Photography on the Rise

Forbes takes a look at a recent ArtTactic report on the growing interest in modern and contemporary photography.  According to the report, the market is up 9.2% since May, with most gains coming at the top of the market.

Forbes reports

This week, ArtTactic published a survey that showed that confidence in the modern and contemporary photography market is up by 9.2% since May, with the biggest increase in confidence at top end of the market, for photos priced over $100,000. Some 92% of experts surveyed thought that prices for modern photography are likely to rise in the next six months, while 34% thought that prices in contemporary photography would go up and 66% thought they would remain at current levels.

Historically, prices for fine art photography have tended to be much lower than those fetched by artists working in other medium, but that seems to be changing for some parts of this market, albeit pretty slowly. “Prices are definitely creeping up, but it’s not a steep curve, more of a gradual slope,” says Ben Burdett, owner of  ATLAS gallery, a London fine art photography gallery that has helped to build the photography collections of people such as Elton John and institutions such as the National Museum of Qatar and is currently exhibiting at Art Basel Miami Beach.

His assessment is that most years, a new auction record is set for the highest price paid for any photograph, while new auction records for the most coveted artists are set every one to two years, but that prices even for the hottest photographic artists are still pretty reasonable. “Compared to the fine art world, it’s cheap. It’s easy to buy a major name in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Source: Forbes