# "Phantom" by Peter Lik most expensive Photo, $6.5 million, €5 million



## Maximilian (Dec 11, 2014)

For what it's "worth":
http://petapixel.com/2014/12/10/peter-lik-print-sells-6-5-million-shattering-record-expensive-photo/

edit:
At least it fits my personal taste more than Andreas Gursky's "Rhein II" ($4.3 million), but that's taste. 
And I better do not talk about the money


----------



## Cosmicbug (Dec 11, 2014)

Nice work..
Good to see a financial worth on photographic art.

Thanks for sharing


----------



## wickidwombat (Dec 11, 2014)

this is actually a decent shot but worth that much money? 

anyway its alot better than most of his other attrocities, anyone remember the moon shot where the clouds are behind the moon which he claimed was a single capture? not to mention the preposterous size of the moon in that one?

but good on him for selling it for that much dough...


----------



## Maximilian (Dec 11, 2014)

wickidwombat said:


> this is actually a decent shot but worth that much money?


All the time I see what amount of money is spend for art this line comes to my mind:
"... while American businessmen snap up Van Goghs for the price of a hospital wing..."
(Del Amitri, "Nothing Ever Happens")



> anyway its alot better than most of his other attrocities, anyone remember the moon shot where the clouds are behind the moon which he claimed was a single capture? not to mention the preposterous size of the moon in that one?


Having that in mind I instantly thought about how much this one might have been photoshoped... 8)


----------



## Orangutan (Dec 11, 2014)

wickidwombat said:


> this is actually a decent shot but worth that much money?



It's a decent shot, but nothing more. Considering his past, I'd not be surprised if the "phantom" wasn't fauxtoshopped in. It also wouldn't surprise me at all if the buyer of this had initials P.L., and that the high announced price was just to generate buzz to sell lots of $200-$1,000 prints.

Sorry, no: this is a technically nice photo, and I'd be happy to have made it (I'm an amateur), but this is ridiculous!


----------



## Don Haines (Dec 11, 2014)

Sorry , but it is no longer the world's most expensive picture.

I just sold the following picture, "Angry Cat" to an undisclosed "Crazy Cat Lady" for $10,000,000......

According to the art world, the sale is a publicity stunt, and Lik has a habit of doing so.... Undisclosed buyer... completely unverifiable.... This is no different than having one's spouse write a check for $10,000,000 on your own bank account and giving it to you.....


----------



## Mantadude (Dec 11, 2014)

For those interested, I am offering up a similar photo. Limited edition to 1. At a bargain price off $3.2 Million. That's over 50% off!!!!.

And if you hurry now....you can get my special holiday pricing to make it a cool $3M. 

Of course if you want it in color, that will cost you an extra $1M.

The photo title - 'Peter's Ghost in a dress'


----------



## ajfotofilmagem (Dec 11, 2014)

Don Haines said:


> Sorry , but it is no longer the world's most expensive picture.
> I just sold the following picture, "Angry Cat" to an undisclosed "Crazy Cat Lady" for $10,000,000......
> According to the art world, the sale is a publicity stunt, and Lik has a habit of doing so.... Undisclosed buyer... completely unverifiable.... This is no different than having one's spouse write a check for $10,000,000 on your own bank account and giving it to you.....


I liked cat photo. But I made a poster of 1.2 meters of my cat and I saved a lot of money.

Seriously: Yes, it seems just a publicity stunt to value the "artist". When he tries to sell works in the future, some collectors might think that is a bargain pay only $ 500,000.


----------



## Marsu42 (Dec 11, 2014)

wickidwombat said:


> this is actually a decent shot but worth that much money?



I don't know any other of his work, but I find this to be an excellent picture, and he had the good sense to put a meaning it other than "I happened to shoot this the other day" 

As for the money, obviously(?) high-priced art isn't about private people spending millions for their personal pleasure, but for social status ("Look, I like good art! And I can afford it!") and future investment. 

