# Value of photographs without negatives?



## roxics (Feb 20, 2014)

So a friend sent me this link to a BBC documentary about photography. Interesting stuff. I hadn't realized how big of a business it could be. With photos being auctioned in the tens of thousands or millions of dollars. For the past few years all I've been hearing about is the doom and gloom about how photos have no value anymore because cameras are cheap and everyone shoots them and shares them online and photographers are getting less work, etc.

Genius of photography - 6

The doc seems to mostly focus on film photography even though it came out in 2007 and briefly acknowledges digital cameras. So I question if the industry is still the same now. A lot of these photos are valued on the rarity of the prints and especially prints that were made by the photographer themself from the negative as soon as possible after the photo was shot.

Where does this leave digital photography when it comes to value, when there is no negative and a perfect print could be made any any time since there is no degradation in the digital file unlike a physical analog negative?


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## agierke (Feb 20, 2014)

There actually can be degradation of a digital file... And far faster than analog. The best way to ensure archival of a photo remains a print and a negative. I heard a few years back that Hollywood briefly attempted to archive via digital format only until they lost a whole film. The response was to reverse course and make an analog master print of every movie made (including ones shot digitally) to ensure future revenue years down the line.

The archival standard in photography is at least 100 years of durability. Digital has yet to be proven by this standard. Burning to DVDs, maintaining RAID drives, or even storing on SSD are all rife with potential failure and loss of data. Each successive copy made over the years increases the likelihood of a corruption of data and loss of access to your images.

I have yet to gain faith in the likelihood of my digital images being around in 100 years but I remain confident that my negatives will.


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## unfocused (Feb 20, 2014)

Well if you are Andreas Gursky you can sell a digital print for $4 million. The rest of us not so likely.

Seriously, the value is determined first by whom the art world considers to be a great photographer and then by the rarity of the print. If your work isn't in the collection of MOMA or similar institutions it doesn't really matter if it's from a negative or digital.


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## Hillsilly (Feb 20, 2014)

You've beat me to it - It makes zero difference. If an artist is collectable, galleries and investors don't care if it is digital or film. As mentioned above, the most expensive photograph sold - Gursky's "Rhein II" is a computer manipulated image.

If you are interested in auctions, this document shows the auction turnover of the top 500 selling artists last year. There are numerous photographers on the list. (Obviously, auction sales doesn't automatically equate to artist income, but there is a correlation).

http://imgpublic.artprice.com/pdf/artprice-contemporary-2012-2013-en.pdf

Now, how to get onto that list?


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## tolusina (Feb 20, 2014)

agierke said:


> There actually can be degradation of a digital file... And far faster than analog. The best way to ensure archival of a photo remains a print and a negative. I heard a few years back that Hollywood briefly attempted to archive via digital format only until they lost a whole film. The response was to reverse course and make an analog master print of every movie made (including ones shot digitally) to ensure future revenue years down the line.
> 
> The archival standard in photography is at least 100 years of durability. Digital has yet to be proven by this standard. Burning to DVDs, maintaining RAID drives, or even storing on SSD are all rife with potential failure and loss of data. Each successive copy made over the years increases the likelihood of a corruption of data and loss of access to your images.
> 
> I have yet to gain faith in the likelihood of my digital images being around in 100 years but I remain confident that my negatives will.


I sure have no way of knowing or verifying if claims regarding long term data storage using M-DISC™ 
media are true, you might want to look into this media.
http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/







.


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## Logan (Feb 20, 2014)

isn't magnetic tape still the data backup of choice for large volumes of data to be stored long term?

on a more consumer scale:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/opticalmedialongevity.html

backing up your million dollar shot on some CDs seems like your best bet.


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## Rienzphotoz (Feb 20, 2014)

agierke said:


> I have yet to gain faith in the likelihood of my digital images being around in 100 years but I remain confident that my negatives will.


