Would making only one print increase value of photography?

[Jedidiah Smith]

I was browsing a book on printmaking at Barnes & Nobles last night - very fascinating. Went from the history of ink prints to photographs, lithos, through modern, computerized half-tone plot patterns, etc.

Toward the end of the book, on one page the author had a painting and said the difference between that painting and the print was that there will only ever be "one" of that exact painting...with the brush stokes exactly so, with the colors exactly as they are; with what we might call "minor imperfections", etc...precisely as the artist rendered it (the painted scene) that time.

I got to thinking a little about this. OK, that's scary, I know!
But I'm curious how my fellow photographers feel about this subject. Do you feel that the value of photography in general would be greater if only one "print" was ever made of each original scene? I know there are "collectors' editions" of various famous photographers' work. However, it is still possible that they could make another print from that negative or digital file.

What if you made only one print, and then sold it or displayed it with the negative right next to it...or maybe even damaged the negative in such a way that another print could not be made? That almost sounds like sacrilege to me - destroying a negative, but I wonder what it would do for value? Nothing or everything? And as a side discussion - could this ever be done to a digitally captured photograph? Wonder what the value difference would be there?
Just looking for a little discussion on this.
Thanks,
Jed

[Christopher Walrath]

Until you're famous enough to rival Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Man Ray and the like, stick to perserving your negs. In AA's case, Alan Ross would have needed a different line of work the past few years (referring to special edition prints for AA galleries, that is).

[SchwinnParamount]

The single print you make may have added value only if there is already a demand for your work. The value is entirely dependend on what the buyer is willing to pay. Imagine that you had that single print up for sale on Ebay. If there were no bidders then the print would be worth nothing. If there was a single bid for $x then x is the worth. If you were Ansel Adams... or the Ansel Adams trust, and you put up the one and only print AA made from a newly discovered negative then you would see the sort of value inflation written about in your book. There would be multiple bids for the AA print and the price would go very high, very quickly. All of that value is driven by the reputation of the photographer.

[jgjbowen]

Of course it will increase the value of the work. The problem is the artist will NEVER receive the increased value. The increased value will only be recognized on the secondary market after the artist is dead. I'm sure there are thousands of such photographs in existence. We call them portraits.

For we photographers a fellow named Kevin Saitta made a HUGE fuss about this on APUG and perhaps the LF forum back in December 2007. Kevin suggested we should all do as he was doing, make just one original print from the negative then sell the negative with the print. THIS would bring us all to photographic salvation. A month or two after Kevin's tirade, he sold his gear and gave up photography. I guess it didn't work too well for Kevin.

[John Koehrer]

[QUOTE=Jedidiah Smith;913222

I got to thinking a little about this. OK, that's scary, I know!
But I'm curious how my fellow photographers feel about this subject. Do you feel that the value of photography in general would be greater if only one "print" was ever made of each original scene? I know there are "collectors' editions" of various famous photographers' work. However, it is still possible that they could make another print from that negative or digital file.

What if you made only one print, and then sold it or displayed it with the negative right next to it...or maybe even damaged the negative in such a way that another print could not be made? That almost sounds like sacrilege to me - destroying a negative, but I wonder what it would do for value? Nothing or everything? And as a side discussion - could this ever be done to a digitally captured photograph? Wonder what the value difference would be there?
Just looking for a little discussion on this.
Thanks,
Jed[/QUOTE]

Daguerreotypes are one offs.

It's possible that additional prints could be made from "limited edition" negatives. It depends what you call limited. Some photographers will make an edition of different sizes and claim them to be "limited editions". Whether this is ethical or not is really defined. Some states actually regulate what can be called a limited edition.
There's a photographer from Ireland that, when he retires a negative has a bonfire to destroy the negs. I personally think it's just a marketing ploy.

Re:digital editions would you delete the file from the hard drive? & how do you prove there's not a copy of the file on another computer?

OK now, Adams, Weston, Brassai, Cartier-Bresson, Evans, Lange, Bernhard, Man Ray, Stieglitz, Steichen, Brandt, Sudek, Sheeler Didn't limit the # of prints made from an individual negative and it didn't hurt them any. I do believe there were limits on the number of portfolios that they made.
Again, I believe the edition game is just that, a scam to artificially increase the price(income to) of an individual.

[SuzanneR]

I don't think limiting your print editions of one, ten or one hundred has anything whatever to do with the medium of photography, which by its very nature is one of reproduction. Who knows what makes certain photographs more valuable in the market place, and I suppose rarity can make something worth more. But it's not a monetary value I'm after. I'd love to make some cash selling prints, but since limiting yourself to one print (or ten or twenty-five) is about marketing, and not the medium, I'd rather not.

And you never know... you might decide to print something differently down the road (a nice benefit of the medium), but if you've put a whole punch through the neg, you've pretty much shut down an avenue of expression. If a collector can't deal with that... oh well.

Limiting print editions, btw, comes from printing mediums... I think etching plates and lithographic stones etc. can only produce so many prints before the press squashes them enough that they can't really be inked properly anymore.

[tkamiya]

Limiting the number of print will increase value both in initial sale and resale. However, if you are thinking about your earning potential, it will also limit your ability to market more prints to satisfy the market demand. If you produce limited copies, you owe it to the purchaser to honor your commitment. Otherwise, the whole scheme of "limited and numbered" copy is null and void. Of course, this type of things require that there is enough demand and value to the product themselves. I could number my prints but that won't increase value or demand of what I produce. 10 times zero is still zero.

Can digital copies be destroyed? Sure.... Is film along with the print ensure there's only one print? No it doesn't... you can copy film or produce more prints. I think, it has a lot to do with trust and integrity, more than physical destruction.

I was reading Ansel Adam's autobiography and at one point, he did destroy his negatives after numbered copies are completely made. He says he regretted this decision and never did it again.

[jnanian]

For we photographers a fellow named Kevin Saitta made a HUGE fuss about this on APUG and perhaps the LF forum back in December 2007. Kevin suggested we should all do as he was doing, make just one original print from the negative then sell the negative with the print. THIS would bring us all to photographic salvation. A month or two after Kevin's tirade, he sold his gear and gave up photography. I guess it didn't work too well for Kevin.

i agree with what kevin was saying ..
let the pixi0graphers make the posters
and let the photographers make photographs ..
the thing that will set photographers
apart from the pack will be the fact that photographic images
will be unique ... not mass produced.
we should be more like tin typists and dag-makers not button pushers ...

for a long time i made negatives by hand and made 1 usable print and disassembled / destroyed the negative.
i see nothing wrong with destroying a negative

[keithwms]

Do you feel that the value of photography in general would be greater if only one "print" was ever made of each original scene?

Yes, but it'd be a shame if photographers valued their work only in terms of the prices of their prints.

[rthomas]

I have negatives and slides that are works of art to me, in and of themselves, and I could not bring myself to destroy them. Displaying them means printing them, of course; but since I don't make many prints (silver or inkjet) to begin with, I feel that each print is always a "one off." Each time I do print I may be using different materials (by chance, or even deliberately choosing to do something different). I do this for artistic expression, nothing else. I've had a couple shows, and have probably sold less than twenty prints since 1992 when I started taking photography seriously. Certainly the very small amount of my work that's out there is "limited edition" but that's just an accident.