If want "wtf!?", I just read about this being the second most expensive picture ever. I'm really lost for words, probably because I'm German and for this domestic river a lot of associated images pop up in my mind - but this isn't one of them :-o


----------



## Policar (Dec 11, 2014)

Lik's photo is a tone-mapped clichéd mess; Gursky's is extraordinary.


----------



## Omni Images (Dec 11, 2014)

I saw the video of that shot a year ago or so .. not quiet the making of it but the explanation of how he got it.
He had a native American Indian guide showing him around, and it was the guide who picked up a hand full of dirt and threw it into the air ... he just captured that.
Hope his "guide" got a share of this.
One would also assume that he does not sell any further prints of it for that price .. perhaps even go around and repossess the other copies he has already sold of it since taking it, over a year ago I'm sure it was.
But yeah, if true then it puts value on any good image .... our town is a tiny country town, no one has much cash, so getting any sort of decent price here is so hard ... and with every second kid with a camera calling themselves such and such photography, images seem to be loosing value.


----------



## Maximilian (Dec 11, 2014)

Policar said:


> Lik's photo is a tone-mapped clichéd mess;


Probably you are right. 



> Gursky's is extraordinary.


Please tell me why? I really (honestly) would like to understand.


----------



## RGF (Dec 11, 2014)

wickidwombat said:


> this is actually a decent shot but worth that much money?



The print is worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it. the value of the print is not only the print but also cache brought by the photographer.


----------



## zim (Dec 11, 2014)

love this artists work he stands on the shoulders of giants

and he provided proof if proof was needed that nikon cameras have so much dr that they can pull the moon in front of clouds

I mean what's not to Lik


----------



## jcarapet (Dec 11, 2014)

Mantadude said:


> For those interested, I am offering up a similar photo. Limited edition to 1. At a bargain price off $3.2 Million. That's over 50% off!!!!.
> 
> And if you hurry now....you can get my special holiday pricing to make it a cool $3M.
> 
> ...



What a bargain, I want two!


----------



## Terry Rogers (Dec 11, 2014)

The content of this post fuels my disdain of the current marginal tax rate, the separate tax rate for investment income and income inequality in general. Not really a photography related post... but yeah, I had to get this off my chest.


----------



## emag (Dec 12, 2014)

I just don't understand the value put on this photo. 'Bella Luna' is hideous. But he does good work in general. I could see it fetching 100's, maybe 1000's at most. I guess it's all about marketing.


----------



## timmy_650 (Dec 12, 2014)

My problem with his photo is it isn't original. Pay like $90 for the photo tour and they set up this same photo for you and a few other favorites. I wish I would of paid the $90 bc the normal tour is like $45


----------



## Policar (Dec 12, 2014)

emag said:


> I just don't understand the value put on this photo. 'Bella Luna' is hideous. But he does good work in general. I could see it fetching 100's, maybe 1000's at most. I guess it's all about marketing.



"Bella Luna" is hilarious. He didn't even use the right transfer mode when he superimposed the stock image of the moon. And the composition is poor... everything about it is awful, but hilariously awful.

This is just a fairly good photo that's been tone mapped a bit too aggressively and put into black and white to make it art. I keep forgetting about that one. This isn't nearly that bad.


----------



## Policar (Dec 12, 2014)

Maximilian said:


> Policar said:
> 
> 
> > Lik's photo is a tone-mapped clichéd mess;
> ...



Gursky reminds me a bit of David Fincher. You get this really technically perfect (imagine that photo except wall-sized and with the equivalent of like 400 megapixels of detail) cold, clinical image that's still beautiful. I don't think this is Gursky's best photo at all, but try framing up a shot of a river that has that clean a composition and that symmetry. You would never walk by that scene and see something so perfect (and I'm sure it's digitally manipulated, but I can't tell where...) but it also feels naturalistic. It's a very elegant, beautiful look at something more mundane.