A 100 years? WOW! ... I don't know about you, but I'm just a hobbyist photographer and don't really give a sh!t about what my family wants to do with my images after 100 years ... coz I'll be dead and gone, but hopefully floating on puffy clouds, eating grapes, playing a harp or something with some really hot nud3 chicks in heaven. ;D


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## Lightmaster (Feb 20, 2014)

well when you have a name like gurski you can sell pictures for a lot of money.

when you have a name like pollock in the art scene all you have to do is go crazy with paint splatter.

when you are an italian artist you even can sell your canned sh*t.

the art scene is unlogic and unfair.


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## Rienzphotoz (Feb 20, 2014)

Lightmaster said:


> when you are an italian artist you even can sell your canned sh*t.


a very *tiny* bit exaggerated ... funny nevertheless ;D


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## GMCPhotographics (Feb 20, 2014)

agierke said:


> There actually can be degradation of a digital file... And far faster than analog. The best way to ensure archival of a photo remains a print and a negative. I heard a few years back that Hollywood briefly attempted to archive via digital format only until they lost a whole film. The response was to reverse course and make an analog master print of every movie made (including ones shot digitally) to ensure future revenue years down the line.
> 
> The archival standard in photography is at least 100 years of durability. Digital has yet to be proven by this standard. Burning to DVDs, maintaining RAID drives, or even storing on SSD are all rife with potential failure and loss of data. Each successive copy made over the years increases the likelihood of a corruption of data and loss of access to your images.
> 
> I have yet to gain faith in the likelihood of my digital images being around in 100 years but I remain confident that my negatives will.



Back in 1859 there was a solar flare from the sun which was so big and catastrophic that it destroyed most of the world's power stations. Anything with a coil, capacitor or tuning circuit just melted or fried. It was the largest solar flare in recorded history. It's been widely considered that if such an event occurred today, there would be little of today's technology which would survive. Anything with a micro chip, silicon, or tuning circuit would literally burn out. Every computer hard drive would be wiped, every laptop battery would fail, every TV screen would burnout, every CPU would frazzle, every car would fail, every power station would melt...society would roll back to the 18th century over night. Our beloved digital files would go the way of lost static and the cameras would become empty shells. It's not possible to shield against such a huge electromagnetic wave of this magnitude. 
So I think that if and when such an event occurs again (it may not be in our lifetime) and all of our digital history and data is lost, old fashioned photographs may be the only record of our society left.

http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/


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## AUGS (Feb 20, 2014)

GMCPhotographics said:


> agierke said:
> 
> 
> > There actually can be degradation of a digital file... And far faster than analog. The best way to ensure archival of a photo remains a print and a negative. I heard a few years back that Hollywood briefly attempted to archive via digital format only until they lost a whole film. The response was to reverse course and make an analog master print of every movie made (including ones shot digitally) to ensure future revenue years down the line.
> ...



And yet even if there are not cataclysmic events, and even if the data survives on the media, will there be supported devices to read that media anyway?

In 1986 a 20Megabyte hard-disk was considered big, 5.25 (360kb) inch floppy disk drives were common, and 3.5 inch floppy (720kb and 1.44Mb) drives on the horizon.
Jump to 2014. I'd fill that 20MB disk with a single frame from my 5D3 (RAW, of course!). Many laptops don't come with CD drives as standard, and floppy disk drives are a thing of the past. Where will you read your CDs and DVDs, BlueRays of today in 2024, let alone 2114. Will hard-disks be like last generation vinyl records?

The only obvious longevity plan is keep transferring the digital data to the latest technology to at least give it a fighting chance.

Maybe film and archival prints are best after all??


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## danski0224 (Feb 20, 2014)

AUGS said:


> And yet even if there are not cataclysmic events, and even if the data survives on the media, will there be supported devices to read that media anyway?
> 
> In 1986 a 20Megabyte hard-disk was considered big, 5.25 (360kb) inch floppy disk drives were common, and 3.5 inch floppy (720kb and 1.44Mb) drives on the horizon.
> Jump to 2014. I'd fill that 20MB disk with a single frame from my 5D3 (RAW, of course!). Many laptops don't come with CD drives as standard, and floppy disk drives are a thing of the past. Where will you read your CDs and DVDs, BlueRays of today in 2024, let alone 2114. Will hard-disks be like last generation vinyl records?
> ...



There are already problems with BluRay compatibility, although some of that may be from overzealous copy protection.

