Another debate I keep coming upon is to edition or not to edition prints. I like the idea of limiting how many prints are out there and it does cut back on forgeries. I wondering what you guys and girls think.


Also another subject that's enough to give you a headache is how to price prints. I'd really like to hear your thoughts.

Se what Brooks Jensen (editor of Lenswork) have to say on this. I agree with him, limited
editions is an obsolete concept in photography and I have put up an essay on my
own site to make my view on this clear to buyers.

Pricing is difficult, but the low price is what you have to make, to make it worth it
to make and sell the prints. The high price is whatever you can sell them for.

Ronny

I spoke to Brooks very briefly about this ( I'm in issue #78) and am still comparing the pros and cons. I'm actually going to talk to several photographers today about it and I'll comeback later and post what they said.

It may be technically obsolete, but if you take a good sampling of the gallery world, you'll see it is well alive.

That's true, but it's an artificial constraint done because of commercial and marketing
purposes, and does not have anything to do with photography and photography as art
as such. In my eyes an image isn't more "artsy" because it's a limited edition, but
I know some people see it differently thou.

Ronny

I agree with Ronny. In fact numbering is a fairly recent development. Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, etc. did not number prints and only limited the edition number of portfolios. Adams actually said (I paraphrase) "why limit the number of prints one can make from a medium that is by nature unlimited and in which each print of an image is potentially as good as all other prints?"

I would add that by limiting an edition, one limits how much better later prints of a given image can be made when significant changes to the technology take place (as they do now)! What if you sell out the edition of a specific image, and then find out you could now print it better than you ever did before? If you number, and the edition is sold out, you are out of luck! You can't print this image anymore without breaking the promise you made to the collectors who purchased your work.

To me it seems that numbering comes out of a static approach to photography, an approach in which the artist believes, explicitely or implicitely, that he/she has made the best possible print from a specific image and will never ever be able to do any better. This no longer holds true today in a world where technical advances are made if not daily or weekly then monthly and definitly yearly.

When I realized this about 2 years ago I decided to stop numbering my prints. I only number my portfolios, the way Adams did, because they are collections of prints and not single images. They represent a completed body of work at a specific date and time. I also limit, by nature, prints that are unique, for example if I do paint touch ups to a canvas print. These are usually just one of a kind and are indicated as such.

ALain

I have expanded on my answer in this essay:

The Numbering Affair

Alain

> it's an artificial constraint done because of commercial and marketing purposes

Not necessarily. For instance, Micheal Kenna (who is consistently very popular with collectors) states that he limits his editions because he does not want to spend his life printing again and again the same images. I agree with this approach, as I feel an artist needs to move on, but I entirely respect those who prefer to revisit the same images over and over again.


> When I realized this about 2 years ago I decided to stop numbering my prints.

Alain, if you offer limited edition prints (as I believe you did, at one point I think you mentioned "the larger the size, the smaller the edition", and then you listed edition numbers of 10), isn't it unfair to the collectors who purchased them while they were numbered to stop numbering them ? I too, have been changing my edition numbers over the years, but all my changes have been towards smaller editions, so I suppose nobody would have grounds for complaints.

I've spoken to at least 10 local and nationally well known photographers and several collectors over the last several days trying to see what others would say face to face without them knowing how I feel about the matter. I couldn't find one that agreed with not limiting the amount of the work they produced with a common answer of "it's a way of moving on to the next project". All the collectors agreed with the photographers that unless the photographer was already famous or a print they couldn't live without they would never conceive purchasing a photograph that could number in the hundreds or sell for $20. I won't even mention what my local galleries or museum said. I would rather have 45 people who loved my print enough to pay my price then 100 or more who bought it because it was cheap or abundant. I'm not belittling people that mass produce or sell prints for $20, actually all the power to them but I'm not going to accept that what I'm doing as wrong, unethical or antiquated.

Actually it makes the editions more valuable since the editions are smaller than originally intended (unless they were sold out when I stopped numbering ) :-)

How does that work ? When you stopped numbering, did you also stop issuing all prints that had been sold prior with a number, or are you still offering them without a number ?