Gursky is a little crazy and he gives you this very high camera angle usually looking down on something and it's very clinical and cold (and usually shot in 8X10) so of course it's where you put the camera and how you present the subject matter. I think Terry Richardson is a great photographer if you're trying to shoot everything from a predator's POV, for instance. Gursky's POV is very cold, superior, organized, and it's not easy to emulate, though it's trivially easy to identify his style.

Lik is a great brand-maker, but his photos are just overbaked landscapes. He's not incompetent, but his stuff wavers between decent and garish. 

It's kind of silly that on one hand you have someone who's so cold and intellectual and on the other you have someone who's maudlin and basically the Thomas Kinkade of photographers. Kincade and Mondrian, maybe... But Gursky is better than Mondrian.

I'll take Vermeer or Velazquez.  Dig the hell out of Gursky but he's not my personal favorite, just think he's very accomplished and does great stuff.

I do think Gursky's stuff looks much better LARGE, as it's meant to be, whereas Lik's photos have a nice thumbnail over saturated/over-tonemapped POP that looks great on Facebook.


----------



## lo lite (Dec 12, 2014)

Mantadude said:


> For those interested, I am offering up a similar photo. Limited edition to 1. At a bargain price off $3.2 Million. That's over 50% off!!!!.
> 
> And if you hurry now....you can get my special holiday pricing to make it a cool $3M.
> 
> ...



Well, and exactly this is the problem with your shot. Everybody wants to see the ghost naked!


----------



## lo lite (Dec 12, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> wickidwombat said:
> 
> 
> > this is actually a decent shot but worth that much money?
> ...



Look at that picture. What do you see? A river in a postindustrial landscape. Very straight, very rectangular. That river is the rhine. The famous rhine, about which so many songs have been sung, about which a whole lot of the german cultural identity is grouped. Think about Loreley and so on. The rhine is a german myth. But what has it become nowadays? Look at the picture. This is the rhine nowadays. This is our culture, our society, our landscape nowadays.

No you now understand what Gursky had in his mind when creating this picture? (Of course it is heavily edited/photoshopped to emphasize his message)

cheers!


----------



## EchoLocation (Dec 12, 2014)

lo lite said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > wickidwombat said:
> ...


wow, that was beautiful. I don't think most American's(like myself) have thought of that perspective on this photo. 
On the Lik, I would definitely say "good on him." What's the harm if he gets 6 million for a photo he took/manipulated/whatever? If anyone offered any of us that price for a photo or anything we made, we would gladly take it. I don't see how this could be bad for the photography industry at all and we should give a little respect for a guy who is achieving such immense success.


----------



## privatebydesign (Dec 12, 2014)

Very eloquent, but I completely disagree with the power of the image. 

To my mind the fact that it has been manipulated completely destroys the validity of the message, it is as disingenuous as the myriad of women's magazines bemoaning the unrealistic 'look' they believe they are pressured into, whilst having heavily edited images of women on their covers and in their pages. 

To my mind you cannot say "look at what it is now" if what you are showing isn't a totally honest representation of what it actually is.


----------



## Orangutan (Dec 12, 2014)

EchoLocation said:


> if he gets 6 million


Assuming that's actually what happened. Since the buyer did not choose to make the purchase public, we can't be sure it wasn't sold by his right hand to his own left hand. If I had that kind of money to flush I'd hire one or more art scholars to evaluate the purchase before writing the check, and I can't imagine any sane art scholar evaluating that image as anything more than a pretty nice photo worth a few hundred bucks framed.



> What's the harm if he gets 6 million for a photo he took/manipulated/whatever?


If he were honest about his manipulations I would agree with you. Promoting a manipulated photo as a representation of a an actual moment in time is dishonest to the customer, and diminishes the credibility of the discipline as a whole. I have no problem with manipulations -- many of them can be more powerful than the original images. However they should not be misrepresented.