I have some music CD's I made back in the early 1990's, and they still play. Kinda surprised because those burnable CD's are dye based. They may yet fail. That said, the CD format has been on the way out for a while- at least for music.

Finding consumer grade VHS players and record players isn't difficult yet. I suspect that some form of optical drive will be available for a while. You can still get minidisc players.

100 years? I'd bet that there will be some sort of practical 3 dimensional atomic level crystal based storage long before 100 years comes around. No one knows what the next 10 years will bring.

The Singularity is supposed to happen by then (2045), optical drives will not be a problem. ;D


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## Maui5150 (Feb 20, 2014)

Like anything else, scarcity is your friend.

1st, you have to create a name for yourself. I remember going through the Met in NYC with Digital Artist Laurence Gartel a while back and if one thing was apparent, to me at least, the last of art in today's culture is staggering. You had all the contemporary and modern art like the Jackson Pollock splatter or white on white polar bear in a snow storm, then you go in to the earlier exhibits and was amazed... a piece of armor with 10,000 fleur de lis, gorgeous carved chest, even the silverware was ornate... My general impression was not only the craftsmanship, but the beauty in even the most utilitarian things. As well as there was a TON of crap. Some of the exhibits were things that I could easily do, as well as I remember one paper mache statue that looked like a bad art project out of 4th grade... The most basic truth when it comes to today's art... you need a patron. A patron needs to like you, like your work and have money. The museums for the most part are whores and while some pieces are true classic, a great many are ghastly, and there because a patron paid for it to be there. Money talks. If you have to lose all dignity and bruise your knees, then by all means, degrade yourself in the deepest levels, get that wealthy patron, and you too can be in a museum.

Now that you have your "name" you start creating limited editions. Whether it is digital or film, you state how many prints of what size your will produce and that is the limit. 

Here is an example of the drivel many espouse:
_
To focus on flow, you must shift the emphasis of your thought processes. Pollock reveals the artistic process as the essence of creation, not the product, or finished painting. Process is action, and product is passive. Looking at a painting close up, this is what you see in Pollock, the creative process captured, still alive with movement, texture, and color. You are not looking at a painting, you are looking at painting._

Source: http://blog.blogcatalog.com/tag/jackson-pollock/







In the end, it is the PERCEPTION of your work that creates value... Nothing more... nothing less.

If you want it... Really really want it... Degrade yourself... degrade yourself to the lowest levels and you will find someone who will pimp and whore your out and create a name for you. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy perhaps as well. In the end you might become the angst-ridden tortured artist who actual produces something worthwhile. 

Cindy Sherman's untitled 153 and untitled 96 are MEH in my eyes, but there is $6.6 million dollars of sales between the two of them that would disagree.

As far as Gursky? I think the Windows XP background was more interesting. 

Art is after all in the eye of the beholder.


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## Lightmaster (Feb 20, 2014)

Rienzphotoz said:


> Lightmaster said:
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> 
> > when you are an italian artist you even can sell your canned sh*t.
> ...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist's_Shit


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## Rienzphotoz (Feb 20, 2014)

Lightmaster said:


> Rienzphotoz said:
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> > Lightmaster said:
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Holy sh!t!  ... I originally thought you were kidding ... can't believe a freaking moron selling sh!t cans and the bigger morons who actually bought them and finally ending up with a museum paying DKK 250,000 settlement to the collector.  ... that is some "stinking" rich business.


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## IMG_0001 (Feb 20, 2014)

Maui5150 said:


> Like anything else, scarcity is your friend.
> 
> ...



In this respect, I believe film photography has an advantage. Original prints form the darkroom processes were more likely to be unique than inkjet prints.


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## Grumbaki (Mar 14, 2014)

Rienzphotoz said:


> Lightmaster said:
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> > Rienzphotoz said:
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If you can't see the conumdrum he created and the statement it is towards art marketization, yeah this is just a pile of shit. But if you do you can appreciate the gesture, the irony and the proto punk idea. Much of this evaporated since a few cans started leaking, revealing the content (indeed true to his word).
37$ a piece, 90 boxes that's 3300$ minus expenses. Even at 1961 value, he didn't get rich with that.


