engines spooled back up and we climbed. Wind. The pilot came around and tried again from the other runway direction, got down to what felt like fifty feet, and pulled up a second time. Two runs at the ground, two polite retreats, and then the announcement nobody wants on the leg they’ve been looking forward to for two years: we were diverting to Christchurch for the night.

    Now, here’s the thing about traveling with Matt. Matt is a master planner. The kind of person who has a backup dinner reservation for a city he was not supposed to be in. We hadn’t been on the ground in Christchurch for an hour before he’d produced a plan: Kaiser Brew Garden, in the Riverside Market — a whole building of restaurants that used to be shipping-container eateries, now a proper food hall. We ate well, slept, and flew back the next morning, and this time the mountains let us in.

    I want to be honest about why I’m telling you this instead of just showing you the pretty version. The pretty version is real too — Queenstown turned out to be a genuine dream, and I’ll get to that. But the brand here has always been I was actually there, and “actually there” includes the part where the plane wouldn’t land and we ate schnitzel in a city we hadn’t booked. The trip is the trip. The mishaps are half of why it’s worth writing down.

    What we got once we finally landed

    Everything, basically. Go-karts and dinner at the top of Skyline Queenstown, looking down over the whole valley. A perfect crisp fall day in Arrowtown, renting bikes and riding out through the countryside to wineries. And a bus-and-boat run out to Milford Sound — we were supposed to fly, but it rained the entire time, so we bused it. Which sounds like a downgrade until the rain turned every cliff face into a waterfall that only exists when it’s pouring. Cold, soaked, worth it. That’s a sentence I could put under half the photographs I’ve ever taken.

    The part that pays for the story

    A lot of what I shot on the South Island is heading into the print store — Queenstown, the Southern Alps, the road out to Milford. If you want the practical version of this trip, the full South Island photographer’s guide walks the whole route and tells you where to actually point the camera. And if you just want a small piece of New Zealand on your desk before the wall-sized version exists, start with the postcard. Nobody starts with the wall-sized version.

    — Preston

  • Fall Family Photos in Utah: The Complete Guide

    Fall Family Photos in Utah: The Complete Guide

    There’s a two- or three-week window every fall when Utah’s canyons turn gold, the light goes soft and warm, and everything looks like it was made for a family photo. It’s my favorite time of year to shoot — and if you want your family on a wall (or this year’s holiday card) looking like that, a little planning goes a long way.

    Here’s everything I’d tell you over coffee before a fall session: when to go, where to point us, and what to wear so you all look like yourselves — just the golden-hour version.

    When to book: chasing Utah’s fall color

    Utah’s fall color is worth chasing, but it doesn’t wait around. Up in the higher canyons — Park City, the Cottonwoods, Provo Canyon — the aspens usually peak from late September into mid-October. Down in the valley, the color hangs on a week or two longer. Weather nudges it earlier or later every year, so the move is to book early and stay a little flexible: I keep an eye on the canyons and we pick the moment.

    One more reason to plan ahead — fall weekends fill fast, and golden hour creeps earlier as the season goes. The families who reach out in late summer get the best pick of dates and light.

    Where to shoot: my favorite fall family spots

    These are the places I come back to for fall families — a mix of full-on aspen-and-mountain drama and easy, kid-friendly options where nobody has to hike. (For the full list with addresses, fees, and a spot for every vibe, see my guide to choosing the perfect Utah location.)

    For the aspens and mountain color

    • Aspen Grove, Provo Canyon — dense golden aspens and dreamy late light. Hard to beat for classic fall family photos.
    • Guardsman Pass, Park City — alpine overlooks and iconic fall aspens up high; big, cinematic color.
    • Tibble Fork Reservoir, American Fork Canyon — a mountain lake with easy access and dramatic peaks behind you.
    • Silver Lake at Brighton, Big Cottonwood Canyon — a flat boardwalk loop around an alpine lake: the mountain look without the hike (great with little ones or grandparents along).
    • Jordan Pines, Big Cottonwood Canyon — forested and creekside with soft light; my go-to when there are toddlers in the mix.
    • Logan Canyon (First Dam), Logan — water, mountains, and some of the best fall color in the state (a travel fee applies up here).

    For easy access, close to the city

    • Memory Grove, Salt Lake City — tree-lined paths and soft greenery minutes from downtown.
    • Tunnel Springs Park, North Salt Lake — rolling hills and sweeping valley views at sunset.
    • Antelope Island — big sky and golden light when you want something wide and cinematic (state-park fee).

    What to wear: the fall family edition

    This is the question I get most, so here’s the short version: wear things you’d actually wear, in colors that belong in an autumn landscape. A few rules of thumb that make a family look pulled-together without looking like a matching set:

    Comfort first

    Pick clothes you already feel like yourself in. A shoot is not the day to break in a stiff new outfit — if you’re tugging at a collar or the kids are itchy, it shows. Comfortable people photograph better, every single time.

    Dress for the season (and the elevation)

    Fall in the canyons is gorgeous and cold once the sun drops. Lean into it: layers are your friend — jackets, cardigans, chunky knits, scarves, a good hat. They add cozy texture to the photos and keep everyone happy between frames.

    Build an earthy palette

    Autumn does the color work for you. Aim for neutrals and earthy tones — cream, oatmeal, rust, mustard, olive, camel, deep denim. Softer versions of colors read better than bright primaries, which tend to pull the eye away from your faces. Think ochre instead of orange, sky blue instead of electric blue.

    Complement — don’t match

    The old “everyone in white shirts and jeans” trick turns a family into one blurry blob — you can’t tell where one person ends and the next begins. Instead, keep the whole family to about four colors and let them play together. Pick one person to wear a feature piece — say, mom in a rust dress — and dress everyone else in tones that complement it. Variety in color, texture, and layers is what makes a family photo sing.

    Go easy on logos and loud patterns

    Big logos and busy prints fight your faces for attention (and date a photo fast). If you love a pattern, keep it subtle and limit it to one person — a soft flannel or a small floral, not head-to-toe print.

    Shoes you can actually walk in

    We’ll be on uneven ground more often than not, so skip anything you can’t move in. Boots are perfect for the mountains and look great in fall — save the heels for the ballroom. Happy feet make for a happier session.

    Still stuck? Bring two options per person and we’ll figure it out on the day. When you book, I’ll send my full fall wardrobe cheat-sheet — and you can always browse my what-to-wear guide for outdoor family photos for more.

    Keeping it easy with the kids

    If your main worry is whether the kids will melt down — I’ve got you. My sessions are loose and play-based; we keep it moving, keep it fun, and let the real moments happen instead of forcing everyone to say “cheese.” (I wrote up my honest on-set tricks in how to keep kids happy during family photos.)

    Let’s plan your fall session

    Fall books up fast and the color window is short — if you want your family in the aspens this year, now’s the time to grab a date. Tell me the vibe you’re after and roughly where you’re based, and I’ll help you pick the perfect spot and the best light.

    Book your fall family session →

    — Preston

  • What an Editorial Intimate Session Actually Looks Like

    What an Editorial Intimate Session Actually Looks Like

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