Valuing the image. #photography

Whether it is a picture on the fridge drawn by a small child or a masterpiece in an art gallery, images are valued. The crayon drawing created by the small child is valued by its mother and the masterpiece might be valued at many millions of pounds by art experts.

Photographs

I searched Google for the most expensive photographs ever sold the other day and found a number had sold for millions of dollars. The very exclusive Magnum photos is a club for esteemed photographers and occasionally advertises prints for £100 a time, sometimes more. Not all photographs are highly valued of course. We tend to value a photograph that has been expertly taken or has some unusual attribute. An unusual photograph, perhaps one that cannot be repeated (taken again) might be highly valued.

Worthy of a print

I occasionally think one of my photographs is worthy of being made into a framed print. I have some nice wooden frames with a mount suitable for an 8 x 10-inch print. I made a print of today’s picture of Highfields House in West Bromwich. It is a picture a few people might relate to because it is a registry office and so a venue for weddings. I’ve framed other pictures and they are reminders of my journey as a photographer as well as decorating the walls of my home.

Investments

Paintings by well-known artists are often seen as investments and I think photographic prints can be good investments too. We are now in the era of NFTs, Non-Fungible tokens. I think that in the near future, digital images will be on a blockchain and they will be bought and sold creating a huge market for images taken by skilled photographers. There might even be a market for the copyrights to such images as well. Owning the copyright gives you the right to make millions of copies of an image and perhaps profit from that image. Photography constantly changes and the market for images constantly changes.