> If anyone offered any of us that price for a photo or anything we made, we would gladly take it.


True, but I'd be honest about the origin of the photo.



> I don't see how this could be bad for the photography industry at all and we should give a little respect for a guy who is achieving such immense success.


It could diminish the credibility of the discipline of art photography, and make all photographers seem like soulless money-grubbers.


----------



## Ivan Muller (Dec 12, 2014)

lo lite said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > wickidwombat said:
> ...



I actually quite like the Gursky photograph of the Rhine...thanks for the explanation! My problem is that I am only very very distant German nowadays and I never saw/realized the 'meaning' of the photograph...so looking at the image now and before, I don't really 'get it' - I have never been to Germany nor have I seen the Rhine - I dont like 'art' photographs that have to rely on an 'explanation' to get the meaning across...

but read what the Guardia has to say about photography as 'art' : http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/dec/10/most-expensive-photograph-ever-hackneyed-tasteless?CMP=share_btn_fb


----------



## jrista (Dec 12, 2014)

I have never particularly cared for Lik's work. Most of the time it looks drastically over-processed, with a massive amount of powerful saturation. Lik totally fell off the radar for me once he started stealing other photographer's work (ironically from a rather prolific blogger and trendy photographer) and lied about a clearly (and poorly) composited "moon" photo for which there was this ridiculous and overly dramatic story about how Lik "took the shot", all about "bringing the giant lens up, seeing the moon framed...yadda yadda bull-shiiit".


Lik. Publicity whore. Saturation freak. Liar. Thief. ???


----------



## agierke (Dec 12, 2014)

> To my mind the fact that it has been manipulated completely destroys the validity of the message....To my mind you cannot say "look at what it is now" if what you are showing isn't a totally honest representation of what it actually is.



well you may be missing the point then. a qoute from Gursky regarding the photograph:



> He has described the genesis of this work, saying, ‘there is a particular place with a view over the Rhine which has somehow always fascinated me, but it didn’t suffice for a picture as it basically constituted only part of a picture. I carried this idea for a picture around with me for a year and a half and thought about whether I ought perhaps to change my viewpoint ... In the end I decided to digitalise the pictures and leave out the elements that bothered me’ (quoted in Annelie Lütgens, ‘Shrines and Ornaments: A Look into the Display Cabinet’, Andreas Gursky: Fotografien 1994-1998, p.xvi).
> 
> Gursky digitally erased buildings on the far side of the river from his picture. This manipulation enhances the image visually, giving it more formal coherence. Rather than the sense of a specific place, the picture conveys an almost Platonic ideal of a body of water traversing as landscape. Gursky talks about this image in terms of its contemporaneity, saying, ‘I wasn’t interested in an unusual, possibly picturesque view of the Rhine, but in the most contemporary possible view of it. Paradoxically, this view of the Rhine cannot be obtained in situ; a fictitious construction was required to provide an accurate image of a modern river’ (quoted in ‘... I generally let things develop slowly’, Andreas Gursky: Fotografien 1994-1998, p.ix).



There was never the intent to represent a factual place, rather an image that represented an idea based on Gursky's personal experience with a place. there was no other way to achieve the image Gursky had in his mind but to digitally manipulate it. 



> Very eloquent, but I completely disagree with the power of the image



that may be because you may not be the intended audience for this image. imagery is often created with a narrower target audience than the mass public. just because an image reaches a wider audience doesn't necessitate the artist to then extend its meaning beyond the original intent. from the interview, Gursky makes its clear what the image was to him and what he was trying to achieve. the photograph ended up resonating with someone to the tune of 4.3 million dollars. so be it....good for him!

i have never quite understood the tendency in photography for there to be such stringent and narrow rules applied to what is or isn't a valid photograph. in art, rules are a foolish notion at the outset. if there is one rule in art it is this....whatever rules that attempt to establish a standard are typically shredded to bits in time.


