What Are Photographs Worth?

Once upon a time, long long ago, photographs held significant value, often as art, or historical artifacts, family treasures, advertising creations, and much more. Today photographic images are produced by the billions on cellphones, and generated on demand by AI.

Below is a relic from one time when I sold travel photos as digital downloads,

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

An image of Cabo’s iconic Lands End Arch at sunset. One of the most photographed landscapes in Western Mexico.

Download for only US$3.89 with no restrictions on printing or individual use (see terms of use below).

PURCHASE & DOWNLOAD

I have been a photographer since I was fourteen when my father gave me his 35mm camera after he couldn’t figure out how to use it. That was over sixty years ago. I actually qualified as a photographer in the U S Navy but, unfortunately there were never any openings for me. While most of my college degrees are in technical photography and photographic engineering, I never stopped being a photographer. I have photos in several museum permanent collections and my photos have appeared in a number of major magazines like the iconic Life magazine.

After retiring my wife and I took up traveling as a serious avocation and in alomst a couple of dozen years we’ve had the good fortune to have visited hundreds of countries. Our photo collection numbers above 10,000 images with maybe a few dozen being pretty good if I say so myself. But that brings us to the question of the day; what is a photograph worth?

If I put a value on our photographs based on the cost of acquiring them they’ed be worth a small fortune, but we know that’s nowhere near realistic. Years ago I was often paid to take photographs, from weddings in the beginning to news assignments and advertising shots and I even sold images once in a gallery, but that was long ago.

During our travels I set up an online gallery offering my travel images for sale, mostly as downloads. Over the first few years I managed to sell a good number of images but in recent years it wasn’t worth the time invested.

Currently we do sell photos through consignment in gift shops in our small town and that has actually been the most successful venue in years.

In the current age of several billion photographers out there with cellphones and instant, made to order AI images, it would seem that a photos worth in traditional markets just aren’t really worth much any more.