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Thread: List of the most expensive photographs

  1. #1

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    List of the most expensive photographs

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ve_photographs

    I'm sure everyone will have their "huh?" moments (as people have commented on the recent Gursky sale) when reading this. But for me, there is a much more questionable entry on this list than Gursky. (I like Gursky myself.)

    At any rate, it's pretty interesting to see that the only photographers with more than one (and exactly two, actually) photos on the list are Gursky, Sherman, Stieglitz and Weston.

    P.S. I did search before I posted this, but I could not find a thread where this list was referenced already. Maybe my LF search fu is not up to snuff.

  2. #2

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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    I posted the images from the list a few weeks ago on my blog. Note that my list is the *real* top ten, counting the three "99 cent" sales as separate sales.

    http://www.biggercamera.com/2011/11/the-new-top-10/

    I'm not quite sure what you are saying in relation to LF, but it looks like eight of the top ten were shot on LF. (Not sure about the Richard Prince image...)

    --Darin

  3. #3
    Ting-Li Lin's Avatar
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Gursky is one of the photographers that inspire me to jump into LF, although many of his images were digitally manipulated.

  4. #4
    ic-racer's Avatar
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Petty cash by comparison.

  5. #5

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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Quote Originally Posted by ic-racer View Post
    Petty cash by comparison.
    I wonder if the galleries that do sales, like say Gagosian for "Woman III", take a 50% cut like many galleries do for living artists.

  6. #6
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Instead, why not start a list of the biggest suckers in photo purchase history? I like
    Gursky too, but consider him Fautography and in certain respects a candidate for
    obscene conspicuous consumption spending. Just how long are those huge prints
    under sunlight or hot halogens going to retain consistent color, before fading in patches? Seems to be a pretty dumb investment. But then I've known folks who spent 3 million bucks on a dining room paint job just to upstage the neighbors.

  7. #7
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Well, I do NOT consider Gursky a photographer. Maybe a legit art form in the bigger
    scheme of things. Interesting, but not worthy of the same respect as a true photographer. Not the skill set of a serious painter either. Fauxtography. That's fine, but not my cup of tea. Different set of rules. So I'd scratch him off my list of prices
    paid for actual photographs. Interpreting a scene is one thing, outright inventing it
    or egregiously manipulating it, altogether a different game. Saw some Uelsman-like
    work the other day that impressed me a lot more. It was very whimsical, but pre-Fauxtoshop and required quite a bit of darkroom skill. Kinda like expecting a Japanese sword-maker to actual forge and hone the steel, and not outsource it.
    Craft counts too.

  8. #8

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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    Instead, why not start a list of the biggest suckers in photo purchase history? I like
    Gursky too, but consider him Fautography and in certain respects a candidate for
    obscene conspicuous consumption spending. Just how long are those huge prints
    under sunlight or hot halogens going to retain consistent color, before fading in patches? Seems to be a pretty dumb investment. But then I've known folks who spent 3 million bucks on a dining room paint job just to upstage the neighbors.
    Good point. They will not last long unless kept in a dark environment. If you go to the Aardenberg Imaging paper tests you'll see that fuji crystal fades very noticeably under normal viewing conditions after 35 years, and by 50 years is badly faded and by 70 years is trash. And that's with indirect lighting.

  9. #9
    ic-racer's Avatar
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Motives for those purchases are varied, but if you DO have that much money, keeping it in a bank account is foolish. I suspect in many cases these are investments. They only need to be sold to the next 'investor' at a profit before deterioration.

    Will Gerske re-print that if it fades? Maybe not, but if your shark starts to deteriorate sometimes the original artist can help get a new one.

  10. #10
    Ting-Li Lin's Avatar
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    Re: List of the most expensive photographs

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    Well, I do NOT consider Gursky a photographer. Maybe a legit art form in the bigger
    scheme of things. Interesting, but not worthy of the same respect as a true photographer. Not the skill set of a serious painter either. Fauxtography. That's fine, but not my cup of tea. Different set of rules. So I'd scratch him off my list of prices
    paid for actual photographs. Interpreting a scene is one thing, outright inventing it
    or egregiously manipulating it, altogether a different game. Saw some Uelsman-like
    work the other day that impressed me a lot more. It was very whimsical, but pre-Fauxtoshop and required quite a bit of darkroom skill. Kinda like expecting a Japanese sword-maker to actual forge and hone the steel, and not outsource it.
    Craft counts too.
    I guess you don't consider Jeff Wall a photographer either, do you?

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