That's an interesting piece by an artist who, as of *very* recently limited his prints, and now writes strongly against that practice, going as far as to question the integrity of those who limit their prints. I thought that readers may enjoy reading a piece by an artist that has taken exactly the opposite path at: http://www.rodneyloughjr.com/index.html?di...edEditions.html
Note in particular "Given that just about everyone knows how I feel about the topic of limited editions it should be understood that what is about to transpire is NOT being done for marketing purposes" :-)

They are offered without numbers unless the edition was sold out.

Let me try to understand. By "the editions are smaller than initially intended", you mean that for instance if you sold 1/10, 2/10, 3/10 of image X, then the collectors should be happy because now the edition is actually 1/3, 2/3, 3/3, since your future prints of image X will *not* be part of the edition as they do not have any number ?

Yes.

Not wanting to print the same image the rest of your life is understandable, but you do
not need a limited edition to achieve this. You can simply stop selling the image or
rise the price. I don't mind people having limited editions, but I find saying that it's not
for commercial purposes a little less than totally truthful. Again, I don't mind this, but
IMHO it doesn't have anything to do with photography and art, but is a marketing
decision.

Ronny

Do whatever you want to do, as usual there will be sufficient precedent to justify it.

Art Sinsabaugh (whose work will be shown in the Philly area at Haverford College Oct 4 - Dec 1) typically planned for editions of 3, some of which were never printed. Unless you have an image that will become a big "hit" in your venue for whatever reason, this is probably a realistic number. Understand that there are zillions of ways to "fudge" on a edition later, should you feel inclined. "artist's proofs", "special editions", resized editions, etc. etc. This is is done routinely. The art market is not long on ethical behavior.

Technology - better printers and papers can easily motivate photographers to create a new edition that is, in fact, different from a prior edition. How one might regard the prior (now "inferior") edition is another interesting question.

[quote=ronnynil,Sep 8 2008, 06:27 AM]
Se what Brooks Jensen (editor of Lenswork) have to say on this. I agree with him, limited
editions is an obsolete concept in photography and I have put up an essay on my
own site to make my view on this clear to buyers.




Let me be sure I have this right: from reading the article I gather BJ is now in the business of selling prints for other photographers through the magazine - right or wrong?

If I am right, then he seems to me to be selling cheaply in the same manner as any stock agency, where the maths is about high turnover. This rings good for the agent - BJ, who will have the turnover - but not so hot for the photographer.

Business as usual, then...

Rob C

I rather admire Christopher Burkett's clever position on this. He prints beautiful hand-made Ilfochromes, which are of course quite labor intensive with all their contrast control masks. When an image is first up for sale it goes for his 'base' price. If it turns out to be popular, he progressively raises the price. If it's extremely popular, it ends up going for thousands. Buyers can decide if they're willing to pay the premium, and Burkett gets compensated for having to print the same image over & over. The 'edition size' takes care of itself.

Wrong I think. As far as I know he only sells his own images on that website,
and speaks about his own views and practice on this.

Ronny

I tend to agree with the BJ approach. I'm not a 'recognized' fine art photographer but have won some local competitions and Jurors Awards etc. I try really hard to make the prints at the best quality I can.

I have actually sold more 'framed' and ready to hang pieces in the 200 - 300 range than the smaller 'print in a bag' at $35 - $45

As a small producer it seems that people want to buy and hang, the hassle for many of framing the print themselves (even though they fit commercial frames) or taking it to a shop seems noticeable. I have sold prints on the basis that I can frame it too.

The trouble with numbering is that it adds a great deal of added time to the management of ones collection - however a number of galleries etc in my area insist that work is a limited edition, claiming that it does make a difference to perception and sales. In reality I think most collectors of photo's do not really care, provided that they realize that the print is made by the person and not a run of several thousand for the 'home improvement' warehouse. So as a photographer I'm a little bit between a rock and a hard place, although a combination of the BJ model and the production of small limited portfolio packages may be the way to go, especially if I market the work myself.

Why not have the best of both worlds? Make a limited edition of large prints, matted and framed, for consumption by the gallery capitalists; then, for those who love the images, make smaller, more intimate prints at a more "democratic" price point so that everyone can enjoy it. I see not reason why the artist has to limit his/her profits by saying they will sell only X number of prints. After all, the creativity is the hardest part of marketing a fine art print. Why shouldn't the artist be the one who ultimately makes the most money from a particular print?

