HOW TO START A PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION - Part 4

Photo by Pierre Crocquet

Smart strategies for how—and where—to begin buying fine-art photographs

By Bill Shapiro

The most important buying advice can by summed up in four words: Buy what you love. Even if you found yourself a relatively good deal, if you’re not crazy about the picture — if it doesn’t speak to you in some way — you’re not going to want to look at it every day on your wall. That said, two laws influence the photography market: the law of scarcity and the law of supply and demand, and Bellows suggests keeping that in mind. But, he says, remember that “you’re not just buying an image, you’re buying an object, an object that, hopefully, the photographer printed, touched, and signed.” 

You’ll find that the most intimate way to buy photographs is to find a local gallery that

carries the kind of photography you like. “Some years ago, in certain cities, a gallery

might not have paid much attention to someone just getting interested in collecting,”

says Bellows, who’s spent four decades in the photo world. “But that’s probably not the case today. We look at this as a long-term relationship, and if somebody walks in

looking for a little education, that’s great.”

If you don’t get a good, helpful vibe from the gallery owner? Leave. He or she is

probably not someone you want to be in a long-term relationship with. What if you walk in and the pictures on the wall aren’t your style? Don’t worry. Galleries stage exhibits throughout the year to appeal to different tastes and different buyers, but a gallery owner likely has hundreds of other photographs, in dozens of different styles, in the back and I’ve found that they’re always happy to show you a smattering. And from then on, once they have a sense of your style, they’ll be on the lookout for the kind of pictures you’re interested in. 

Ideally, you’ll want your photograph to be signed by the photographer, which goes back to Bellows’ point about owning an object — not just an image — that’s actually been touched by the hand of the photographer. If a gallerist tells you that a photograph is signed on “verso,” that means that it’s signed on the back; “recto” means it’s signed on the front. Sometimes, the signature might not appear on the print itself, but on a “certificate of authenticity” that accompanies the print. The C of A often includes the title of the work, a date, and the photographer’s signature. I have more than a few of those.

[Click here for part 5]