WHY COLLECT FINE ART PRINTS?
We have grown accustomed to seeing images displayed on computer monitors and tablet screens. Pixels can be pretty amazing. Deep color and rich black-and-white. This gets even more impressive as the resolution of electronic continues to improve. Digital is certainly here to say.
But when you turn off the power the image disappears. Because an electronic image is a process, not a thing. It is ephemeral. It doesn’t persist over time. It has no actual physical reality. Plus as any real student of art will tell you a digital image is never the equal of an actual painting or photograph because it changes depending on the settings of the electronic device on which it is displayed and (especially with painting) it never actually captures the reality of the colors and texture of the original.
It is also a fact that electronic images have no collector value. The Mona Lisa has a value that is immensely greater than the most perfect copy of the same painting. A photographic print by Ansel Adams from 1947 has a value far beyond a contemporary print from the same negative because is has a provenance: information determining the authorship and history of a particular work. A vintage print created by Adams by not actually be as good (in terms of range of tones, dodging and burning for greatest effect) than a modern print since the materials and chemistry available today are superior. But as an artifact – a thing – the Adams’ print has a much greater importance and value.
Vintage prints have a value because you can’t make any more of them. If you reproduce that image it is no longer vintage. Actually, I have pictures I printed myself some 20 years ago that have increasing value as vintage prints. I also have color prints equally vintage that were done a cibachromes, a process rarely used nowadays and one I certainly never plan to use again. I have put these prints aside and don’t sell them. They are like an investment that will increase in value over time – like any other good investment.
And the fact is that any work of art become vintage if continues to exist long enough.
But vintage or not, a print on the wall has a presence an electronic image does not. When a print is signed, numbered or dated it becomes a unique artifact, even if other prints just like it were created. It can be mounted, framed and hung on the wall to become part of your lifestyle. When not displayed, prints can be stored for future use or held as their value increases over time.
My own photos have yet to attract a lot of interest from the art market or by collectors. This is in spite of my having been exhibited in two museums and a number of galleries and having had two fine art photo books published. I believe this is primarily because the subject of aesthetically developed muscular females is still so new and strange in the culture. The art market is driven by the degree opinions of perceived value are validate by actual sales history.
But the history of art is full of examples of work being rejected by the mainstream and later becoming more highly valued and enormously popular. When the Impressionists first tried to exhibit at the Salon de Paris at the end of the 19th century they were refused. Impressionism then went on to become one of the most popular styles in the history of art.
At some point in the not-to-distant-future the aesthetically developed muscular female body will become an accepted part of the culture. When that happens the art world will look back on these early years of its history and they will find there is only one photographer whose work best represents the evolution of this phenomenon – and the photographs of Bill Dobbins will acquire both historic importance and considerable monetary value.
Bill Dobbins
FINE ART PRINT STORE
http://bill-dobbins-fine-art-photography.myshopify.com/
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THE BODY PHOTOGRAPHER
Bill Dobbins Photography and Motion
2012 Veteran Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90025
cel: (310) 721 8666
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Bill Dobbins Fine Art 