Especially in modern times, where making a duplicate print is as easy as pushing a button and loading the media, why limit the number of people who can enjoy your work? In the wet darkroom days, sure, an artist would tire of printing the same negative over and over. There was a larger investment of time, our most limited commodity.

In the end, though, as long as the artist is making the calls, more power to them. Let's not let gallery owners affect our creativity. Follow your heart, and by all means, remember that there's nothing wrong with NOT being a starving artist!

Not quite sure I follow: on the one hand folks who buy from a gallery are designated `capitalist´ in a manner which seems to indicate the pejorative sense of the word; then those who buy cheaper are somehow presumed to `love´ the images indicating, then, that the others do not, perhaps?

I also find it strange to believe that `creativity is the hardest part of marketing a fine art print.´ Really? I would have thought that creativity was a given for any artist. Experience shows the opposite to what you posit: selling is by far the most difficult aspect of the game for most artists; were that other than the truth, there would be precious few big-time photographers´ agents arounds or, for that matter, actors´agents either!

The encouragement not to be a starving artist is perfectly good, so why discourage the best ploys of the marketing specialists? You can´t really have it both ways, even if that would be nice. But, you can hardly ask your `capitalist´ for big bucks and give the same stuff away for pennies to the poor on the basis that the size is different. That, indeed, is dubious morality!

Rob C

You make some good points Rob. However, I was referring to the gallery owners as the capitalists. IMHO, they are the ones who benefit the most from limited editions.

The desire to be one of the few who owns something, be it art, 1st ed. books, antiques, etc. is part of human nature. We covet scarce things. If you can market your art using this as one element to create desire in your work, then go for it. Your art will be limited no matter what so you can choose to set the limit by numbering/stating it upfront or you can let the market/time do it for you. Galleries, collectors and most artists working in that world would probably choose the former strategy.

I sell my work through galleries so the choice was obvious for me, I do small limited editions. I'm an artist, not a printer, so I choose to move on with my work rather than print my past work until I die. This benefits me and my gallery equally. I also think it has been more profitable for me since I can charge more per print. Limiting your edition doesn't limit your financial gain either. You can always raise your prices on what is left in your edition. I charge more for each successive print in the edition (1/6=x, 2/6=x+10, etc.) and often raise prices over time as costs go up.

In the end, whether one chooses to limit/number their edition or not, you have made a marketing decision. Neither decision is more ethical or creatively pure.

The topic has come to a bit of a head here! I'm in the process of being reviewed by a local Gallery. The rules suggest that images be limited editions.... I explained my case to the curator - a hy-bred of a couple of number models and she completely agreed with me!

In review the system has a Brook Jenson style policy that I had been leaning toward prior to reading his essay on the subject - except that the total lifetime limit of any print from any file (or similar one - no machine gunning a subject to provide lots of near identical files!!) is 50 unless otherwise noted. (I have a successful and cheeky image that is x/69!!) That means I have a responsibility to manage my printing and also provides the ability to control a price / size stratergy for popular images should one wizz off towards the limit!! To make things clear the 50 include all prints over 10x8 in size (except those evaluation ones I destroy.)

If a small collection goes to exhibition, then any exhibition edition / portfolio would count within the 50, but also become a limited subset of 1 - 10 images.

I think that gives everyone the best of all worlds, but most importantly because photography is essentially a way for me to explore 'being alive' the images are essentially a by-product of the exploration, keep me looking for new, rather than continually reprinting and re-working the old. It gives any buyers that are interested in the providence of the work the ability to find out more about the piece and how many have been produced in a completely honest and transparent way.

Personally I think very few people purchase a photographic print from people like myself because they think it will be worth several times more in the future, however if they enjoy experiencing the presence of a piece then they may well. Imagine thinking a piece is 1/250 when in fact it is the only one ever produced!!

Steven

At least here in Finland the state taxing goes like this.

If my gallery sells a photograph, then the VAT (value added tax) is either

- for signed limited 1-30 and numbered print -- the tax 8%
- for others 22 %

This rule is also for photographs I buy outside of EU area. When buying from
states I need to pay the VAT for your USA/Canadian prints.

This is 8% or 22% from the total price including postage.

