Cool Stuff and More Cool Stuff

Peter Turnley, Ground Zero, New York, September 12, 2001

• First of all, I just added three new inclusions (eight new photographs) to the previous "Baker's Dozen: Pictures Taken with Leica Lenses" post. Do not miss!

• Second, as he did last year, my friend (and yours) Peter Turnley is having a holiday print sale of full-sized 16x20" prints in both black-and-white and color. This is not an official "TOP Sale," but Peter will make a contribution to TOP if you hit the "referred by" menu at the bottom of the sale page:

The selection is mighty and the prices very nice: note especially the three-print deal of $1,000 for three prints, as this is the lowest price Peter has ever sold his full-sized 16x20-inch prints for. These are exactly the same prints that sell for $1,400 to $2,000 (for one, not three) in brick-and-mortar galleries the rest of the year.

Even if you don't buy one, you can exercise your delectation skills by looking over the 18 pictures and deciding which ones you like the best. They're good to see.

• Cyber Monday this year beat Black Friday for sales, and was both the biggest online shopping day ever and also the biggest sales day Amazon ever had, adding up to a significant slice of the holiday sales pie. I'm scared to look at how I did, so I haven't checked yet (if I didn't do okay, I don't want to know. I know I'm getting the tar beat out of me by video review sites).

In any event, B&H Photo has some marvelous "Cyber Week" sales still going on. Here are some links to some outstanding deals:

Sony page

Nikon page

Canon page

In case you haven't noticed, the Bigs would really like to sell you a camera or lens this year. The competition is cutthroat and the prices are...well, just cut.

Consider for instance that at the Sony page, you can get the original Sony A7 for only $798 (!), the A7II for only $1,298, and the A6500 for only $1,198. Look around at the pages at those links. Now's a good time to pull the trigger if the timing is right for you.

Peter Turnley, Paris, 1991

Mike

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Eli Burakian: "Simple question with probably no correct answer: how do I know, or attempt to determine, if a specific fine art print is a good investment, financially speaking? Are there specific rules of thumb or generalizations that would aid in choosing? I never buy prints that I don't love, but beyond my limited understanding of photography in the art world, I'm pretty clueless about what factors go into determining financial value to specific artworks and artists."

Mike replies: The clear best advice is, don't—that is, don't buy fine art prints as investments. Buy what you love (as you said you do), and limit your spending to what you can comfortably afford. Art isn't a safe investment until you get to the level of silly money, and sometimes not even then. With those conditions met, it can be a highly rewarding investment if you find something you love that keeps "giving" whenever you look at it, something you'll really enjoy living with.

Remember that all art is essentially tulip bulbs (cf. chapter 3 of Charles Mackay's Memoirs of Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, "The Tulipomania").

If you really want to buy photographs as financial investments (I know several people who do), start by building a relationship with a professional gallerist who can advise you. They will ordinarily spend more time and take more trouble with you if you spend a fair amount of money with them. I believe one of my acquaintances spends well into six figures annually (just my guess), and quite plausibly seven, on photographs as investments, so he naturally has good relationships with the gallerists he buys from.

David Boyce adds: "To Eli Burakian: Mike has covered lots of the bases, but one thing to add to the buy what you like thing, buy what you love, not like. Things that you know that regardless of the value you will keep them, be entranced and entertained. And buy in depth, several works by the same artist, not one here and there by different artists. If you want work that is going to grow, or at least hold its value look for work that is 'controversial' or 'difficult.' Works that divide opinions. Those are the ones that might grow in value. And I say might. I'm an artist and my wife and I collect. But we are different to a lot of buyers; we kind of hope stuff we own doesn't become too valuable as then there is the temptation to sell it. That would cause lots of emotional pain."

Mike: One of my favorite stories is one my art teacher told. He had an opportunity to buy a watercolor from Andrew Wyeth's very first show...for $25. He almost pulled the trigger, got cold feet, and passed. Over the years, he watched the price of the very picture he wanted to buy rise to $250, then to $2,500, then $25,000, and finally to $250,000. He said he was filled with regret and remorse at ever step—but largely because as the price rose, he became increasingly aware that he would never again have any chance to own it. But then the painting rose in price to $2.5 million, and he said at that point, he no longer regretted not buying it. I asked him why, and he said, "because I would have had to sell it if it were that valuable. It would be too expensive to keep in the house. And I loved it. If I had bought it, I know I would have wanted to keep it."

Comments

[Eolake]

My impression of buying art as investment is that while one can buy early and occasionally get rewarded highly much later, the odds of that happening is about the same as winning on the pony track.
But at least one in the meantime has some art one likes, hopefully.

Basically it’s a hobby for very rich people, not really a good investment career.

[Chuck Albertson]

...and stay away from bitcoins, if you know what's good for you.

[Richard Alan Fox]

A better investment is making pictures.

[Allan Graham]

I wonder who benefits from speculation in art. Perhaps there ought to be a law against any work of art subsequently changing hands for any more than the artist was initially paid for it.

[Somehow I can't see the current Republican Congress generating much support for that idea. But I believe France does have a law that mandates a small percentage of resale prices going to still-living artists. I'm not sure if that ever made it into law or was just an idea that was discussed. --Mike]

[John Camp]

A slight amendment to David Boyce's suggestion that a person might collect photos by one photographer. That's a good thing to do, but I'd also suggest another way to go is to find a theme that holds your collection together. I have a very nice collection of prints made by well-known photographers from the 30s, 40s and 50s, all B&W. They go very well together, because of time and technique (you might group them under the rubric "modern.") Because all of my prints (with one exception) were "printed later," they weren't terribly expensive, although they are all in excellent condition and beautifully printed, usually by the original photographer. I can't help much with art as an investment, because I only have one photo that I think has significantly appreciated since I bought it. "Printed later" photos don't cost too much, but they don't appreciate much either. But if you just love the image, "printed later" is the way to go.