The Value of a Print in a Digital World

Studying mono photography with Simon Ellingworth has made me look more closely at how fine-art prints are made and priced. Photographers like Michael Kenna still hand-craft each darkroom print, dodging and burning individually so that no two copies are identical. This uniqueness—and the limited print run—adds significantly to their value.

Digital prints, by contrast, are identical once the editing is done, so their value comes from different things: the artistic vision, the editing craft, the quality of the printmaking, and the use of limited editions to maintain rarity. Many successful digital photographers now sell signed, numbered editions printed on archival papers, proving that digital work can be collected and valued just as highly.