So for me it makes a difference. For customers buying, they only see the
selling price - not what part goes to the goverment (8% or 22%)

Kirmo Wilén

www.withlight.com

Clearly, this is an issue that each photographer will need to answer for their own work in their own way. My thoughts and ideas work for me, but they may not work at all for others who are marketing and selling their work in other venues - e.g., traditional galleries. I've written about this so others can use my ideas if they seem appropriate for their work, but I would never dream of trying to impose my ideas on photography at large.

What strikes me as truly important in this topic is not whether or not you choose to limit and number your images, but that whatever you do is completely and thoroughly transparent so that your collectors and buyers know precisely what they are buying and what your commitment to them is. It's all about integrity far more than it is about any given strategy. Consistency, open transparency, a published statement about what you do and why you do it -- these are the cornerstones that I would universally recommend. If limited editions make sense for you (as they do for Chris Burkett) then by all means do it and don't look back. There is nothing "wrong" with limited editions per se. I simply found this idea wrong for me and my work.

Brooks Jensen
Editor, LensWork Publishing

Rob,
Actually, the photographers whose work we've sold via the LensWork Special Editions program have done very well. They have universally reported back to us that they've earned more money through our program than anything else they have done selling their artwork. We pay a handsome commission and we sell a lot of work.

Sure, we profit from the program, but we earn it. We do all the work to produce the prints, take all the risks to market the folios, and do not ask the photographer for anything in the way of effort or investment. Unlike so many traditional galleries, we do not ask the photographer to make the prints; we do not ask them to pay for the materials, prints, mats, or framing; we do not ask them to participate in the promotional and advertising costs; we do not ask them to chip in on the shrimp dip for the opening nights snacks; we do not pay them months and months after we sell their work; we do not send back the unsold (and often less-than-pristine) artwork years after the exhibition is over. Obviously, not all galleries mistreat their artists like this, but there are boatloads of stories about photographers who have found the traditional gallery world is not their best venue for getting their work out there.

We've now sold tens of thousands of prints since we started the LensWork Special Editions program and paid photographers almost a million dollars in commissions. Photographers are sometimes abused by people who sell their work for them, but not by us and not through our program. We take great pride in the fact that through LensWork Special Edtions we are able to pay our photographer's so well and to help further their careers and fund future projects. Pursuing fine art photography requires money. We are delighted to be one vehicle by which photographers can help fund their artwork. We may only be a small part of a photographer's quilt of income, but we are proud of the part we play. I guess one testament to the way we treat our photographers is the requests we've had from our alumni to participate again now that we have recently relaunched the program with pigment-on-paper folios like the Reichmann folios we recently announced.

Thanks for bringing this issue up here in this forum so we could add these comments to the discussion.

Brooks Jensen
Editor, LensWork Publishing

If you're printing etchings or engravings or lithographs it makes sense to number the prints and cut off the run before the plate or the prepared stone deteriorates enough to give less than superior results. But photographic negatives and digital files don't deteriorate with use. In fact, since you gain experience with each print you make from a negative, print number 35 may well be better than print number one. And with a digital file you can adjust and test until you get a perfect print, save the resulting file, then print any number of identical copies. So the only reason to limit the "edition" of a photographic print is to make it artificially precious, and numbering photographic prints is not only meaningless but silly.

I've got a question about limited editions. Before digital photography and ink jet technology artists, e.g painters, would have a have a limited number of copies made via lithography and these would represent a limited edition, with each copy having something like 1/250 in the bottom left hand corner. Since it would be prohibitive to produce a very small number of copies this way (like one), a bunch were made (50, 100, etc).

The digital process allows copies of artwork to be produced one at a time. I'm sure this has been a boon to artists who want to make high quality copies of their work for limited distribution.

I think some, maybe many, photographers think that if they offer a limited edition of n prints, then they can make the prints over time, as thereis a demand for them. Even though they will not be all the same - since over time different software, printers, ink, paper, and profiles will be used. Recently I walked into an art store and saw that an aquaintance, whose habits I know, had a print for sale with "1/250" in the left hand corner. Now, I knew that didn't mean the print was made on January, 250 AD. It mean that this was the first print of a limited edition of 250 prints. Now I know for a fact that this person has not made 250 prints and was selling them as a limited edition. I also knew that he'd be lucky to sell even one.

So, if one plans a limited edition of prints, is it proper to make them all at the same time, on the same printer with the same inks with the same paper, etc, or is it okay to actually limit the number of prints sold over time to 250 and print them as you go?

