HOW TO START A PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION - PART 1

Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson

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

By Bill Shapiro

A few years after I moved to New York City, and once I finally had a little spare change

in my pocket, I strolled into a gallery I’d never seen before and had one of those

moments that anyone who has ever fallen hard for a photograph can tell you about:

There, on the far wall, was a small, 5 x 7-inch print. . .and it sort of called out to me. I

wandered around the gallery but kept drifting back to this one image: two children deepin play, seemingly lost in their own world, surrounded by hundreds of tiny, hand-painted dots that danced and swirled across the photo’s surface. It felt like childhood memory, like innocence, like the swirl of time itself.

I had absolutely no idea who the photographer was, and I absolutely did not care — I

simply fell in love. The photo came in a simple wooden frame and cost $500 and it’s

held a prominent spot in my kitchen for the last 30 years.

And I’ve been collecting photography ever since. 

Today, thanks to growing prevalence of back-pocket cameras and image-driven social

media, thanks to digital sales, art-buying apps, and an art market that’s increasingly

moved online, it’s never been easier to start your own photo collection. Relatively

speaking, photography remains inexpensive to collect, at least compared to other media such as sculpture or painting: While a picture from an name photographer might start at $1,500, it’s not hard to pick up an outstanding image from an emerging artist for a couple hundred dollars or to score a new print of a legendary image for as little as $125, if you find the right sale. And while, yes, it’s certainly true that photographs can increase in value over the years, that’s not the primary reason to start a collection. Instead, collecting is a way to beautify your space, a way to enjoy an image that brings you inspiration or joy or perhaps a more nuanced emotion. Of course, it can also be a great conversation piece, and even a chance to own a piece of history. Here, a few things to consider before you begin.

[click here to read Part 2]