That's the problem with this part of the world, Bob ... the money is here, and these guys spend staggering sums of it, and have in fact kept
many of my friends employed making everything from their furniture to houses to boats to five million dollar barns for their racehorses - for at least a couple decades ... and now carbon fiber racing yachts .... but they aren't very interested in framed art like the East Coast establishment. They're basically a bunch of rich eccentric techie geeks. Lots of people are intellectually interested in fine photography around here, and pretty savvy about it, but art collecting as such is more a little old ladies' hobby, and the artist involved sure as heck has to have been dead for quite awhile. I'd had lowly millionaire types buy my prints; and even an investment banker flew clear across the country
to buy a print from me once for his wife's birthday present. But the local auction houses just have modest period success selling the work of even canonized photographers of days of yore. ... and it's more likely to be an 8x10 contact print that sits in a little box under someone's
bed. Given the right venue, a big expensive stuff can be sold around here... but my own gig for that kind of thing went away some time back
when the people who owned it as well as their photography director did what we all eventually do - got old and croaked.... and the heirs
had the choice to keep running an expensive gallery or cash in on some of the most valuable real estate in the area, right when techie companies were starting to pay top dollar for downtown highrises. So Plan B.. Plan C.... Plan Dminus....etc.... still plotting.....