----------



## Maximilian (Dec 12, 2014)

Policar said:


> Maximilian said:
> 
> 
> > Policar said:
> ...


Thank you very much for your reply and all your explanations.
I think I can understand you, but I hope you can understand me, too, when I say that to me "Rhein II" is just boring, even at a size of a house. And I believe I have a good imagination. Art is something to me that I want to trigger my fantasy, my imagination. I want to think beyond. And "Rhein II" doesn't give that to me.



> ... something so perfect (and I'm sure it's digitally manipulated, but I can't tell where...) but it also feels naturalistic.


AFAIK and read "Rhein II" got some manipulation at the dikes and the background to get some flaws and disturbing and asymmetrical parts away. And that's okay to me if admitted by request.
But when you get a "naturalistic" feeling about it, I only get a feeling of a straightened, embanked shipway, or call it a nautical highway. If that was what Gursky wanted to tell with that photo then he truly got me, but still it’s boring to me.



> Lik is a great brand-maker, but his photos are just overbaked landscapes. He's not incompetent, but his stuff wavers between decent and garish.


Surely you're right at this and I didn't say that I like his work, but if someone was offering me a print of those two photos for free I'd chose "Phantom". 
But best will be that I finally find the time during holiday to select two or three of my own made personal favs and make a print of them for my home


----------



## plam_1980 (Dec 12, 2014)

Orangutan said:


> wickidwombat said:
> 
> 
> > this is actually a decent shot but worth that much money?
> ...



He must have sold lots of $200-$1,000 prints then. In this older link from 2011 it is stated that he has sold over $150 million in limited edition prints to (that) date...
http://petapixel.com/2011/01/13/australian-landscape-photographer-peter-lik-sells-photo-for-1-million/

Of course this is most probably made-up, just like all his BS marketing


----------



## Marsu42 (Dec 12, 2014)

lo lite said:


> No you now understand what Gursky had in his mind when creating this picture? (Of course it is heavily edited/photoshopped to emphasize his message)



Ah right, so the intention was to confuse simple /me and my associations with the Rhein. Fair enough, and it certainly conveys a message of emptiness. However, I have a "been there, done that" feeling with the picture's (supposed) message, maybe that's why I missed it entirely.

As you might imagine I was never really one to interpret poems in school successfully  ... for your enjoyment, education and uplifting here's "The Dylan Painting" (for other samples see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochrome_painting)


----------



## Busted Knuckles (Dec 12, 2014)

Famous because your famous? 

My "wow" in it is that I walked the same steps. Probably had the same guide.

Glad he got the $$. 


I need to work on my marketing.....


----------



## AcutancePhotography (Dec 12, 2014)

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it" I think Leonard Nimoy said that. ;D


----------



## plam_1980 (Dec 12, 2014)

dilbert said:


> How do you sell a picture for so much?
> 
> Having sold other pictures for a lot of money, even if not as much.
> 
> ...



But as I pointed out above, according to the source, he has sold prints for $150 million (until 2011), do you find this credible?


----------



## privatebydesign (Dec 12, 2014)

agierke said:


> > To my mind the fact that it has been manipulated completely destroys the validity of the message....To my mind you cannot say "look at what it is now" if what you are showing isn't a totally honest representation of what it actually is.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



To suggest I am missing the point when I started my comment with "To my mind" is a weak response. Oh look a negative comment on some fine art, 'he doesn't understand it' is the easiest reply, but that is lazy and often wrong. I understand it, I just think he was also lazy, now we have PS everybody can take world class landscapes on their vacation, I don't just want strong creative ideas, I want skilled execution as well and if that means taking the time to find the right time and place or equipment selection, then do it, with no excuses.