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## Rienzphotoz (Mar 14, 2014)

Grumbaki said:


> Rienzphotoz said:
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> > Lightmaster said:
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Regardless of the "conundrum", I cannot "appreciate the gesture", coz it is not worthy of appreciation ... no matter how much we abhor "marketization", it is "marketization" that lets us afford the comforts of our lives, I guess the sh!t can seller did not realize that ... image if everyone felt the same way and started sh!tting all over the place ... if he felt that way in 1961, what would he do in 2014? fill barrel full of sh!t and try to sell it off as art to make a point ... disgusting! We don not need weirdos like that, nor do they deserve our appreciation.


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## Grumbaki (Mar 14, 2014)

Rienzphotoz said:


> disgusting! We don not need weirdos like that, nor do they deserve our appreciation.



Interesting points. but would you accept that, without drawing a parallel in aesthetic values, I point that this comment would apply to the Vitruvian man from Da Vinci that was the result of his foundness for human dissection (huge taboo at the time)?

Maybe you'd be less reluctant toward "this weirdos" work on temporality of art and the pointlessness of the art market with his work that led to Merda d'artista, Fiato d'artista (breath of artist) that were just innofensive balloons he blew but that, by nature, would be self destructing soon.

And any comment about this derivation of the Neitzchean concept of humans being works of art themselves?

I'm not trying to take the high road here, I'm just questioning the immediate rejection as a whole under the simple principle that this is indeed S___.

After all, may work of photography can also be considered as obsene, weird and/or worthless under those standards.

PS: the point about everyone doing it everywhere is hilarious because that's actually the only think that would have prevented this to happen, rendering the "art" indeed worthless as supply would surpass demand ;D


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## Rienzphotoz (Mar 14, 2014)

Grumbaki said:


> Rienzphotoz said:
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> 
> > disgusting! We don not need weirdos like that, nor do they deserve our appreciation.
> ...


Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man is a master piece and it *required artistic skill* ... just because Da Vinci was "fond" of human dissection, he did not chop a few pieces of, carefully measured, human flesh and packaged them in tin cans and pass it off as art. Seriously, what artistic skill does one require to measure 30gms of human waste and put it in a tin can? My issue is not with sh!t, if he had created something artistic with his sh!t, I would have appreciated it ... in India cow dung is used to create incense sticks that are artistically presented (refer to the images below) they also make cow dung "cakes" that are not only used for fuel, sometimes they take great pride in presenting them in unique ways. Women in Rwanda make very beautiful art work with cow dung (called Imigongo), that is marketed for the welfare of their small scale industry (refer to the images below) ... now that is art, which is both aesthetically pleasing and useful and it deserves our appreciation, respect and support ... but not for some guy filling cans with his sh!t - that's just plain disgusting, no matter what he is trying to prove. If he was trying to prove a point about marketization, to me he only comes across as a bitter and negative man who had no other artistic means of expression to prove his point, instead chose a very cheap, low life, crude & disgusting approach.


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## Grumbaki (Mar 14, 2014)

Sorry for the other readers for hijacking the thread but a debate about art is relevant on a photo forum. (that's my best excuse).



Rienzphotoz said:


> Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man is a master piece and it *required artistic skill* ...


So artistic skill can only be a manual skill (drawing, sculpting...) and not the ability to conceive a work of art? Even if so, what is the threshold of "quality"? Is Basquiat an artist?



> Imigongo


I see plenty of reapeated patterns in your pics. Wich would qualify more as artisanship than art as in traditionnal sense. Monnet painting is art. Monnet copying one of his work is craftmanship. Even you qualify it as an industry.



> chose a very cheap, low life, crude & disgusting approach.


[/quote]
Which is why part of modern art is called Shock art. Punk is still music. very cheap, low life, crude & disgusting approach can be necessary to pass on a message.

Actually the message should please you. Institutional art buyers would litteraly buy sh*t if it comes from some famous artist. You actually agree with him.


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## Rienzphotoz (Mar 14, 2014)

Grumbaki said:


> So artistic skill can only be a manual skill (drawing, sculpting...) and not the ability to conceive a work of art?