Victor, First, if a painter produces copies of an artwork digitally, with a giclee (advanced inkjet) process the result is properly called a "giclee." You can read about the history of this process at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giclee. Nowadays a few photographers are calling pigment based inkjet prints "giclees." As far as I'm concerned that's gilding the lily, but to those who don't know the difference it sounds good and probably helps to sell prints.

As far as the idea of making a complete print run at once is concerned, it pretty much depends on the process. If you're doing a stone lithograph it doesn't make sense to prepare the stone, knock off a few prints, then try to preserve the prepared stone until you're ready to do a second run. If you're doing an engraving, and if you're careful to clean the plate after the initial run you can set the plate aside and come back to it later. If you're doing a woodcut you easily can clean the block and set it aside for a later run. I used to do limited edition woodcuts and never did the whole run at once.

As far as the idea of "limited editions" of photographs is concerned, the whole idea is so silly that it hardly matters whether or not people doing that do it in a single run or one at a time. I'm sure some photographers get higher prices for limited edition prints, but that means that the person buying the print is buying it as an "investment," not because of the quality of the photograph. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who buys a limited edition photograph as a "collector," would be better off buying rare coins. They're smaller, easier to secure against theft, and don't deteriorate with age. But, of course, that's just my opinion and clearly it's not universal.

Thanks for the clarification, RSL. The aquaintance I mentioned in my post, the "1/250" guy, also goes to lengths to explain to his potential ccustomers that he use a process called giclee to produce his prints. This so bogus it's hard to take. I know he uses an Epson 2200. Now let me ask you this, if an artist get his/her work reporduced via the giclee method, what printers are now used to print them? I have a 7800 and when I sell a print I explain that it is an inkjet print. Saying it is produced by the glicee method I think would be redundant and merely a method to (1) jack the price up, (2) impress the customer (I guess this is really part of (1), (3) show off something they just learned (incorrectly), and to enhanced one's ego.

By the way I visited a gallery in Chelsea that sells prints of well know photographers. All the prints are the same dimensions, but some are priced $1,200, some $1,800. I asked why the difference. The explanation was that the prints that are popular, i.e have sold a lot, are priced higher and the prints that are not so popular are priced lower. Interesting. So this is another approach, giving a higher price to a print statistically seen as more desirable. For me this is boon to someone who really likes one of the less popular prints

FYI "giclee" is a French word that means "Spray". Used in the context of printing it stands for "ink spray". All inkjet printers spray ink (hence their name: ink-jet) therefore all inkjet printers produce giclees. The 2200 is an inkjet printer therefore it produces giclees. It's just a fancy term for a commonplace printing method.

Personally, I much prefer to use the term "pigmented prints" or "inkjet prints". Much more straightforward. I agree with you on this point. In my book, I recommend calling things by their name.

However, to go back to your example, there's nothing manipulative with the artist you refer to using the term giclee to describe his printing process.

Alain

Alain, There's nothing actually dishonest about using the term "giclee" for a pigmented inkjet print. But most people haven't a clue what "giclee" means and it sounds a lot more "arty" than "pigmented inkjet print." If the person who calls his prints "giclees" would define the term when he uses it I'd agree with you that it's not manipulative. By the way, the correct translation is closer to "spurt" than to "spray," and has a risque connotation in French. I print with a 2200 a great deal but to call the result a giclee is, at best, a stretch.

Shall we add levity? A good example of the danger of using French terms one does not understand concerns a statement president Bush once made. In trying to express his disdain for French socialism he stated: "... and there isn't even a word for entrepreneur in the French language."

Are you sure it's so silly? When a sculptor limits the number of casts that will be made from a mould, is that so silly? Given that scarcity is one of the factors that contributes to the financial value of works of art (anyone who thinks otherwise isn't watching the art market), it might be a bit silly not to put a cap on how many versions of the work will be available, if it's intended for the art market.

As for the 'quality of the work' / 'investment' distinction, I'd guess that most buyers don't see these as mutually exclusive.

Like or dislike Alain´s style - or subject-matter, for that - an effort to correct an educated Frenchman´s French must border on the insane.

But I like it; adds a jolly touch of je ne sais quoi to the proceedings..

