During one of our classes’ outings, I was introduced to the camera obscura gallery. Never before had I been to a photography gallery so I was in for a real surprise. At this point in the class, I was still unsure of the criterion for a good, sellable photograph. I walked around and browsed the photographs, making mental notes of the ones I thought were the best. Then I started to notice their price tags, most of which were over three thousand dollars. I was in shock. How could something, that can be copied an unlimited amount of times, cost so much? Even though the most famous names in photography were in the author section, it still puzzled me. What could be the reason for the extremely high prices?
A few weeks later, I learned about the printing process during one of our class times. This process is not an easy one. In fact, it is quite time consuming. Knowing this, I can better understand why a print costs so much money. How an image is printed is just as important as the original picture itself. Each of the prints in the gallery were the result of a carefully planned out process. The contrast, the sharpness, and the coloring were not created by chance. It is the work of the printer that largely impacts the value of a photograph,
This cultural outing really provided me with some insight into the business aspect of photography. Until then, I was completely unaware of the fact that photographs are accepted as works of art and priced accordingly. When I first saw the prices on some of the photographs, I thought that the person buying it must be a nut job for paying that much. But now I realize that these prices were actually reasonable. I am glad that we live in an era that recognizes the value of a photograph and I owe this all to the camera obscura gallery.
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