11/08/2026
Hi everyone,
I hope you’re enjoying your summer.
To me, there are only two seasons: summer and other. So when August arrives and I realize autumn is lurking only six weeks away, I start to get a little depressed.
It was three years ago that I started what I thought would be my second act: creating and selling art photography. It has turned out to be more work and less art than I imagined—my father would have told me so—but it remains fun, and I know my skills are improving.
So I decided to celebrate.
For one day only, Thursday, August 13, I’m offering 35% off everything except my limited-edition prints.
A couple of things I’ve learned along the way:
Very few people buy a sizable art print entirely on their own. Most of my larger sales have become what I call concierge sales—I work with the buyer on the photograph, size, framing and other details, and help them right up to the point of actually placing the order.
Frankly, I think that is a better way to buy art.
So I want to extend an invitation to everyone on this email list: if you would like my help choosing a photograph, size or presentation, contact me Tuesday or Wednesday and I will honor the full 35% discount on any concierge sale we arrange.
Then, on Thursday, August 13, the 35% discount opens up across the website for one day only, and anyone can purchase directly through the sale page.
That gives everyone on this list a two-day head start, gives me a chance to help anyone who wants it, and hopefully keeps everyone from trying to reach me at once on Thursday.
This matches the largest discount I have ever offered, and I think it will be the last time I go as high as 35%.
But I do have a vested interest in creating some volume right now. I have invested heavily in Pinterest advertising this year, building an audience and learning how the platform works. Pinterest gets more useful as it gets more data, so this sale is partly a test of what I have built over the summer.
And if I am going to test it, why stop with Pinterest? I’m opening the sale up across my social media platforms as well.
Why not? The more the merrier.
If you’ve had your eye on something, or you’re thinking about a gift, reply to this email Tuesday or Wednesday and I’ll help you work through it. Or, if you prefer to do it yourself, the sitewide sale opens Thursday.
Here is the link to the sale page: https://www.johnmcerraphotography.com/collector-print-sale?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_campaign=collector_print_sale_2026&utm_content=business_facebook
Now that I have your attention, can I show you a photograph?
This one is called “The Bones of Asbury Park.”
We didn’t build Asbury Park.
In fact, it was falling apart when “we” got it, and for a long time we didn’t do very much with it.
But that was part of its charm, wasn’t it?
It could have been the setting for a Scorsese movie or a bluesy Stones song. More importantly, the real-life characters who lived there gave it life. Musicians could afford to live there while they learned their craft, played small rooms, failed, improved, and set out to burn down the world.
Then the word got out.
A small music scene became a larger music scene. Then came the artists, the restaurants, the redevelopment—and eventually the spiraling rents. Today you can buy an $8 million condominium on Ocean Avenue.
Except Casino Pier.
Casino Pier is stuck.
It is owned privately and has long been tied up in the question of whether it should be rehabilitated or torn down, while much of the public would rather see it preserved. So it sits there, caught between eras.
It reminds us of the glory days of Asbury Park, when the city reigned supreme. It reminds us of the 1970s, when sometimes it seemed as though the only person in town with a future was the one carrying a guitar.
And now it sits in a city where almost everything has a future.
Except Casino Pier.
Who puts “The Bones of Asbury Park” on the wall?
Probably not the person looking for a quiet Hawaiian sunset over the fireplace.
If you hang this photograph, it may be the edgiest room in your house.
The music is loud. The living may be louder. And the attraction isn’t a pretty palette—it is structure, form, history and erosion.
That is exactly why I photographed it.