No I do not think "artistic skill can only be a manual skill (drawing, sculpting...)" ... but good luck to anyone who thinks, sh!tting in a can is some kind of an "ability to conceive a work of art". :


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## Logan (Mar 14, 2014)

Some people would say that taking a picture of something that already exists is clearly not art. At least he pooped in the cans, the photographer just reproduces it with one less dimension.

You can twist that argument against anything that someone considers art. Not sure what the conclusion is, but making an arbitrary distinction about shitting in a can VS painting a picture of the can or photographing it seems to be on shaky ground.


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## Rienzphotoz (Mar 14, 2014)

Logan said:


> Some people would say that taking a picture of something that already exists is clearly not art. At least he pooped in the cans, the photographer just reproduces it with one less dimension.
> 
> You can twist that argument against anything that someone considers art. Not sure what the conclusion is, but making an arbitrary distinction about shitting in a can VS painting a picture of the can or photographing it seems to be on shaky ground.


I am no expert on art (especially the kind where sh!t cans are involved) , but I can hold a picture or a photograph of a can and appreciate the way it was portrayed/composed, but I have absolutely *no* inclination whatsoever to hold some guy's sh!t can and appreciate its texture or odor and proudly display it as a work of art, coz for me that is disgusting  ... But, if someone insists that a sh!t can is art and enjoys getting their lungs filled with the smell of some random guy's oozing excreta or likes the feel of its texture, I am happy to say, they won, I lost ... coz I'd rather be on shaky ground than on stinky ground.


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## Logan (Mar 15, 2014)

Rienzphotoz said:


> Logan said:
> 
> 
> > Some people would say that taking a picture of something that already exists is clearly not art. At least he pooped in the cans, the photographer just reproduces it with one less dimension.
> ...



you dont have to like something to appreciate its value. all you are saying is you dont like poo. I don't like ballet but my personal feelings don't really have any bearing on its value as art. Methinks you just want to talk about poo, not art


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 15, 2014)

GMCPhotographics said:


> Back in 1859 there was a solar flare from the sun which was so big and catastrophic that it destroyed most of the world's power stations.
> http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/


 



Since there were no power stations in 1859, that wouldn't have been hard. Most of the power stations were built late in the 1800's. Telegraph systems used batteries, and high voltages were generated on the telegraph lines which could cause electrical shocks, arcs, and even fires. 

The USA secretly hardened the telephone system during the cold war, when they learned what EMP could do, so the phone system was protected. 

Our power system is very susceptible to such a event, and needs a major redesign, but it won't happen until it costs a trillion or two in damage. Even so, those DVD's won't disappear because of a sun flare. Early CD's were very unreliable, they are far better now, I had some lose their data in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I still have data from the 2nd generation of CD's.
Magnetic media, like floppy disks does degrade, and many of my 198X Floppies are no longer readable.

There is little doubt that optical storage is more reliable than magnetic, and compressing data is not as reliable.
However, many movie films are no longer in existence because they used acetate film substrate which disintegrates long before 100 years. Early technology is always less reliable until it matures. Solid state storage is pretty new, and is certainly subject to degrading. A cosmic ray might cause the loss of one of those billions of memory cells. Scratches affect film in a similar way, but its more serious.

I would expect that at some point, if data were to be archived on solid state devices like memory chips, then redundant memory structure would be used, its certainly doable, there are patents and applications, but its not yet out there for CD or CF cards.
Meanwhile, my first digital photos from the 1990's are still around while my Polaroid prints from the 1960's and 1970's are toast, Its sad, they have faded away. Even my color print film and color prints from the 1950's are no longer usable. Black and white and Kodachrome slides are just fine. Polaroid deserves to go bankrupt!


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## Rienzphotoz (Mar 15, 2014)

Logan said:


> Rienzphotoz said:
> 
> 
> > Logan said:
> ...


That's funny, coz you are the one who's been rooting for sh!t in a can as some kind of an art form, hey but who am I to argue with you if you think sh!tting in a can is art or if you have "feelings" for that sort of thing ... so, you win! : Enjoy your art, Good bye.


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