photo art printContemporary photography art is big business. With museums and galleries giving more exposure to art photography, that exposure has resulted in recent years in increased global demand from collectors. However, this increased (and arguably long over due attention) isn’t just good for artists. “Great art is great art,” said Arthur Goldberg, a leading U.S. collector of contemporary art photography in 2012. And it’s this growing appreciation of photography as a genuine art medium which is slowly helping bridge the gap between contemporary art photography and other art mediums when it comes to the auction room. So what better when booking your wedding photographer you should keep this in mind.

What though, are the definitive top 5 signs that people should be investing in art photography? Well, here’s our run down:

Firstly, the arts scene itself is booming. In 2014 the global art market was valued at over €51 billion. That’s a 7% growth on the €47.42 billion that the market was valued at in 2013. More importantly though, this figure is well above the €48.07 billion which the art market was valued at in post recession 2007. – Art if you like, is a safe investment.

Of course, we’re not at the point yet where contemporary photography art is fetching equivalent prices at auction to other art forms. However, in this respect, art photography presents more budget conscious collectors with a way to make their way onto the contemporary art scene.

Thirdly, contemporary art photography has been riding a tide of high public appreciation and acclaim over the past decade. Many other modern art mediums on the other hand, have been prone to public derision and accusations of pretentiousness – occasionally even by contemporary artists themselves. 

Fourthly, art photography is genuinely inspiring and much more practically participatory than many other art mediums. In this case, continuing appreciation of art photography is tied not only to contemporary advances in visual technology, but also people’s ability to intimately connect with art pieces themselves.

Lastly though, and perhaps most importantly, there is a vast wealth of as yet undiscovered talent in the world of contemporary art photography. Artists such as Floris Neusüss and Cindy Sherman, for example, were most active during the mid to late twentieth century, but are only now gaining global acclaim for their work.

In fact, point five is perhaps the most important when considering investing in contemporary art photography. Just like traditional fine art after all, the works of many twentieth century photographers are already regarded as unique due to their no longer being reproducible. Who’s art, one must therefore wonder, will be similarly regarded in the future? Likewise, how many artists from the twentieth century are still awaiting in the wings of the art world for discovery themselves?

wedding art