Rob C

When a sculptor make casts from a mold the mold is deteriorating with each cast. Cast #1 will be different from cast #40. When a photographer makes prints from a negative or a digital file the negative or file doesn't deteriorate. Print # 40 may be better than print #1. Numbering them is silly, but I'll admit it's a way to manipulate the "art market." I guess that's appropriate since the "art market" depends on manipulation even to exist.

Rob, You're right of course. But Alain left out something in his "FYI." Full disclosure is always important, even for a Frenchman.

It depends on which type of mold is being used, of course. But deterioration of a mold need not be the determining factor in deciding the limit to the number of casts. (Have you read of Rodin's estate, in which he left his works, molds and rights of reproduction to the French state, which decided to limit reproductions to 12 of any work. Were they being silly?)

Numbering the casts/ prints may or may not be silly, but placing a limit on the number of works produced in an edition isn't silly in the fine art context.

Chris, I can't disagree with your last statement. The "fine art context" is based on marketing, not art, and numbering prints is part of marketing. In summary all I can say is, if numbering your prints floats your boat then number away. Numbering a print doesn't make the print "finer," but it may make it appear more valuable to the gullible.

It is rather shocking to me to read some of the comments posted in this thread in regards to limited editions. I am assuming most of the photographers posting are considered professional. It would certainly behoove you to do some actual research on what a limited edition print is and the legal protocols involved in producing limited edition prints before giving off the cuff advice to others.

Masking work with an open edition numbering system and a provenance are crude attempts at marking at best and down right misleading at worst. This is why there are laws.

Many of the artists here seem to misunderstand what a provenance is and how it functions in the art world, and have subjugated the documents meaning and intent to conform to some sort of double speak in regards to the editions they produce.

A disclosure is a document that is produced by the publisher/artist that gives details of the named artwork in regards to its creation and distribution,, it is completely unnecessary for an open edition.

A provenance is a detailed record of the history of a piece art; it concerns itself with an individual piece of arts journey through time.

Any photographer that disregards the importance and value of limited edition prints does not understand the art fine market. They may be a great artist, but simply making an argument that limiting the edition size of a print is somehow false doesn’t speak to the underlying principles of the fine art market.

Keep in mind the collector of art on any level is a patron of the arts.
As an artist it should be your desire and obligation to extend to your patrons the highest possible quality or best example of your artistic endeavors. This is also the way you grow and mature as an artist.
I also feel you have an obligation to protect not only your art, but the investment of the collector as you both now have entered into a fiduciary agreement of sorts. Limiting the number of reproductions you do will set a value, a benchmark if you will of the manor you intend pursue your career it also carries with it a number of legal protocols.

If an artist releases a print as a limited edition and then they sell open editions of this same piece, they certainly could be committing fraud. I only use the word “could” because if they had bothered to write a disclosure which is a legal document that states your intentions in regards to a reproduction, you could have disclosed the fact that you reserved the right to reproduce the images in other formats, media, editions, states and sizes. Therefore; they “could’ be innocent of fraud, however; their integrity as person/artist would surely and rightly suffer.

Here again understanding what you are doing when endeavoring to produce limited edition prints requires much more than being able to write numbers on the print.

To state that limited editions is about controlling the supply and therefore increasing the demand does not tell the whole story ether, there are a myriad of factors an artist must consider.
Mass market selling of ones photos or limited editions of ones work are both marketing choices, they are both business decisions, one or the other is not false or better.

Anyway that my 2 cents…

Lee Rylee

Thanks, Lee, for making my point again. You're right, limited edition prints are supposedly more valuable in a monetary sense than open edition prints because they're more "precious." After all, there are fewer of them.

You're also right that any artist should desire to extend to his patrons the best examples of his work, but numbering prints doesn't do anything to make the work any better.

As far as protecting the "investment" of the collector is concerned, that's his problem, not mine. If he buys a print as an "investment" rather than as something he wants to look at, then he's not an "art" patron. He's an "investor." He might just as well be investing in a rare coin.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not knocking the "fine art market." My brother collects rare coins. There's certainly a place for collectors and collections, which includes what we call the "fine art market." But let's not confuse the collecting scene with art. They're not the same thing.