Now I wasn't saying his opinion is invalid, just that *in my opinion* digitally altering the idea _'what it has become'_ is invalid. Why is it worth 4.3 million? Because that is what somebody paid for it, it was an investment, sure the buyer might like it, but it could just as easily live in a climate controlled storage facility until Gursky dies and it becomes worth more. Go to any Masters level art program and you will find more valid concepts and work, he just happens to have caught the eye of dealers, galleries, investors and possibly the occasional buyer. The high end art world has very little to do with the validity of the art.


----------



## anthonyd (Dec 12, 2014)

EchoLocation said:


> ... and we should give a little respect for a guy who is achieving such immense success.



Give respect to other photographers? You must be new here.


----------



## anthonyd (Dec 12, 2014)

ajfotofilmagem said:


> ...
> I liked cat photo. But I made a poster of 1.2 meters of my cat and I saved a lot of money.



poor cat, don't you miss it now


----------



## Marsu42 (Dec 12, 2014)

anthonyd said:


> ajfotofilmagem said:
> 
> 
> > ...
> ...



LOL


----------



## tayassu (Dec 12, 2014)

Don't know... ???
Surely, it is a nice photograph, but 6.5 million? meh....
These most expensive photographs always seem kinda average great to me; I've seen "Rhein II" in real, it isn't that impressive. In that very museum, the Munich "Pinakothek der Moderne" there are at least two or three better images, ironically in that very room.


----------



## slclick (Dec 12, 2014)

Antelope is a bitch to get into to shoot but that doesn't make it worth that much! Anywho, I like Bryan C.'s laser light better...

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Pictures/Picture.aspx?Picture=2010-05-25_14-57-46


----------



## ajfotofilmagem (Dec 14, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> anthonyd said:
> 
> 
> > ajfotofilmagem said:
> ...


Oh God! I DO NOT done this with my cat. 
The word "poster" has another meaning in the English language? ???
The meaning I know of is "a large size print."


----------



## Marsu42 (Dec 14, 2014)

ajfotofilmagem said:


> Oh God! I DO NOT done this with my cat.
> The word "poster" has another meaning in the English language? ???
> The meaning I know of is "a large size print."



Actually I doubt "poster" has another meaning in that context, but I make sure never to miss out on cheap jokes


----------



## EdB (Dec 14, 2014)

dilbert said:


> plam_1980 said:
> 
> 
> > dilbert said:
> ...



Here are some prices. This could be a mix of private sellers and Lik himself. http://www.artbrokerage.com/search/?q_m=0&q_pA2=&q=Peter+lik&sort=desc&filter%5B%5D=L&filter%5B%5D=PH&sort_price=&sort_date= 

The color version of Phantom sells for around 30-35k from a "limited" edition of 950. NINE HUNDRED FIFTY. This guy is a master marketer, only a fool would spend that kind of money on an edition that large.


----------



## anthonyd (Dec 16, 2014)

ajfotofilmagem said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > anthonyd said:
> ...




It doesn't have another meaning, the joke was about making a poster "of your cat" versus making a poster "out of a picture of you cat", but it was only to be funny, not to be pedantic, don't take it seriously.


----------



## AcutancePhotography (Dec 16, 2014)

To qualify as the most expensive photo ever, does money actually have to change hands? Especially if the photographer is selling the photograph to him or herself?

Just the other day, I sold to myself one of my best pictures. It sold for just under a Gillion dollars. I am taking payments from myself because I have great credit. ;D


----------



## shining example (Dec 16, 2014)

lo lite said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > If want "wtf!?", I just read about this being the second most expensive picture ever. I'm really lost for words, probably because I'm German and for this domestic river a lot of associated images pop up in my mind - but this isn't one of them :-o
> ...



Thank you for this. I quite like the image because it's so simple and graphic, but what fascinates me about it is this: I've seen and been to and even lived in places up and down the Rhine for half my life, and there is _nowhere_ along the river that actually looks like that. And yet... the Rhine _does_ look like that. Now I understand how that works.

(Also, I had to google that "Bella Luna" image y'all are talking about. I really wish I hadn't done that...)


----------