Historically, "Giclee" was used to designate IRIS printers. The IRIS were able of producing high-quality prints at the time when the current inkjet printing technology was in its infancy. They were very expensive, and did not work at all like today's inkjet printers. Rather, there was a rotating drum and a continuous ink squirt system - making them more illustrative of another meaning of the French word that has been alluded to. When today you use the term to designate an Epson print, it may or may not impress those not in the know, but it will likely be a turn off to those in the know. From what I've seen in many galleries, the common designation is "APP", or "Archival Pigment Print".

Maybe not, but the other part of the contemporary art scene, that includes such things as museums, curators, galleries, critics, art magazines, art fairs, prizes and biennales, seem to gravitate around the same artists as those that are prized by collectors. Not entirely sure it is a coincidence. To see how a collector thinks, I suggest you have a look at the excellent blog http://dlkcollection.blogspot.com/ You will see a level of interest and knowledge about photography that is not shared by coin investors, and some members of this forum :-)

That may be true, but there's a lot of difference between "investing" and collecting art for its own sake. I'm not sure what you include in the phrase, "knowledge about photography." Are you talking about the history of photography or the equipment of photography or the chemistry of photography..? Seems less than a revelation to find that coin "investors" don't know much about photography. They probably do know a bit about coins.

Knowledgeable collectors understand about most aspects of photography beyond the obvious historic and esthetic ones, including technical aspects that are integral to a photographer's realized vision. For instance, they may not be interested in knowing that a particular shot was done with a Rodenstock instead of an Schneider, but they understand what kind of descriptive power can be attained with what particular format, and how it affects the esthetics of a particular print. If it is not clear what knowledge about photography is in evidence in the link I posted, maybe the fact that they know more about photography than coin collectors needed to be spelt out :-)

Tuan, Understand, I'm not knocking fine art investors. I'm sure they know a great deal about what makes a photograph valuable in a monetary sense -- which I'm sure includes the rules they've been taught in art school. And I certainly can see that groups of investors must agree on what aesthetic and other qualities make a work of art valuable in a monetary sense, otherwise there would be no fine art market for those investors. But beyond that I think a person who's completely uneducated in commonly accepted ideas about what makes a photograph "valuable" is perfectly capable of appreciating a really good photograph. Investors, and those who cater to them have their world. Artists and those who appreciate art have theirs. Sometimes the two worlds intersect, usually to the detriment of those who aren't investors.

I've found that collectors and curators of photography generally know more about photography (as a subject area) than *most* photographers. It's like in baseball, which has a huge number of dedicated fans, and a very small coterie of people who can actually play in the big leagues. What they know about different - the fans know about statistics, abilities, etc., the players know how to track down a fly, how to pick up a fastball, etc. But what about high school ball players? They don't know what the fan knows, but they also don't know what the big leaguer knows. And that's where most photographers -- like 99% -- are. The don't make great art, but neither are they (usually) as knowledgable as a dedicated collector. To say that a wedding photographer, knowledgable as he may be in his craft, knows more about photography in the wider sense (aesthetics, history, personalities, print quality, etc.) than a dedicated collector, would usually be wrong. There's no reason a wedding guy *should* know all that stuff. He's a craftsmen, not an academic. It's like suggesting that a guy who makes bookcases should know more about furniture than the curator of the furnishings period collections at the Met, or an antique dealer, or whatever. They're different fields of knowledge, and the academic one is broader. Further, it has been my experience that most academics, curators and collectors are also photographers, and sometimes quite good ones. Some photographers, of course, also have advanced degrees in art history...it's not all just one thing.

The assumption that most people collect for investment reasons is also wrong. There are much better investments than photography -- in fact, almost anything (rational) is better. Most people collect because they love the art, and they know a lot about it. If they're going to pay a lot for it, they usually want to know why - and that's where art advisers come into it. They can look at things like limits on the editions, precise quality concerns (is it archivally fixed?) and so on. There's usually not a concern about making a lot of money, but just seeing that the piece holds its value, which is a normal thing, if you're going to pay a lot more than its obviously nominal worth. I saw an Ansel Adams "printed later" (1970s) "Moonrise" at LA Art this year, with an asking price of $150,000. Why would anybody pay that? That's what a collector wants to know; it doesn't have anything to do with greed, it's simply a reasonable question. If I needed a garage, and somebody offered to sell me one for $150,000, I'd ask the same thing. Why that price, and not some other? Is the garage in good shape, or is it going to fall down next year?

JC